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.
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What is the NPOV when an inventor of an idea is still alive?

What happens when the inventor of an idea is still alive? Surely we would want to capture exactly what the inventor thinks, that is to say the inventors POV, and not a consensus view of what he or she thinks?

Imagine wikipedia existed in the time of Copernicus? Would we want to read 1) what Copernicus thought about the structure of the Universe, or 2) what a bunch of theologians thought was the prevailing NPOV, or 3) both? It seems to me that with the current wikipedia we would only get 2) because any time Copernicus tried to write anything the NPOV police would delete it. What about Marx? Do we want to read what a bunch of Marxian Theorists think Marx thought or what he actually thought or both? I think both. Interestingly enough, Marx is on record as having said “One thing I know, I am no Marxian! It seems to me that in the rare case where the Inventor of an idea is still alive we need two articles. One being the unmodified POV of the Inventor and one that contains what everybody else thinks, written with the normal constraints of NPOV applied.

What does everyone else think? Could it be made to work?

--Andrew Lyall 17:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the time of Copernicus, the theologians were NPOV. Copernicus would be mentioned as a notable minority dissenter if at all. Why does everyone always use Copernicus as their example for this anyway? --tjstrf 18:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps this is neither the time nor place for this, but I just wanted to note that Copernicus probably would not have been considered a "minority dissenter" against the "Catholic theologians" - his views on the mechanics of celestial motion were by no means original amongst the intellectuals of the time, which included clergy. However, he had the best data and a rather incendiary manner! sthomson 15:40, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Your proposal of having two articles is what is known as a "POV fork" and is prohibited by Wikipedia policy. As a matter of fact, it is very important to the operation of the neutrality policy that editors holding opposing views be required to work on a single article, and to make sure that viewpoint A is presented in a way that is acceptable to the holders of viewpoint B. For example, I hold the point of view that chemtrails are bunk. If I saw a statement in the Chemtrail theory article that said
"The U. S. Congress has officially acknowledged the reality of chemtrails,"
I would not allow it to remain in that form. However, I am perfectly happy with the statement that
"Chemtrails" are mentioned in House Bill HR 2977, the Space Preservation Act of 2001, introduced by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, where it appears as one of a list of "exotic weapons system[s]" to be banned under the bill.
because that is a simple statement of verifiable fact.
The neutrality policy does not, or should not mean that the "NPOV police" suppress unorthodox beliefs. The way in which I, and I believe most Wikipedians interpret the neutrality policy in fact requires that unorthodox views be included... if someone can show by reference to a reliable source (per the verifiability policy) that these views are widely held by a substantial number of people and are thus important. Thus, we have articles on the Hollow earth theory, the Chemtrail theory, the Bates Method, on the Dean drive, the Adams motor, etc. I believe if you examine them you will find that they all contain reasonably clear, balanced, expositions of the points of view of both supporters and detractors.
What the neutrality policy, combined with the no original research policy does mean is that Wikipedia cannot be used a vehicle for promoting or publicizing a point of view that is not yet widely held.
In other words, the inventor of a new idea is not allowed to create an article about his new idea while it is still so new that there is not a reasonable volume of published work about it. And it also means that neither the inventor of an idea nor anyone else is allowed to control the content of any Wikipedia page. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:33, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou - that is very clear. Andrew Lyall 08:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Male Domination?

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Male_Domination.3F.

Proposed naming convention: military vehicles

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (military vehicles): please comment on the talk page. —Michael Z. 2006-08-15 20:50 Z

Suggestion for German lanugage page approval implementation

This post has been moved to the proposal page Wikipedia:German page approval solution

Tagging living people as Jews

Those interested may follow the discussion in Talk:Grigori Perelman. It seems that this should form part of a general discussion, as the same issue comes up in many other pages. Bellbird 15:10, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It only comes up so often because this user and his sockpuppets bring it up so often. Checkuser found no evidence that this user was using sockpuppters. The next sentence does seem to still be accurate. Apparently the discussion is not going in the direction he wants so he is posting here in hope of getting more sympathetic editors. JoshuaZ 15:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As I have already mentioned to you, I do not have a single sockpuppet. I would have imagined that, since you are an administrator, you would have been able to ascertain as much.

It would be a good thing if we could start to have a constructive discussion on matters of policy. There is a general rule, stated in Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, setting out that living persons are not to be tagged by religion unless (a) the persons in question identify with the religion in question publicly, and (b) this religion is somehow relevant to the discussion. Why make an exception for the case of religions that state that one may be born into them?

Those two criteria, (a) and (b), seem appropriate for Wikipedia. When someone is involved at the policy level with an organization that has a religious affiliation, their religion is politically relevant. An official of, say, the Family Research Council might be so identified. And, in fact James Dobson is identified in his Wikipedia article as a "conservative Protestant Christian". This seems not to be controversial; that's been in the article for months. A public figure involved in an issue with religious aspects should also be identified by their religion. For elected officials, it's a standard piece of background information. Other than that, it's not worth mentioning. --John Nagle 22:09, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One cannot have a dejudaized Jewish nation. When people are tagged and defined as Jews in wikipedia, a link is provided to Jew, which sets out clearly that the concept of the Jewish nation is set out by the Jewish religion. The fact that the claims made by religion are stronger than usual here should surely mean that the individual's belonging to the religion should be more private than usual, if anything. Bellbird 09:54, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The discussions in Talk:Karl Marx and Talk:Georg Cantor may be of some interest as well, though they concern the dead, evidently. Bellbird 15:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, JoshuaZ - the discussions in the pages above are going just fine. We do need some sort of general policy, however; otherwise having a discussion on every possible subject becomes an extraordinary drain of energy for everybody involved. It seems that some of these policies are already in plane, but are not being consistently applied.

Suggestions: (a) the categories Tasmanian Jews, Jewish oculists, etc., should not contain living people, period. The fact that X is of the Jewish religion can be mentioned in the body of the article can be mentioned if the two general rules are obeyed (namely, the identification should be public and the information should be relevant) but keeping any of the living in Jewish categories would just generate the assumption that those who are not put in them do not belong in them. (Categories to be excepted: Jewish religious figures and the like.) (b) biographical subjects should not be *defined* as Jews or non-Jews. This generally happens when a subject is introduced as a "Dutch-Jewish greengrocer" (this hyphenation is an American habit that would not be recognized by the subjects, unless they happened to live in the US!) or when the first sentence of the biography is "X came from a Jewish family" (a clear instance of tagging; one's background is generally relevant to one's life, but backgrounds do not come in binary - rather, this does the job of tagging somebody as a Jew and establishing his/her Jewishness as an inescapable fact of descent that may erase whatever his/her actual background was). Of course, somebody's religion can be relevant at some point in the biographical article, and, if public, could be mentioned. The same, in principle, goes for how X's "racial status" in the eyes of Y forced X to flee from Z, though here it may be best to err on the side of silence, as we are speaking of categories forced onto people by third parties (often with a great deal of violence to the individual, especially in the case of people who converted to or were raised in other religions!). (c) no lists of Jews including living Jews, please. This is in part a different issue - at least biographical articles don't link to them - but the same issues of privacy apply, and to the endless discussions on criteria and the ethics of forcing people into categories we have the ethics of classifying information in certain ways - viz., by agglutinating a disparate group of people by blood, and forcing their contiguity to define their essence. Excuse me, but this differs from certain infamous kinds of list-making elsewhere only in that the set of preferences is (presumably) inverted; the habits of classification are much the same.

Perhaps we should discuss (a) and (b) under one heading, and (c) on the other one. Bellbird 14:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

this is very unclear. Firstly it's my impression both pro- and anti-jews use the qualification ('this person is a jew', secondly as soon as somebody grew up in a different way then the surroundings (like i assume with things like 'jewish background' )i think it is relevant. Now i am stuck for an answer, since i am quitte sure not every significance in background will be biographed. thirdly i don't like to turn jewishness in some exclusive sacrilege known only from the dead. (wich takes us to point 4: it's living jews or pro-jews that are bothered. After dead name and fame is allowed and even wanted.)conclusion: if an attempt to classify all the worlds information is made, the information must be relevant. 80.57.242.54 19:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why use the classification when it's not relevant to the person's work or notability? I have routinely seen it used on non-religious people who have Jewish ancestry. Why? It only matters to people who feel that "those people" are different and need to be labeled. So, if it's relevant, include it. Otherwise, don't. Fan-1967 19:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Being Jewish is not only about religion. There is Jewish food, Jewish holidays, Jewish singles clubs. It's not about religion. It's a group of people who self-identify. If being Jewish is part of someone's notability in some way, or relevant to how they lived their life, then it should be mentioned. Wjhonson 06:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Past key discussions touching upon this subject

User Bellbird has called my attention to this discussion.

There was a lengthy earlier debate relating mostly to Lists of Jews that commenced at the end of 2005 and continued into 2006 (and which were basically rejected, see Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Conclusions) at the village pump which has been archived at:

My position is archived and stated for the record at:

My views expressed there earlier have not changed. I would welcome feedback. Thank you. IZAK 08:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Perelman article also had a (IMO reasonable compromise form) of noting that he was of Jewish ancestry. This doesn't deal with all of your points their but does deal with most of them, and the claim did have a secular reliable source. JoshuaZ 16:22, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is like compromising between noise and quiet by having both simultaneously. This "compromise" is especially unworkable if somebody shows up tooting a megaphone.
A fair number of editors (none of them myself, except for myself, contrary to what was insinuated here before!) seem to share my position, as expressed in the talk pages on Grigori Perelman, Karl Marx and Georg Cantor. (As can be deduced from the presence of these last two names, the debates spills over to the dead.) It seems it is time to reopen the general discussion - in fact, it has already been reopened. Bellbird 10:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the record: I have read the earlier discussions on deleting or not deleting lists and categories. The arguments against deleting them seem to me, in all due respect, to be fairly fallacious, and always the same; they are the same that are being discussed in Talk:Grigori Perelman and Talk:Karl Marx. As for IZAK's arguments, I must say that, while a lethal and misanthropic whiff is certainly there, I think IZAK plays the angle of antisemitism a little too much, or too directly. Rather, what we have here, in all probability, is a philosemitism (conceived as self-directed or not!) that adopts the categories and the habits of antisemitism. The conceptual effect is the same: people are classified and defined by blood - the fact that the "race" under consideration is even more imaginary than usual only serves to aggravate the issue; individuals are being stolen into one of two hermetic categories that are virtually impenetrable precisely because they do not say anything concrete. Bellbird 11:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An accusation is especially dehumanising when it is framed in such terms that it is undeniable and yet denies whatever may have actually formed the individual. In this sense, this kind of philosemitism is more degrading than religious antisemitism, or even racial antisemitism of some pre-Nazi varities. A charge is no less dehumanising because it is conceived as something wonderful rather than as something terrible. Bellbird 11:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Related discussions at Talk:Who is a Jew?

See the current related discussions taking place at Talk:Who is a Jew?#Who is a Jew for purposes of Wikipedia articles. Thank you. IZAK 09:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Real name editing only

I have a modest proposal at User:AxelBoldt/Real name proposal, restricting editing of encyclopedia articles to people who are willing to provide their verifiable real name. Cheers, AxelBoldt 06:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That'll never happen. It runs contrary to Wikipedia's principles. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:29, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Which principles are we talking about? AxelBoldt 15:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Even restricting editing to those with a username would probably be a bad idea. Most of the actual information seems to originate from IP-only users. Shinobu 06:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
They would still be welcome to contribute information, just not edit the encyclopedia proper. AxelBoldt 15:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. That would be impossible. Michael 06:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One of the strongest arguments you will have is the idea that the information is made publically accessable. Given this is generally discouraged online, and it would place serious freedom of speech problems on editors within certain reigemes, this is not only understandable but an entirely valid point. A better idea is that of privately confirmed existance, either by peers or via the wikimedia foundation. Only the peers or the foundation would know this information, and would be bound to keep it private. Much of what would be useful to establish is a level of known expert authority for use in such things as peer review. LinaMishima 12:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think real names are discouraged online. All serious publications are nowadays online, and all serious publications provide real names of their authors. If the Wikimedia foundation kept the names private, then the whole point of the proposal would be lost: to make writers responsible for their contributions in the eye of the public. AxelBoldt 15:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it is in many respects when dealing with forums and other user-orientated activities. Doing so gives an element of security and protection - do you openly reveal where you live online. With only a name and some rough incomplete trivia about someone, it is quite possible to find out a lot about them. You are attempting to compare here wikipedia, a voluntary organisation based on a civil community, to a professional online publication, which typcially has full-time employed staff. No single editor is ultimately responsible for any single article here on wikipedia, it is the community that is. LinaMishima 20:11, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm worried about NPOV disputes and intimidation. ColourBurst 14:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Only users who are signed-in ... may edit the encyclopedia. This is one of the most common perennial proposals, and it's really really unlikely to ever happen. --Interiot 15:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I would say categorically that I, for one, would stop editing Wikipedia if I was forced to reveal my identity; and I think many, many others share my view. Batmanand | Talk 11:41, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well of course you don't want to reveal your identity. You're Batman. --Golbez 11:48, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Indeed. But those damned films, comics, books, songs etc have done a bloody good job of exposing my real identity already... Batmanand | Talk 12:04, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would those of you commenting in this section about "Do not force people to show their real names" pleae repeat what you are saying a little lower on the page, in the section on Tor and China? --Keybounce 20:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is not a one in a million chance that I would ever, in my entire life, possibly even consider not opposing this proposal in the strongest terms. — Werdna talk criticism 04:57, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No. — Omegatron 05:00, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, come now, the 15 or so of us that would be left after this passed could have a grand old time. Dragons flight 05:04, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that many people have the same real name. I suggest instead that we identify all people by their full mailing address and phone number. Deco 20:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Does that include dissidents in repressive countries? Anyway, no-one wants that hassle, certainly not me. ReeseM 00:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was being sarcastic. Deco 07:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, yeah, I think using real names is a great idea, especially when I get such great appreciation already. Do you think I want to be stupid enough to give a guy like that my name? And that was just some idiot trying to keep a blatant hoax article. Fan-1967 00:23, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that this is a truly workable proposal. Firstly, as has been pointed out, it is to a certain extent a rehash of 'only logged-in users should edit', which is a bad idea for a variety of reasons. Secondly, it may expose our contributors to an inappropriate level of personal scrutiny. I edit Wikipedia and handle OTRS under my real name, and was recently personally threatened by a correspondent because we wouldn't delete a notable article (amongst other things, he tried to have my research funding suspended). This isn't a risk that every Wikipedian should be forced to take. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 08:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Public service advertisements

Recently, above, the idea was raised of using advertisements on Wikipedia to raise funds for charity. I don't think this is a good idea, primarily because any sort of commercial advertisement gives the appearance of bias - that these companies could control content by threatening to withdraw advertising funds. But here's a rather different idea.

In Seattle there is a public radio station that plays dance music run by a high school called C89.5. They have a large listenership, but have no advertisements at all; instead, they have "public service announcements", which briefly describe volunteer opportunities in the community, environmental issues, and so on. I wonder if Wikipedia contributors would be willing to tolerate unpaid "public service" advertisements for charitable organizations such as the Red Cross, especially during times of crisis such as natural disasters when they solicit donations. The organization would supply no money for the service, but it would still have a positive impact on the world community. Just a thought? Deco 03:28, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposition considered and denied. Wikipedia does not exist to champion social change outside of an increase in free information and collaberation online. --tjstrf 05:04, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Several editors have said that they will leave if Wikipedia goes commercial. They see no reason why they should give their free labor to a commercial enterprise. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:03, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I proposed anything of the sort. Deco 04:42, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Been there, done that. BAD idea. [ælfəks] 10:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Categories of cruft

We appear to have a few categories that are collections of articles that have no claim to notability (e.g. a brand of detergent). I won't claim that *everything* in these categories needs to go away, but I don't think 90% would be too bold. For starters, take a look at Category:Brand_name_products_stubs. I'm not sure if the best means to this end would be to simply go ahead and exercise judgement in deleting things, individually listing the hundreds of articles on AfD (gah, hopefully not), or something else. Thoughts? --Improv 05:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Might I suggest WP:PROD? It doesn't take much effort to cut and paste the same prod reason across a few dozen articles. If things go away, then okay. If things get disputed, then one can figure out what to do next. Dragons flight 05:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Considering that several people might want to keep these things in some form, a less drastic approach might be to merge the products (short articles anyway) with the company which makes them. After all, if somebody is interested in a company, it is not far-fetched that they'll seek info on their products, but very short stubs on them looks unprofessional. If the article is too long a "list of products by..." might be useful for those who are interested. For the record, I love cruft just as much as Tom Lehrer claimed to love smut in his song. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • It's possible that several people might want to keep these things in some form, but they're not at all encyclopedic. I would point such people at WP:NOT. Unfortunately, this is a constant problem on Wikipedia -- we have a *lot* of people who will defend articles they create to the death who don't really understand the goal of Wikipedia. This is why I'm reluctant to prod -- no doubt the creators of an article on their favourite deodorant brand will remove it and I'll get to send pretty much the whole lot to AfD. OTOH, it can't hurt to try. It'd be nice if CSD A7 extended beyond people/groups. --Improv 13:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not sure what you mean by "not at all encyclopedic", because there is no clear and objectively "correct" place to draw the line for notability of products. I personally believe that every single car model produced by a car company is notable. I will accept that several soda brands are notable. I would probably say that articles on a single brand of toothbrush is going a bit far. Other people may have different standards. Lots of people will defend articles which they think are encyclopedic which other people might feel are unencyclopedic. A7 was introduced in order to get rid of the uncontroversial vanities, articles on schoolchildren, or autobiographies. WP:CSD should not in general be expanded to start deleting things which could be reasonably expected to be contested on an AFD. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Widely distributed products deserve articles, as do those that are significant within a single country. Remember that we must work to counter systematic bias, and you may not be aware of foriegn products. That said, a stub cull is probably needed, removing those stubs without enough details to allow it to be properly expanded (such as Duotang) and keeping those giving enough information to allow a full article to be built (EverGirl, for example). I am personally in favour of lists in the place of stubs, and so merging should be considered. Mass listings on AfD are generally discouraged, and result in horrible messes that often end up overturned. Prodding those stubs without enough contextual information would be wise, even better would be a CSD catagory for "stub without enough information to allow an article to be built". For now I would advise that you prod those stubs without enough information to build an article from. LinaMishima 15:41, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To back up what is said above about systemic bias and the dangers of indiscrimate prodding, people should have a look at teh AfD discussion for Boroline. Hornplease 10:32, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Observation from one years vantage

Hello! In 2005 I created a series of trolls and sockpuppets to disrupt Wikipedia. Some of them were rather notorious. I even managed to drive away a few major contributors. In any case, I just logged on to check my contributions at it amazed me that many of my "hoax" articles and edits are STILL on Wikipedia. It seems that the hoax editing I did with "throw away" accounts (like this one) was obscure and plausible sounding enough to NEVER get reverted. As long as I didn't draw any attention to my hoax editing through using my "high profile" accounts, nobody caught on. Of course the high profile account names were exclusively used for "trolling" rather than "hoaxing" or vandalism. It occured to me early on that any vandalism done by those accounts would be immediately spotted.

Hey have you also noticed User:Essjay hasn't edited since the 14th of August? Malsherbes 05:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And now you're using this account for trolling too. Go away. Deco 06:00, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, since you didn't actually name any of the articles, we have no clue if you are speaking the truth or just bullshitting us. However, if the articles you've allegedly created are as obscure as you claim, the chance of them being linked to or searched for is virtually nil, so the damage done to Wikipedia is also virtually nil. Enjoy your mediocre hoax articles. --tjstrf 06:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deco is right, of course, but has anyone requested a checkuser on this person? As for the second "point," Essjay has been working as one of the supervisors of the Board election. Newyorkbrad 12:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Open proxies, Tor, China users, and the whole mess

Those of us who use Tor are told that the open proxy thing can be worked around by forcing new connections, as though the whole issue with Tor being blocked by the open proxy purge is an accidental byproduct -- as though it would be OK to use a Tor node that wasn't an open proxy.

That's as crazy as it sounds. All Tor nodes are open proxies.

No they aren't. Not all tor nodes exit the tor network on port 80. Additionally, not all tor nodes exit the tor network at all. DreadWingKnight 11:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Worse, over at project on open proxies, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_on_open_proxies there is talk about an automated Tor banning bot being busy blocking sites today.

In other words, there is a drive to say "Anyone using Tor must not be allowed to edit". That's the wrong approach.

I've mentioned elsewhere: If someone is logged in, and can be held responsible for their edits, they should not be denied the ability to edit, certainly not if the goal is that anyone can edit.

The idea of requiring that you go through a secure login site isn't inherently a problem. Sadly, I don't believe that Tor supports HTTPS connections (otherwise it might show up as a man-in-the-middle attack), and the warning on the Tor advice for china users even tell you,

Tor is a Socks4a/5 proxy. It supports any connections that communicate over TCP including HTTPS. Intermediary proxies for browsers that don't properly support Socks4a/5 may not support https, but tor does. I have tested this personally. DreadWingKnight 11:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a privacy solution—any edits you make will be immediately visible, and an attacker with access to the network, such as the Chinese Government, will be able to correlate your edits with your IP address.

This means that no one from China can chance writting anything on Wiki that goes against China policy. That's bad enough, but it's one step down the road to a religious government doing the same thing and forcing any edits to conform to a religious doctrine.

Sadly, I don't believe that Tor has a config option to exclude certain nodes as exit nodes -- only to exclude them completely. Perhaps it's time to develop a page showing the list of nodes to exclude in order to be able to edit pages? Although doing that will just make the job of blocking Tor nodes easier.

Finally, there's concern about how well this works with dynamic IP DSL connections. I run a Tor node. I have a DSL connection. I get a new IP address every two-four days. Should my system be blocked for being a Tor node? If I bypass Tor and connect directly, even though other people can use Tor? Since I can force a new IP address by turning my DSL modem off and then back on?

This policy does not make sense from any of these viewpoints: 1. Goal of wiki -- open editing 2. Goal of Tor -- bypassing tracability of people like the government of China 3. Technical -- identifying specific machines, given the ease of getting a new IP address 4. Technical -- the idea of blocking connections specifically from Tor routers, given that no attempt is made to tell if the connection comes from a Tor router or some other process running on the same machine.

The Wiki project on open proxies said that this was the place to argue against this policy. So, I am. While I'm still able to -- if I keep waiting, more and more nodes will be blocked, and then what will I do? --Keybounce 04:51, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, though, open proxies such as the Tor network are frequently used by banned users and vandals to vandalise Wikipedia. Thus we have no choice but to get out our banhammers. MER-C 04:55, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think you misunderstand something.
I've mentioned elsewhere: If someone is logged in, and can be held responsible for their edits, they should not be denied the ability to edit, certainly not if the goal is that anyone can edit.
As a logged in user, I am not anonymous. I am not a banned user. I do not vandalize. If you are familiar with the early history of the US of A, imagine if the federalist papers had not been published under a fake name, but had to be published under the person's real name?
Now consider that this is, effectively, what you require of anyone in China by saying "We will ban all of the Tor network, even if you identify yourself to us, unless you are identifying yourself to China at the same time".
Or, do you really want your ISP to turn all of your browsing history, your search engines to turn all of your search history, and all the other details of your life over, for nothing more than an unchallenged, unrestricted broad suponea, without even the more restricted, challenged, and challengable search warrant?
Keep in mind: We've had every search engine except Google turn their records over, and admit it. We've had AOL goof up and show people's search records publically. Are you really certain that the ACLU pizza example is impossible?
I'm in the USA. I don't trust our current government. I am opposed to its policies. Yes, in this environment, I run through Tor for my own safety. The name "keybounce" has a fairly old history on the internet, and as far as I've determined, it's been exclusively me the whole time (no one else has used that name so far that I've found). Am I to be considered a vandal because I don't trust Bush? --Keybounce 20:40, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This Jimbo interview may provide some comfort. Wikimedia will not bow to censors, or reveal huge amounts of private information to the US Government.
I didn't accuse you of vandalism. I said that open proxies are used by banned vandals to circumvent IP blocks. If they are Tor nodes, you can request them be blocked anons only, account creation disabled so that you may edit as normal. MER-C 12:41, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia and the GFDL

I know this has been discussed before, but I think it's time to bring the issue up again. As many of you know, the GFDL in its current form is not a good fit for Wikipedia. In fact it's a downright terrible license for the goals we have as a project. The only reason it was chosen is because it was the best option at the time (Creative Commons licenses didn't exist at the time). When I brought up this issue a long time ago, I was told that Wikipedia and the GNU Project were in discussions about updating the license. It seems nothing came of those discussions as the GFDL is still the same as it was 4 years ago. Wikipedia is BY FAR the biggest user of the GFDL. Why is it impossible for us to get some minor changes made to the license (changing the DRM and printing restrictions for example)? And if it is that difficult to get changes made through the GNU Project, why can't we just update the license ourselves? To me, the current sitatution seems akin to Intel having to get permission from the descendents of Charles Babbage to make a change to the design of their microprocessors. Why are we still stuck in the licensing dark ages??? Kaldari 22:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you change away from GFDL, every article will have to be deleted and recreated, since those who wrote them did so with the understanding that they would be licensed under the GFDL. Any new articles or edits could be retained, but we'd violate copyright if we change the rules now. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:22, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Who said anything about changing away from the GFDL? I'm talking about updating the GFDL. Kaldari 22:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't Wikipedia's to update. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:31, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I know. My point is, we should either convince the GNU Project to update it or we should initiate a military coup to wrest control of the GNU Project from Richard Stallman. Who's with me? BTW, has anyone told you you have a knack for restating the obvious? :) Kaldari 22:51, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's an important skill. Sometimes people need to see the obvious restated. We can't get the licensing stipulations changed. It's a tangled web of regulations and red tape. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 22:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Kaldari. I try. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, the GFDL does not provide for material licensed under an older version to be automatically relicensed under a new version. This would understandably make people using the license uneasy, since future versions could theoretically include unfavourable terms. In other words, we could very well update the GFDL, but this would make migrating content between articles a big mess, since the two versions of the license would likely be incompatible (in at least one direction). Moreover, the FSF owns full copyright on the GFDL itself, ironically enough, which makes it illegal for us to create a derivative license. Deco 05:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you should pay more attention to what you have agreed to:
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. (emphasis mine).
Dragons flight 05:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. That's terrible. Oh well, suppose we'll have to trust the FSF not to do anything ridiculous or stupid. Deco 03:42, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Along the same lines, we should be licensing all new articles under a real license, like a creative commons BY-SA licence. Of course they could be dual licensed so that they are also GFDL as well, keeping compatibility with other articles. —Pengo talk · contribs 14:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why the snipe at GFDL? As far as I am concerned GFDL is a bit more a real license than CC, because when I say GFDL you know exactly what I am talking about, whereas when you say Creative Commons it could be anything from a wide spectrum between public domain and all rights reserved. In terms of free content licenses CC is a bit of a joke because most things licensed under CC are either NC or ND, which make them unfree and unsuitable for uses in such things as, say, Wikipedia. --Cyde Weys 02:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Citizendium

Assuming this comes to fruition (Larry Sanger's ambitions have in the past exceeded his ability to marshal resources in support of his causes, so it's entirely possible that it won't)... will this affect Wikipedia in any fashion?

A few particular questions:

  • Should we be citing this as a source? My immediate thoughts are no--it's a wiki, and we've long regarded wikis as not reliable sources--an ironic position for us to take; further more, it's an encyclopedia per the duck test (regardless of what Sanger chooses to call it--and his "we're not good enough yet to be an encyclopedia" rant struck me as little more than a veiled swipe at Wikipedia...), and ignoring the issue of citing historical encyclopedias, encyclopedias should not be citing each other. Instead, they should be citing more authoritative primary and secondary sources.
  • If it does take off and succeed, Wikipedia editors will have the option of importing content from it as it will be GFDL licensed; just as it is beginning life as a fork of Wikipedia. Copyright won't be an issue, but there is still the ethical issue of plagiarism to consider; I would suggest that articles including content from Citizendium should include an appropriate template crediting the source, much as we do so for the public domain 1911 Britannica. Likewise, I would hope that Citizendium does the same for Wikipedia. (If Citizendium does succeed, it might be a useful tool in the everlasting fight against trolls and POV-pushers that plagues this site).

I'm assuming that people will be free to contribute to both projects, should they desire. While I will wait and see concerning Citizendium, my personal long-term goal is to contribute to an excellent open-source encyclopedia. Right now, Wikipedia is the best of the bunch and I have no plans to leave; but my long-term loyalty lies with the destination, not with the vehicle I use to get there. I've got no stake whatsoever in whatever acrimony lies between Sanger and Jimbo. --EngineerScotty 18:38, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We will adopt (steal) every good idea they have; make fun of their gaffs (There are certain pits Larry is almost sure to fall into); and import any article they have which is better than what we have (with due credit given). Fred Bauder 13:31, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A lot depends on whether Citizendium adopts an NPOV policy, and then whether a community of self-identified experts will be willing to follow it. Then again, the Catholic Encyclopedia is POV, and we've still been able to use much of their work. Melchoir 23:20, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
According to the document up at the site; they will have policies similar to WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. --EngineerScotty 23:34, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let's say that Citizendium does end up having articles that are better due to the experts. In the case of those articles, Wikipedia should then use that same knowledge and standard and quality as a benchmark to strive for. If it isn't better for a given article, don't bother then. The competition should make it better for everyone. There is no way that they can keep up with the sheer numbers or popularity. You can perhaps think of Wikipedia as the XP of knowledge (with occasional bugs) --Victortan 17:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The major difference, content there remains at the same quality, no subtle drive-by-shotingediting with bogus content, as that would never reach the published phase. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 18:48, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple sources?

An AfD a while back alerted me to the fact that, although we frequently cite as policy the fact that an article needs multiple, independent, non-trivial sources, there's nothing in either WP:V, WP:RS, WP:OR, or WP:NPOV to indicate that multiple sources are compulsory for an article to be included. The closest is a mention in RS "you shouldn't necessarily be satisfied with a single source", and the general use of the plural when mandating sources.

So what's the status of this position? I would assume that multiple sources are required to achieve any kind of NPOV, but are there circumstances where only a single source is sufficient? Is this deliberately excluded from the policy pages, or is it just an oversight? Or is a clarification of policy necessary?

You'd miss out on articles like this: Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse qp10qp 01:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't that article list at least two secondary sources (Great Mysteries of the Past and The Explorers) and one primary source (The Journal of Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse 1785–1788)? Admittedly, the Readers Digest book isn't cited inline, but that's a different creature from an article which has only one possible source. Ziggurat 02:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I got the impression from the footnotes that the text has one source, the other books being further reading. But no matter, I'm probably wrong. On the general point, I think it is reasonable to base an article on a single source to begin with; other editors may then build it up. The other day I found an article that obviously had only one source and I added to it from a book I own, footnoting here and there, and stuck in a couple of links (Mary Tofts). This way, articles can slowly get going: they have to start somewhere. Often people have only one book on a subject in the house; but it may be a good book.qp10qp 02:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd agree with that, absolutely; what I'm actually thinking about is those articles that have only one source in existence (i.e. there just aren't any more sources to add). The specific article this came up on was the perennially-nominated The Game (game), but I'm not interested in that so much as the general principle. "Multiple" seems to arise a lot, and I'm wondering if there is in fact an official (policy) basis for this (personally I think there should be). Ziggurat 02:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, how strange, someone has just added an extra footnote to La Perouse, blowing my theory out of the water. But no, I don't think there is such a policy. However, there is a policy on NPOV which covers it in a way: "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each." Now, I don't think all single-source articles pass this test. Here is an article of the sort which I think you mean, and in my opinion it should be booted off Wikipedia forthwith: International Museum of the Reformation.qp10qp 02:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yikes, that reads like a copy and paste copyvio, and actually, I don't think that one has any reliable sources. Mary Tofts, on the other hand, was a fascinating article. I agree on the NPOV concern, but maybe that should be made more explicit? Ziggurat 03:07, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As an example, there only exists one source for George Forster - The Newgate Calendar. Everything else written about him is paraphrasing this source. I don't think it's a problem for this article, but I can see that it might be for others. You just have to use your own judgement. --Cherry blossom tree 11:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page Counters

Are there any policy guidlines on the use of privately-inserted page counters into wiki articles? Bardwell 14:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You shouldn't have to even ask this question. But for the record WP doesn't use external images, so it would be incredibly difficult, and any attempts to put one in would be reverted so fast your head would spin. --Darkfred Talk to me 15:55, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. In order to do this you would have to have screwed around with the wiki on an impressive scale - as externally transcluded images are out, you'd have to be messing around with the site's javascript - and policy is that you don't do that sort of thing without a Damn Good Reason. Shimgray | talk | 17:05, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- - - -

(a) I wasn't thinking of clandestine counters.
(b) I can see some merit to being able to see how popular (frequency of hits) certain pages/articles are.
Anything wrong with this? Bardwell 17:24, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The site-wide javascript already has a tracking image, see http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts/index.php?wiki=enwiki for the generated statistics. --Interiot 17:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at those stats, perhaps we need to change our tagline to The Encyclopedia of Sex and Popular Culture. Dragons flight 19:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You forget, we also have a large collection of good articles on obscure battles from continental European wars. --tjstrf 20:01, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No. Pagevisits aren't a good way of saying what the encyclopedia is about - just a way of saying "people like sex and pop culture." ColourBurst 20:05, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
MediaWiki has an inbuilt pagecount function; it's memory-hungry so we can't use it. We don't have the resources to log hits to the cache servers. There's a very crude hack in the site javascript to gain low-grade stats, as above. Other than this, we've not been able to work out any way of getting page counts without configuring something directly on the servers - apologies if you weren't thinking of some cunning clandestine method, but I don't think there is any other way to do it, especially not targeted to a specific page. Shimgray | talk | 18:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: RfA process

See initial draft at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship process

More Fair Use

Please see WPVI-TV Anchors. Is the use of fair use images in a generic article like this appropriate? If the images were use in an article on WPVI, then there would be no question that they were used properly, but I would even question using them in articles about individual reporters, but lumping them all together like this makes the fair use claim even harder to support. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think they pass. If it were multiple screenshots per reporter or something that would be a different story. Here they have clear encyclopedic value. Fagstein 20:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Fagstein. I don't think the fact that there are multiple reporters on one Wikipedia page makes the fair use question any harder. As to the basic issue of a small screen shot of a TV reporter in their element, I think that is very similar to quoting a paragraph from a copyrighted text in a review, a very typical example of fair use. -- DS1953 talk 23:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Should we have a blanket prohibition against referencing hate sites?

This stems out of a dispute on-going at Stormfront (website), an article on a white-supremacist hate site. The claim has been made that the article cannot including reference links to the website being discussed, on the grounds that the reference links are a violation of the policy against self-promotion. Instead, the references have been deleted outright or are being included as hidden comments.

Is this a correct intepretation of the Wikipedia policies? Are there any precedent of such a prohibition? Is hate speech sufficiently repugnant that we should prohibit any reference links to such sites?

Obviously, I tend to think this new policy goes a little to far, and that there shouldn't be any blanket rule prohibiting us from referencing hate sites (keeping in mind, of course, that they are tend to be highly unreliable references). --Alecmconroy 00:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RS#Partisan, religious and extremist websites. Extremist web-sites may be used to provide information or citations for their own claims and opinions. --tjstrf 00:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The site is already linked on the article in question. The problem is that dozens of <ref> tags were included, each with a link ot the site; several of us suspect that this is likely to inflate the pagerank. If the site is linked as a source, and can be referenced as such, then one link is enough I feel. Guy 09:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The Pagerank can't really be an issue, as most of the referenced links were Google-cached versions of the page, which obviously don't affect pagerank. I agree that 60 or so references are excessive, but hiding them altogether is IMHO not a good policy, especially for those statements which might be contested.--ExplicitImplicity 13:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why are we even worrying about how our article affects pagerank? If the references are valid and necessary, they should be allowed in. If there are far more references than necessary, we should prune them. But we shouldn't create our own special set of rules that we apply only to hatesites. Obviously, we have to guard against linkspam, but are we really not going to be allowed to reference sites based on their political speech? I know _I_'m not trying to promote the Nazi site, and I'm pretty confident that most of the other editors on this article aren't trying to promote the nazis either.
There's an even larger issue here-- is there ANY precedent whatsoever of us hiding references inside comments? It seems like this is an ad hoc policy someone just decided to enforce on this this particular article, presumbably because Racists Nazis are evil (which, of course, they are) . I don't think Wikipedia works this way-- if someone wants to start hiding controversial references, they should propose such a policy, not just DO it and then enforce it.
--Alecmconroy 19:19, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sadly, WP:RS is arguably the single most frequently violated guideline on Wikipedia. There is little chance of any further strengthening of the guideline having any effect. --Aaron 19:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I said on the other page, there's no rule that references have to be live links. It's often convenient for the reader, but it's certainly not policy, and often impossible in any event. In the case of hate sites, which are problematic enought to begin with, I see no issue with having references that are not live. Jayjg (talk) 18:35, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cross-posting from the AN/I thread that I don't see why the obvious solution of leaving the references visible as plain-text URLs does not seem to have been considered. I'm completely uninvolved in this dispute, but concerned at the implications of this "hidden reference" idea. References are there for the benefit of article readers, and making people go way out of their way to view the page source or track down a previous version of the article just to find the references is silly. Opabinia regalis 03:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unlinked references are certainly better than hidden once, but even that is problematic. If we're going to have different rules for linking to sites with hate speech, then we're going to have to start judging what is and is not hate speech. Can you imagine the debates? Sure, the Neo-Nazis and the KKK are easy calls, but how about the Nation of Islam? the Jewish Defense League? or the Westboro Baptist Church (the "God Hates Fags" people)? Ugh-- what a nightmare. --Alecmconroy 22:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: 1RR on obviously controversial edits.

POV warriors are allowed to get their way through 3RR, at least their first few times around. Usually they get bored, sometimes not, but we still have to clean up after them.

Why should we waste our time after the occasional user who decides to say only a handful of people died in the Holocaust?

Or add "allegedly", "controlled demolition", or any other conspiracy theory to 9/11?

The articles on Adolf Hitler and the 9/11 attacks have existed for five years - yet they stand in their current states without such fringe notions. Why should we have to constantly clean up after people who ignore that five years of history and think that, somehow, THEY will finally be the ones to insert these things into the articles?

I propose a 1RR limit on people posting obviously controversial notions into article. Anyone who tries to slip anything about how the towers were brought down by controlled demolition knows that, after five years, their edit is not going to make it. They have to. So they get reverted once. If they do it again, then they should be blocked, so as to save everyone's time. The discussion pages exist, but again, after five years (I apologize for repeating that figure, but it has bearing here - it's not like these articles are in massive flux) it's highly unlikely any of these ideas are going to be accepted by consensus.

It would be difficult to make a concrete rule on this - what constitutes an obviously controversial edit? But it needs to be done, to save the sanity of those of us who patrol these articles, and many others. Thoughts? --Golbez 09:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Impossible to enforce. Different admins will have different opinions on what is "obviously" controversial. You can't impose a rule that's based on a subjective judgment. -- Necrothesp 14:22, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I beg to differ, I could enforce it rather strongly. :> --Golbez 17:17, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reversion isn't such a complex procedure that this, as you rightly acknowledge an entirely subjective judgement, is necessary, I think. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 16:52, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not the reversion, it's the exhaustion of patience by having people constantly pelt us with fringe theories that they know have no chance. Way, way too much time is spent explaining why their edits don't make it, but we have to explain because it's poor form to use admin rollback. --Golbez 17:17, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like exactly what Wikipedia:Tendentious editors is trying to address. --Interiot 18:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Who gets to decide what constitutes an "obviously controversial notion"? --Aaron 19:28, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Existing consensus. Five years of consensus have led us to the point where the Holocaust killed millions+ of Jews, and 9/11 was done by nineteen Arabs without controlled demolition. Any attempt to alter this consensus without discussion beforehand should be met harshly. --Golbez 21:08, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
These problems are part of the built-in nature of wikipedia and I think they should remain for that reason. The articles that are volatile in this way reflect the world precisely: they demonstrate in microcosm that the patiently and thoughtfully assembled world we live in is subject to attack by random, illogical assassins, and that we must keep constant vigil. However boring it may be for editors to police these attacks on certain articles, it is only an equivalent to the tedious and annoying procedures we have to put up with in the real world to defend against the destroyers. Today an extremist started yelling at the British Home Secretary in a meeting and found himself reverted, after letting off some steam, by some burly security guards; I'd rather that than banning him from the meeting in the first place or sticking a sock in his mouth the minute he opened it.qp10qp 01:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Tendentious editors

There's a proposal in the works that would streamline enforcement of content policies and guidelines. The nutshell version is:

An editor whose contributions fall outside the realm of normal scholarship may be subject to administrative action after a consensus of uninvolved Wikipedians agrees that these edits constitute persistent violation of content policies and guidelines such as WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR. Arbitration committee action shall not be necessary for administrators to block editors who ignore impartial consensus. Banning is an option if repeated blocks fail to curb problem behavior.

This grows out of a discussion at Wikipedia:Expert Retention where a variety of editors agreed that content policies need more consistent enforcement. Administrators rarely impose blocks for content disputes without an ArbCom ruling. Editors who passionately espouse fringe beliefs can succeed at exhausting the patience of rules-abiding editors because current enforcement skews toward problem editors who violate other policies such as WP:3RR or WP:NPA. This proposal would establish an impartial consensus standard as an alternative to ArbCom. Active editors welcome input to build a broader consensus. Durova 22:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be a good thing. Would not solve all of the problems, but many of them abakharev 06:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This has been renamed Wikipedia:Disruptive editing, extensively worked on, and promoted to Guideline. Now being tested at Wikipedia:Blocking policy to see if it is acceptable. Fred Bauder 13:33, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Formalization of Wikipedia:Community probation

Since one user now has been placed on "community probation", the following proposal is intended to formalize the procedure: Wikipedia:Community probation/Proposal. Note that this is a power many believe that admins already have, pursuant to the existing power to impose community bans on editors. --EngineerScotty 23:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Images and WP:V

This sounds like a weird question, but how are images treated under the WP:V policy? I mean, for commons or other public domain images, how do we know the photographer photographed (or drew) the thing that the caption talks about? For fair use images this is less of a concern because it's easier to determine the context.

Obviously, if someone's been to the Eiffel Tower before, they know that the picture in the article corresponds to the Eiffel Tower. The sources describe this tower, which matches the picture. But what if this context doesn't exist? How would we know that the picture corresponds to the Eiffel Tower? Are we supposed to be able to verify the subject of the images or we don't really care, we trust the people who put them up? ColourBurst 23:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • If the picture came from a WP:RS, it should be, in most cases, possible to verify that the image Wikipedia has is the same as from the source. Are there any examples of controversial or disputed images which were produced (drawn, shot) by Wikipedia editors or persons who are not reliable sources? --EngineerScotty 23:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Image:AuroraAFXMatador.jpg and Image:PineMatador.jpg have at times been used on the AMC Matador article. --Interiot 00:16, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's obvious that neither of those is the real thing.  :) Here's another example that I'm responsible for (it's use in the English Wikipedia, though not the image itself--the picture was used in the French wikipedia, I believe)--see dwarf tarantula. If someone wants to axe the image, go ahead.  :) --EngineerScotty 00:36, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll point out a specific example: in Eurasian (mixed ancestry), the boy in the picture is supposedly Eurasian, but the only evidence we have of this is that the uploader claims he is. He probably is, but how would we prove this? And we can't use any images of Eurasian celebrities in the article, because that violates fair use. ColourBurst 21:37, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia should use exonyms only as a last resort

I'm not 100% sure I'm posting in the correct spot but I would like to suugest a new wikipedia policy. Namely that, "Exonyms should only be used as a last resort." I came to this conclusion by recently stumbling onto the debate at the Meissen page, which concerns the correct spelling of the town (ss vs ß). It seems to me, regardless of the original title of the created article, if the article deals with a proper name then the native spelling should be used whenever possible, espcially if it won't cause undo confusion among English speakers. Naufana:Talk 03:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems you posted in the correct spot! It's an important question that applies to all Wikipedia articles about places. --Haldrik 08:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, this is the English Wikipedia. It is our policy to use the most commonly known name in the English language. Would you have our Germany article at Deutschland? User:Zoe|(talk) 03:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What Zoe says! What good could come out of using Meißen or Deutschland or Wien? Just good ol' confusion for the users. Most of the geography pages state the local name in the first line or two of the text anyways and the native name is often made a redirect. This is really a non-issue. Pascal.Tesson 03:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see country names can be English, but city names should be as close as possible to the local language of the city. English might have "English" versions of some cities, but doesnt have English versions of all cities, and so usually has to use the local names. Having to switch back and forth between sometimes using an English cognate and sometimes not creates even more confusion. Consistency is more important. For example, all names for German cities, towns, villages, hamlets, lakes, rivers, brooks, streams, meadows, regions, mountains, hills, etc., should be according to their German names. Thus the article can have the German city name, Wien. Notable English cognates such as Vienna can redirect to Wien. The only exception is, the English alphabet must be used for English articles. For German, this isnt a problem, thus Meissen (not Meißen). The proper spelling in the local alphabet can be mentioned in the article. --Haldrik 03:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Given the arguments on the talk page, the chances of using ß in the name is slim to none. When I go looking for a city, I know I won't look with a ß. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 04:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I respectfully disagree. The issue is similar to having Sean Carter as a redirect to Jay-Z and not the other way around. Pascal.Tesson 04:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, "Jay-Z" is the name Jay-Z himself chooses, and that should be the standard. "Wien" is the name that the inhabitants of Wien themselves choose, and that should be the standard. German is pretty straightforward, but other languages are extremely problematic when switching back and forth: for example between the closest approximation to the real name Beijing versus the silly "English" name Peking. The local language itself should set the standard for the sake of consistency. --Haldrik 04:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But we don't actually care what name he prefers to use. If tomorrow he chooses that he'd prefer being called MC Haldrik, we would still use Jay-Z as the main article because that is the name that most english users would recognize. This is the long standing principle of WP:NC. And you have your facts mixed up about Beijing. It was indeed formerly known in english as Peking but the standard has, for about ten years now, been switched to Beijing. Actually the article discusses this in length. Pascal.Tesson 05:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"But we don't actually care what name he prefers to use." But the fact is, the article is under the self-designated name. "It was indeed formerly known in english as Peking but the standard has been switched to Beijing." Chinese isnt the only language whose naming convention standard is switching to the local language. --Haldrik 05:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the sake of a universal standard for all Wikipedia articles, using the local name is the only possibility for consistency. --Haldrik 05:39, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Were that the case, Vienna would be at Wien, and no one would be able to find anything. For consistency, we should be using the name people will be most familiar with, as is policy. I sure as hell don't have a ß on my keyboard, so why would I possibly look for it under that title? Your argument about Peking is moot, because it's been standardized as Beijing for some time now. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The nonstandard Vienna can redirect to the standard Wien. --Haldrik 06:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Vienna is the English standard. That's what you don't seem to get. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So you're saying that Beijing should be at 北京? Or are you suggesting that we should select a romanization to generate our own set of exonyms? --Carnildo 06:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Most countries have their own Romanization policy. Their policy is the one that should be standard for placenames in their country. --Haldrik 09:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See Romanization of Japanese. There are three standards for romanization in Japanese. The most commonly used (Hepburn) is not mandated by all government agencies, and is not a government standard. ColourBurst 21:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And - how do I put a ß into a word when I'm searching for it? And what about Αθήνα? I think it's Athens & Meissen! Saltmarsh 05:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's what redirects are for. Any name containing characters that are not easy to type should be accompanied by redirects. Unlike Athens, which is clearly an English form, "Meissen" is probably just a transliteration. A redirect and {{foreignchar}} explain the situation well enough. There are many places in Germany or Poland that do not have a name in English. They only have German or Polsh names that contain funny characters. I don't see a point in spelling these names wrong just because they are hard to type. Oh, and Wikipedia's naming conventions are not consistent, because they mirror real-world usage. Consistency will be impossible to achieve, and not a good thing. Kusma (討論) 06:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By holding down the Alt key and typing 225 on the numpad (doesn't work with the numbers along the top), though granted it's cumbersome and few people have the ASCII and Unicode tables memorised. --Sherool (talk) 06:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"There are many places in Germany or Poland that do not have a name in English." Exactly. And not just Germany or Poland. Everywhere on this planet Earth is almost nothing but places that dont have a name in English. Insisting on a traditional English equivalent is just an irrational fixation on a few places compared to every other place on Earth. --Haldrik 06:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"How do I put a ß into a word when I'm searching for it?" One doesnt. The standard equivalent is used: a ss. The official equivalent for Αθήνα, according to the Greek government, is Athina. --Haldrik 06:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously some names take a bit of getting used to, but redirects easily solve the unfamiliarity. The world is getting smaller, and in the long run, using the local standard as the standard is the better policy. --Haldrik 06:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To the contrary. The world is getting smaller, and in the long run, having everyone standardize to one language is the ideal policy. --tjstrf 06:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But now you are trying to impose your righteous point of view on users. Wikipedia is not a place to try and force every english speaker to use Wien instead of Vienna. Whether you like it or not, Vienna has been the standard name used in english for centuries. In French that would be Vienne, in Spanish Viena and so on. And again, you seem to be missing that point, the native name is always given in the first line of the article. What point would there be to categories if they were filled with 北京. Pascal.Tesson 06:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Righteous point of view"? First I'm not sure conformity is always a good thing. So there's nothing "righteous". Wikipedia requires a standard naming convention, and the nature of Wikipedia is universal and global. There is no policy that is practicable except using the local names as the standard placename. Just look at news journalists on tv. When they cover global stories live, it becomes increasingly difficult to not use the local placename when they are actually standing right there in it. --Haldrik 06:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Find an English reporter saying "I'm live here in Wien" and you might have something. A minor phonetic difference (your removed "Iran" reference) is hardly convincing. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And find a user browsing through Category:Capitals in Europe who would find it more convenient and practical to have Praha, Wien, Warszawa and Beograd. Pascal.Tesson 06:49, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Warsaw can easily redirect to Warszawa whereupon the user becomes informed about its actual and standard name. --Haldrik 06:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone who cares enough to look up the name of a particular city can be expected to become familiar with its local name. --Haldrik 06:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A better example is the Italian city Torino. The actual local name in Italian is Torino. The English cognate is Turin as in the "Shroud of Turin" or in the "Turin Canon" ("Turin Papyrus of Kings"). The article for this city is still "Turin". However even as we speak the official English name for this city has switched over to the local name Torino since its official use for the Olympics. (Not Turin). For example: NBC Olympic coverage. This switch to the local name as the standard is inevitable. --Haldrik 06:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then there's no problem. In time, it will change. Until then, we use the most common/least surprising one. --Golbez 07:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But there is a problem: which English standard is used? The history book Turin or the newspaper Torino? By always using the local name Torino as the standard, there is never a problem. --Haldrik 07:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there is. not everyone knows it as Torino, and will not associate that with Turin. Those that will, however, recognize that Turin is the alternate form. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 08:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, Torino is the Italian name for the city, but in the local dialect, it's Turin. Care to let us know which version you would prefer? But in fact, there is no point in arguing this, this policy is not going to change. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The national dialect (Italian) versus the regional dialect (Piedmontese): quite a relevant observation! Which would you use? (It appears the traditional English name derives from the regional dialect whereas the journalistic English name uses the standard national dialect, no doubt to emphasize national pride in hosting the Olympics.) Since most places dont have English names, Wikipedia needs a policy to refer to non-English places regardless. For the sake of the most consistency, I feel Wikipedia should use the country's national standard dialect for the placenames in that country, and mention the regional dialect as an "also known as". For example, the article on Torino may mention nearby towns, lakes, mountains, and so on that have no English name. From your point of view, how do you propose to name them? Should the Torino article use the national standard dialect or the regional dialect? --Haldrik 00:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"However even as we speak the official English name for this city has switched over to the local name Torino since its official use for the Olympics". "Official English name" where? Nobody in Britain would call it Torino. It's still Turin. The Winter Olympics may have been known as Torino 2006, but that doesn't mean the normal name for the city has changed. -- Necrothesp 01:40, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Categories don't contain redirects. Also, Torino is indeed an exception where Torino is starting to become standard. But if you want to go the Olympics route, it was the Athens Olympic games, not the Athina olympic games on NBC. Pascal.Tesson 07:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the local name is always the standard, then there is never a surprise. If the standard is sometimes an archaic English cognate or sometimes a contemporary journalistic local name, then there will always be surprises. --Haldrik 07:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It will remain a surprise because regular visitor Joe Smith isn't going to be looking for Wien or Warszawaor or Meißen or any of those city names that aren't commonly used in English. It's the principle of least astonishment. If I get redirected to Wein, I'm going to be astonished. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 07:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When Joe Smith searches for "Vienna" he be redirected to "Wien". If Joe Smith needs to know information about the city Wien, he must know - of all things - that its name is Wien! --Haldrik 07:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's name in English is Vienna, not Wien. It's is called Wien in German, which the article notes in the first sentence. We favor Engish terms, not foreign ones. Until Wien becomes an English standard, Vienna is and always will be the name that city goes by. What you suggest seeks to confuse everyone by using names no English speaker would immediately (if ever) recognize. not happening. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 07:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So, if we're going to use local names, is it "Iran", or "Persia"? The locals can't seem to decide. And what about that valley in Asia? Calling it either "कश्मीर" or "کشمیر" is endorsing a specific point of view. --Carnildo 07:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Iran" or "Persia"? The official name of the nation state according to that nation state must be used. Preferably nation states should be the local one, thus Italia not Italy. But, nation states are limited in number, and using archaic English cognates can apply to all of them consistently, so its not so problematic to use traditional English. However using archaic English for cities and towns doesnt work as a policy because English cant be applied to all of them. --Haldrik 07:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Another problem is English tends to accumulate several archaic cognates (via different languages, different archaic transliterations systems etc.) for a placename. For example, Antolia vs Asia Minor vs Turkey, Acre vs Akko, etc. By always using the current local name, there is never ambiguity about which English name to use. --Haldrik 07:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What about the valley? Whose POV do we endorse? --Carnildo 07:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Whose POV do we endorse"? POV is a serious problem. Using the defacto local name helps reduce this problem. (It is Iran, not Persia, whether we like it or not, and until it's changed.) Even when the local name is still in question, it's irrelevant to the policy of using the local name. Is it "Israel" or is it "Palestine"? It's frustrating to write articles on this because the usages of these placenames are complex and still fluid. Nevertheless, whichever is prefered, the policy would have "Yisrael" and "Falastina" (assuming the local names would be used for nation states too). Haldrik 07:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople. Istanbul, not Constantinople. Why did Constantinople get the works? Aint nobody's business but the Turks!!! (They Might Be Giants) --Haldrik 08:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The song "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" was actually performed by The Four Lads in 1953; the They Might Be Giants version was a cover. *Dan T.* 13:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"It's name in English is Vienna, not Wien." Well for example, say your standing in the German city Wien/Vienna, and (hypothetically) you are standing on the corner of "Wien Street" and "Meunchen Road". Do you actually call these roads by their names "Wien Street" and "Meunchen Road", or do you switch over to the archaic English cognate and call them "Vienna Street" and "Munich Road"? These kinds of complications are extremely confusing, when you actually have to refer to these names in real life. Simply using the local name as the standard solves all of these kinds of problems. --Haldrik 08:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Street names are irrelevant. We are not talking about the streets, we're talking about the city from an outside perspective. This is an encyclopedia, not a travel guide. English speakers do not call it Wien, and calling it such here creates far more problems that it solves, contrary to your opinion. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs)
But in the 21st-century there isnt any "outside perspective" because the journalist is standing right there! --Haldrik 08:22, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And the journalist isn't going to call the city Wien because no one would know what he's talking about. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 08:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Go to the English Google Maps website and type in the "Vienna" search. See what happens!!! --Haldrik 08:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a "noat found" URL. But when I wentto Google maps,Vienna produced a map of Vienna, Austria. So?Kdammers 08:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Look at Japan and Russia in Google Maps, and you'll find place names in the languages and character sets of those countries. Apparently, Google Maps isn't designed as "English", but as multilingual. *Dan T.* 13:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem linking to the correct site from above. In any case, when you enter the English name "Vienna", you get a map that doesnt use any other name except "Wien". There are no exonyms, for the sake of a global, universal, consistent policy. The same policy Wikipedia needs for the same reasons. --Haldrik 08:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Haldrik, did you ever reply to the issue of things like Chinese cities? Should Beijing be listed under its name using the Chinese alphabet? Or should it, instead, be listed under the standard english name of Beijing?
Unless you're prepared to say that an english encyclopedia should list it as 北京, you really don't have a leg to stand on. So, which is it? Should Beijing be listed as 北京, or should Wien be listed as Vienna? Bladestorm 09:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did reply just minutes ago. Most countries have their own official Romanization policy. Their policy should be the standard for all the place names in their country. --Haldrik 09:41, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Beijing is the official Chinese name using its Romanization policy. Similar, Tokyo is the official Japanese name using its Romanization policy (the "Romanji" alphabet). --Haldrik 09:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Really helps if you know what you're talking about, as all three major romanizations of Japanese don't come out to "Toyko"; one is Tōkyō, and two are Tôkyô. Thanks for playing. --Golbez 10:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
According to Japanese law, either of two Romanization systems can be used: the official Kunri system or the Hepburn system. Altho, Kunri is "more official", Hepburn is the one that is officially used by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on public signs (which uses a simplified variant of Hepburn without diacritics, whence "Tokyo" found on most official signage). Wikipedia editors who write articles about Japanese places can discuss among themselves which official Japanese Romanization system is the most appropriate standard for Wikipedia articles, at Wikipedia:naming convention. All articles about Japanese places will use their consensus as the standard. --Haldrik 11:28, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Romanization is a bias, if ß is allowed, since 北 and ß are similarly non-recognizable to someone who speaks only English. Simplified Hepburn is even more biased towards English, since it modifies non-English readable letters (ō). Either romanize everything or romanize nothing. ColourBurst 17:40, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A counterproposal: English Wikipedia should use non-ASCII titles for articles only as a last resort. Every foreign name can be transliterated unambiguously. Using non-ASCII characters creates only problems to Unicode-disabled people, and I see no real advantage of using them - local name is always displayed in the first paragraph.  Grue  11:15, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia will potentially mention millions of places that dont have an English name. Wikipedia must have a policy to handle this. This policy must be consistent. --Haldrik 11:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yet it seems that you are refusing to point out any way in which the existing policy fails to meet that standard. The existing policy is "in the __________-language Wikipedia, use the name which is best-known to __________ speakers." The closest you've done to pointing out an issue is to point to the non-issue of "what if the place isn't known to __________ speakers at all??" The reasoning behind "use the local name, in that case" is quite obvious. However, you seem to be trying to jump from "use the local name, in that case" to "use the local name, in every case", and your reasoning for that jump seems rather obscure. -- Antaeus Feldspar 12:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"You seem to be trying to jump from 'use the local name, in that case' to 'use the local name, in every case'". Exactly. Because. Where English might have English cognates for ten cities in a particular country, there will be thousands of city/town/suburb names that dont have English cognates. These thousands of names require a comprehensive Romanization system that is consistently and systematically applied. It becomes stupid to fixate on ten cities, when the local names are used for virtually everything. --Haldrik 14:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Moreover, most English speakers are totally unaware of both the English cognate and local name of a city. For example, who here knows where "Hamath" is? How about "Scythopolis"? If you dont know where the English name refers to, you might as well use the proper local name. --Haldrik 14:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When you end up using the local name for a town because it has become very familiar to English speakers (such as Torino) and you end up using the local name for a town because it is very unfamiliar to English speakers (such as any obscure village near Torino), at a certain point its just stupid and confusing to worry about a handful of archaic English names. --Haldrik 14:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You've replied without addressing my point. You say "These thousands of names require a comprehensive Romanization system that is consistently and systematically applied." You seem to think that of "Always use the local name" and "Use the name best known to speakers of the language", only one of those two can be "consistently and systematically applied", yet you've shown no reason that should be so. The latter is equally practicable and is more practical besides, since it means that the majority of the speakers of the language who want to link to the article will be able to do so on their first try instead of getting a redirect. -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone with a brain can see that the advantages of using a consistent system outweigh using an eclectic system when needing to standardize millions of data. How many seconds does it take to go thru a redirect? Not even a second. If users know to always use the local name, then that is the "name best known" because that is the name that is 100% predictable. --Haldrik 15:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Users will never know to use the local name. They don't know the local name. You have yet to show what possible reason makes your system any better than our current system. When English speakers look for something, they should get the page they're looking for, not some redirect to a four-letter pagename making them scratch their heads and wonder what's going on. Anyone with a brain would realize this immediately. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 15:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Look, Wikipedia isnt just for 4th-graders who are working on their book report. This is the 21st-century, there is a whole planet out there, and Wikipedia has to cope with all of it. --Haldrik 15:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Users will never know to use the local name". Of course, users will know to use the local name. The unfamiliar will use whatever name they know. In a split second they will be redirected and they'll know the proper name. --Haldrik 15:10, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But we're not the whole planet, now are we? We're English speakers. We expect things to be in English. This is what you've consistently failed to understand. No English speaker is going to look for Wien or any other foreign name. They're going to look for the name they recognize and understand. English speakers do not know Vienna as Wien and likely never will. Why should we confuse everyone by using names no English speaker will recognize? You'll never make a convincing argument for that. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 15:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"But we're not the whole planet". Rather, Wikipedia is the whole planet. "No English speaker is going to look for Wien". Those who want to search for "Vienna" will find "Wein". And who knows? Maybe they'll be happy to know the Naturpark Eichenhein is right nearby! Not to mention the airport is at Schwechat. --Haldrik 15:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has many different projects that encompass the entire planet, but we here certainly do not. We encompass the English-speaking countries, which know "Wien" as Vienna. That is the name they've been taught all their lives. They're not going to use Wien when looking for the city, and Googling "Wien" only gets someone a bunch of German sites and unrelated pages. I google Vienna and I get what I'm looking for instantly. Why should we confuse users by using names that aren't standard English? Answer that. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 15:29, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"That is the name they've been taught all their lives." Any user that needs to know information about Wien, needs to know its name is Wien. --Haldrik 15:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Wikipedia encompass the entire planet, but we here certainly do not." Speak for yourself. Most of the articles that I've worked on refer to foreign names with no English equivalent or worse several competing English alternatives. --Haldrik 15:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reindent. They need to know it's also called Wien, eh? Then what, pray tell, is not clear about this: "Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria"? I think they know. You're argument is misleading, because you act as if Wikipedia somehow hides this information from its users. Clearly, this is not the case. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 15:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Many places are known in English by names having nothing to do with the local name. However, that is how English speakers are going to search for them, and how they're going to read them. In particular, we should never use letters which don't even appear in English. It's one thing to use an accent over a letter (é or ü). It's another to use a totally unfamiliar character. A typical English speaker seeing "Meißen" is going to think "Meiben" which isn't even close. Fan-1967 13:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can we all agree that this is a rejected proposal? --tjstrf 15:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly. I should note (claiming great offense), that my homeland is referred to on the German Wikipedia as the Vereinigte Staaten. I hereby suggest (not demand, being mindful of WP:POINT) that the German Wikipedia immediately rename all articles concerning placenames in English-speaking countries to use English names.
If it isn't obvious, of course, the above suggestion is entirely facetious.
--EngineerScotty 16:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I wasn't clear enough, the last line i wrote was "espcially if it won't cause undo confusion among English speakers." I think it's obvious that established names should probably be left as the exonym (exonym as a last resort was in the title) but for lesser known places the original name should be used. As for being unable to type an "ß," well redirects can bring you from "meissen" to "meißen" and the "ß" is located in the characters list below (second character in the second line) if it is needed in editing. Thanks Naufana:Talk 16:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly think English names of places should be used where they exist. Rome, Vienna, Munich, Prague, Warsaw, Moscow, etc., all have well-established English names distinct from local names, and those English names should be used. But places that have no common name in English, such as Meißen, Toruń, Chişinău, etc., should use their native names as they are spelled locally, including unfamiliar characters, provided the local spelling is in the Latin alphabet. Where the local spelling is not in the Latin alphabet, a transliteration of the local name into the Latin alphabet should be used, as in Blagoveshchensk and Beijing. (And yes, ß, þ and ð are part of the Latin alphabet!) The only problem is deciding what counts as a "well-established English name", or even more so, what is not an outmoded English name. Mainz and Koblenz are really no longer called "Mayence" and "Coblence" at all; "Constance" for Konstanz and "Brunswick" for Braunschweig are pretty old-fashioned but not completely dead; and "Turin" for Torino, as mentioned above, seems to be on the way out. If policy leaves any ambiguity, it should be on this question: if English has historically used a name spelled differently from the local name, is that historical English name still up-to-date? For Munich, the answer is a clear yes; for "Mayence", the answer is a clear no; but for "Brunswick" and especially "Turin" the answer isn't clear at all. Angr 17:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Meissen does indeed have a common name in English, which is well established. Every English-language encyclopedia that I've checked, spells it as "Meissen."[1][2][3] And yet, there are still people at Talk:Meissen who argue, against clear evidence otherwise, that there's no common English version of the name, and hence they want the article moved to "Meißen". --Elonka 22:56, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Britannica can't be trusted to use unfamiliar letters at all, since they also misspell their articles on "Torun" and "Chisinau". Interestingly, Encarta and Columbia do use diacritics for those names: [4], [5]; [6], [7]. Nevertheless, what other encyclopedias do is still irrelevant. Meißen has no English name and never has. The spelling "Meissen" is only used by encyclopedias who don't trust their readers to know what "ß" means, and who can't or won't provide links to an article explaining it. Since Wikipedia has the convenient {{foreignchar}} template which will provide a link to ß at the top of the article, there's no reason for us to provide our readers with misinformation. Angr 07:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above, Turin isn't "on the way out". The BBC still uses it, for a start. Just because the Winter Olympics were officially called Torino 2006 doesn't mean that people are stopping calling the city itself Turin. -- Necrothesp 13:36, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In case anyone is interested... apparently someone bought a Google AdSense ad for the word crowdsourcing, and pointed it at the corresponding wikipedia page. It's not clear who did this, or why they'd pay to spotlight content they don't control. But apparently some blogs [8] [9] and media folks have noticed already. --Interiot 05:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ha, that's certainly interesting. An odd topic to pic, that's for sure, but interesting nonetheless. Can you say "Wikipedia in popular culture entry"? – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 05:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Either someone wants to spread awareness of the topic, or one of the primary editors of that article is quite vain indeed. :-) Deco 05:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This also means that we should make the external links on that page in strict conformance of WP:EL! Pascal.Tesson 05:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe Jeff Howe really wants someone to write an article on him from that redlink. --tjstrf 15:50, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:External links changes

There have been edits made to WP:EL that have caused edit reverts by a handful of editors. This is an important policy and looks to be undergoing a re-write, and as such, could use the opinion of not less than this small village.--I already forgot 05:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimemes?

Is there any interest in creating a new Wikia project to host articles on Internet Memes that do not, and cannot be made to meet Wikipedia's policy on verifiability and prohibition on Original research? I was thinking about this in discussions on P-P-P-Powerbook, which has been up for AFD several times because there are no third-party reliable sources on the subject (and therefore Wikipedia should not have an article on the subject), and it has been kept repeatedly because it is a great story, and one can trivially verify the primary sources (the original discussion thread on Something Awful and a self-published PDF bragging about it).

The situation would be resolved if there were a place to transwiki such articles. We could keep a stub to point to the new Wiki (at least until it got going, so it wouldn't turn into an intellectual ghetto) whenever an article was transwikied, and we could undelete and transwiki a batch of articles to seed the new Wiki. I began the process of starting such a new Wiki, but then realized that it would be a time committment that I personally cannot make at this time, but I thought that others might be interested. Robert A.West (Talk) 11:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you want transwiki to be a viable option, be sure to have the appropriate license on the new location. We can't transwiki to Wikinews because the license there is incompatible. GRBerry 12:44, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • If we do this, we may want to consider expanding its scope slightly wider to allow for the transition of a lot of stuff that doesn't really fit. Perhaps a pop culture wiki would be nice. On the other hand, this kind of thing would fit better on Wikia, as it's not really a WMF-suitable project. --Improv 16:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blocking logged-in users through their IP address

At 14:14, 8 Sept 2006, I was blocked because of vandalism occurring at my IP address, 161.88.255.139. This is apparently the address of a firewall at my place of employment, so I share it with many other employees here. (If I find out who it was, he/she is in trouble :-) The details of my little story are at the end of [10], if you are interested.

I found it annoying that the vandal causing the problem was operating anonymously, while I was being a good citizen and logging in. I wonder if it would be possible to have two grades of IP blocking: the usual grade would only block the IP address when used anonymously, but allow edits from logged-in users. In extreme emergencies, I suppose it would be necessary to have a total block on an IP address, independent of the logged-in state. William Ackerman 18:16, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is already the case; we already allow blocking by anonymous IP only. You should complain to the blocking admin. --Yamla 18:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can the nominator of an AFD withdraw it once a consensus to delete has been formed?

Here's the situation... I nominated Kiwi Gaming for deletion. During the AFD discussion, another editor and I formed a compromise solution in which the Kiwi Gaming article would be merged into a new article about the company's parent Christchurch Casino. The other editor is ready to go with this compromise. I, on the other hand, have reservations because a consensus to delete the Kiwi Gaming has already been formed.

Now, I know AFD is NOT a vote. Nonetheless, I think numbers mean something and need to be weighed in the decision on how to close this AFD debate.

The current "non-vote" is 5 delete (including me, the nominator), 2 keep and 1 Redirect. If we go forward with the compromise, the new "vote" would be 4 delete (without me), 1 keep and 3 redirect. The new "non-vote" seems to point to a "no consensus" situation which would be default to a "keep" unless the closing admin decided otherwise.

In any event, my instinct is that the nominator doesn't "own" the AFD and can't just withdraw it once other people have started expressing opinions. As I see it, the nominator can change his mind and vote against deletion but he can't just arbitrarily terminate the AFD process.

I think the other editor and I now need to convince the other "voters" to get on board the "Redirect" compromise.

Your thoughts on this situation are solicited and welcomed.

--Richard 04:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, withdrawl of nomination does not stop an ongoing AFD that has any signifigant disucssion to it. In practice if the situation of an article changes signifigantly during a debate, it often changes the outcome, post a note of the compromise to the afd discussion, and feel free to spam the other debaters with a link to it to review "new statements that may affect your vote". — xaosflux Talk 04:53, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
[edit conflict] In a deliberative assembly, a mover ceases to own the motion once the assembly takes it up. While we don't vote (except when we do), AFD is a deliberative process. Suppose that the nonvote was 25/2/1. Should a nominator be able to stymie consensus by changing his mind? On the other hand, nothing can prevent you from changing your recommendation, in which case the nonvote is 4/2/2, which doesn't look like consensus to me, and probably won't to most admins. Robert A.West (Talk) 05:00, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, the only time an AfD can be closed early due to nomination withdrawal is if all discussion up to that point has been a series of unanimous keeps, or if there's been no discussion at all. Once any actual debate starts, you have to leave it open. I agree with Xaosflux: make a note of your compromise on the AfD and ask everyone involved to come back and reconsider their votes. Of course, the closing admin will take into account your compromise and may choose to go with that regardless of what the discussion consensus ends up being. --Aaron 05:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's no parliamentary procedure or anything like that. The nominator has begun a discussion, and that's that. The discussion proceeds, people express their opinions, and an administrator eventually decides whether or not there is a rough consensus to delete and closes the discussion.
Usually, the admin considers the nominator's opinion the same way as anyone else's opinion. Normally the nominator is counted as a "delete" vote unless he or she says otherwise. Withdrawing the nomination would count either as a keep vote or no vote, depending on how the admin judged the nominator's intention.
In a reasonably sane, civil discussion, however, two dynamics are common. First, if a nominator "withdraws the nomination," it is usually because the article has been improved or good references have been added or new facts have been brought forth. Withdrawing the nomination is significant because other participants tend to give some extra weight to that opinion. When a nomination is "withdrawn" there is usually an obvious lack of consensus to delete already. Newcomers glancing at the discussion will see that "the keeps have it" and that even the nominator is no longer pushing for a delete, and there is usually little additional activity.
In situations where the nominator feels embarrassed at having goofed, saying that the nomination is withdrawn will usually cut discussion short and minimize further hurt feelings.
Because usually a nomination is a well-argued opinion and because it's at the top of the discussion, it does tend to have a good deal of influence on the discussion... and if a nominator withdraws the nomination, that, too, tends to have a good deal of influence on the discussion.
So, "withdrawing a nomination" is a meaningful thing to do. A nominator can and does exercise influence over and AfD, and usually has a bit more influence than the people that follow. But the nominator does not own or control the AfD. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:33, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do we need to permanently delete this edit?

Please refer to the content I removed here [11]. Initially, I thought it was just some newbie who decided to include their phone number as a citation for the POV claims and/or to get people to call them to talk to them about their claims. However as I began to write a suggestion to the IP (which is apparently a NATted ISP IP) it began to occur to me that there is a more sinister possibility behind this. The POV statement I removed is the kind which may anger some people. By linking it to a phone number, this may be one of those stupid attempts to cause problems for the owner of the phone number. A search on Google in fact gives a name for the phone number from the phonebook. Thankfully, this edit was not up for long but I'm wondering whether it might be an idea for us to permanently delete this edit given that we have no idea whether the person who owns the number has any connection to the statement in question (and even if he or she does, whether he or she agreed to allow it on wikipedia). It is potentially libellous or at the very least could cause problems for a potentially innocent party. N.B. In retrospect, it may have been a mistake for me to draw attention to the inclusion of the phone number in my edit summary but it's a bit late now. Nil Einne 17:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the google results more carefully and re-reading the edit, it looks like it's a business. So it may even be some lame advertising attempt. However, it still feels to me like something which may merit permanent deletion. Nil Einne 17:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
meh, It's been reverted and it that phone number doesn't seem matched to anything, as this article has a large history (>500 edits) admin deletion of the edit is painful, but someone with oversight permisions could do it rapidly. — xaosflux Talk 17:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Given the subject matter (and the fact that you caught it immediately afterwards, so there aren't any versions "between"), it might be an attack on the business. That article's history might need a good cleanup anyway, given the long list of vandalisms and reverts among those 500+ edits. (A prefect job for an admin who wants to do some zen deletion meditation :).) --SB_Johnny|talk|books 17:33, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's no problem. I just deleted that revision and everything is perfect again now :-) —Mets501 (talk) 17:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Curiosity-borne question: I thought it required Oversight access to permanently delete a diff from the history. Can any Admin do it now? Newyorkbrad 19:08, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Admins can delete a dif but they can still see it, with oversight it's gone for good and admins can't see it. Jaranda wat's sup 21:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense, thanks for reply. Newyorkbrad 22:02, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay issue solved then :-) Nil Einne 17:55, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Critical websites and biographies of living persons

Hi. This concerns a disagreement on how to write the article on Michael Roach, a modern religious teacher. Following the policies laid out at WP:BLP, we have excluded basically all criticism of Mr. Roach from the article, on the grounds that it is not reliably sourced. This (at least from my point of view) is not controversial, and it is definitely required by the BLP rules. The question regards how to treat an external link that is critical of the subject. The article currently links to a few sites run by or otherwise associated with Roach, which, naturally prevent him in a generally favorable light. However, some editors have also added a link to diamond-cutter.org (that's a Buddhist reference, not a threat of violence!), a website devoted to presenting negative information and claims about Mr. Roach. I haven't examined this website a great deal, and I don't know a lot about the situation, but the website doesn't appear to be blatantly scurrilous, but apparentely simply gives its (anonymous) author's opinion of the facts. Now, I will be the first to agree that the putative facts described on diamond-cutter.org definitely do not belong in any Wikipedia article (unless we have another, more credible source for them). The question is, is this acceptable even as an external link (labelled to a "critical website", naturally)?—Nat Krause(Talk!) 00:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am one of the editors who objects to this site. It is not so much the information it contains are the anonymity of the authors. WP:EL says that links to unreliable sources should be avoided, and WP:RS indicates that anonymous sources are unreliable. Combine that with the requirements of WP:BLP and I think the link should not be listed. If it were not anonymous, the link could be presented as the views of so-and-so or such-and-such a group. As it is, it appears to be anonymous, unverified, original research, and that appears to be just the sort of link which is discouraged, even for non-BLP articles... —Hanuman Das 06:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OWN dispute

The page has been changed in the last couple days to include many new things (take a look at this dif). Some of the new things don't really fit in with "owning" an article though. Minor changes, such as formatting, image size and placement, choice of words, and other mundane edits are argued about on a daily basis by one editor seems to be kind of a false indication. If formatting is done wrong on an article, I fix it, to make the article look better. Image size and placement can't be considered owning the article, especially if the image is too big. Sometimes, there are better words to describe something. The articles are for the readers after all, not for the editors alone. Since WP:OWN is an important policy, I believe we should get at least some community consensus before any changes are made. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk) 02:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • If I'm honest, and with apologies to Royalguard11, I think he or she has misunderstood the dispute, and that the statement of it, above, isn't an accurate reflection. There is a real dispute though at WP:OWN, stemming from the edit war at Hippies. Like Royalguard11, though, I'd encourage community views. AndyJones 13:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Admins who don't edit articles

Wikipedia is, and has always been, all about creating an encyclopedia. We strive to have the best written content possible, and although the social interaction is fun, the overriding goal of this site is creating the encyclopedia. However, the maintenance and administration of the site are also important, thus we need sysops/admins to not only write articles but also to generally monitor and "police" the site. There are a number of admins who do a great job in article writing and editing, such as User:Geogre and User:Lucky_6.9. I think their contributions should be applauded.

It has become apparent that as this site has grown, a large number of active admins have ceased to edit or create articles and solely devote their energies to the administrative/social side of the project. This has led to a fundamental "disconnect" between those who administer the site and those who actually write articles. Therefore, the question arises, how can this system sustain its legitimacy when many of the influential administrators on Wikipedia are totally divorced from the realities and experiences of actually "writing an encyclopedia," which by all accounts is why we are here.

Perhaps there should be a two-tier administrator system, in which admins with significant mainspace contributions, such as those named above, would hold more functions than the class of admins that contribute little, or in some cases, nothing, to the articles. Admins without proven contributions to the articles could still handle important tasks such as New page patrolling, welcoming new users, etc., but would not have the full power of the "encyclopedic" admins, such as User:Geogre or User:Bishonen just to name a few. This also would encourage non-article-contributing admins to work more on the articles and the encyclopedia side of Wikipedia if they want to attain promotion to "full" admin status. Wikipedia as a whole would benefit. --Pewlosels 03:47, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I may be so bold, it is my belief that Wikipedia:administrators are not here to build the encyclopedia. Cowman109Talk 03:50, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a bad idea. Why should it matter where admins volunteer their time, as long as it benefits the project? fThis would only cause more problems than we already have. Naconkantari 03:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Er, variations on this have been proposed for some time, not to be pessimistic but I doubt an AN/I thread can really change much, these ammount to extraordinary and basically unprecidented changes in how Wikipedia works. Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump, WT:RFA or Wikipedia:WikiProject on Adminship would be more on topic, as this is not an issue that directly requires admin intervention. Your interest in ideas to improve Wikipedia is appreciated though. --W.marsh 03:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]


ceased to edit or create articles
solely devote their energies to the administrative/social side of the project
totally divorced from the realities and experiences of actually "writing an encyclopedia"
non-article-contributing admins
I don't believe this is true. Surely there's some exaggeration and equivocation going on in the phrases I quoted above. Obviously, writing articles is of paramount importance, but so is lots of other work. I'll use myself as an example, not because I think I'm so important - I know better than that - but simply because I'm most familiar with my own contributions. I've been helping out with a bunch of move requests lately. I've spent a lot of time mediating between editors on controversial articles who aren't seeing eye to eye. I also revert a lot of vandalism. Now, none of these is actual "encyclopedia writing" as such, but I wouldn't say that they're "totally divorced from the realities of writing an encyclopedia," either. I'd say they're rather intimately linked to those realities. I like writing, but I know that there are others who have much more of a flair for it than I. I think of myself as supporting them. I don't think the work I do should be denigrated.
I'm certain Pewlosels post is well-motivated, but I don't think it's productive to cast the issue in such polarized terms, nor to be blind to the fact that Wikipedia needs people doing a lot of non-writing work so the hard-core writers don't have to mess around with it, and can do their excellent writing.
What's more, it's not clear to me - which administrative powers would one want to reserve for those admins who spend more time writing, and less time using the admin tools anyway? Like blocking for example - why take blocking powers away from someone who spends so much time vandal-fighting that they don't get much writing done? Surely that would be a perversion of good sense. I'm not opposed in principle to a two-tier admin system, but I'd need to see a lot more details, and I'd have to be convinced that it's precisely the admins who write more articles who also need more administrative tools. That's not at all obvious or clear to me. -GTBacchus(talk) 04:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that it necessarily follows that someone who spends most of their time in non-article spaces are necessarily disconnected from reality. Jimbo Wales and Radiant! are two examples of people who do most of their work in non-article spaces but are still well-respected by a chunk of the community. Maybe people who stay away from articles are more likely to be disconnected, but there are counterexamples at the least.

I do think people who contribute significant amounts of encyclopedic content should be given a lot of recognition for their work, but I also think adminship shouldn't really be viewed as an award. If you want to have two classes of administrators, "regular administrators", and "influential FA-contributing administrators", then that's more of a culture thing, not necessarily a "who has their janitor bits turned on" thing. --Interiot 04:57, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't edit so much nowadays, but I do heavy work cleaning up backlogs at Orphaned fair use images, CFD, etc, and even with a bot, it's still a lot of grunt work, I used to help also in other areas (at one point I handed out over 1000 blocks a month for vandalism). So, do I understand that my contributions aren't worthy and I'm unneeded since I don't do main namespace editing? -- Drini 05:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Once appointed as an administrator, you have additional power and responsibility. Doing any of the admin tasks takes time and in many cases requires a lot of effort to work out what is needed in each case. Some decisions are easy but others are far from clear cut. All of this has an affect on an admins abality to continue all of the editing they may like to do. I think having some admins who only work on admin tasks helps since they are generally more knowlegable in the tools we should be using. Without them we would have major problems keeping control. So to treat them differently does not seem to make sense. Vegaswikian 05:33, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your contributions are worthy and needed. The issue here is that if you don't edit, you are less suited to make a judgement on the editors who edit, except for pretty obvious vandals and dicks. Adminship is both a mop and a stick. If you are used to a mop only, you should not be using the stick. --Irpen 05:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I#m not sure what you have in mind, admin functions are those that require the extra buttons they are mainly technical. I can't see any logical split. The normal sequence of events seems to be (1) edit articles (2) become admin (3) stop/reduction in article editing as too involved in admin work. Now if we manage some split (which as I say I cannot envisage here how you intend to split the tools), that ultimately would then lead to less people doing a certain area of work, which means those left would have to take up the slack - leaving less time for article editing, so we then take those tools away and around we go. --pgk 09:54, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I support this and am sure you will see nothing but admins oppose it. The idea that people are made admins because of their mainspace contributions and from that point no longer need them seems odd. If you were elected by the people because of the amazing mainspace work you do, why should that all cease now that you are an admin, we may as well never make admins then if it means losing an editor. I would think the idea is to give them additional tools to participate in additional functions, not drop the old function(writing articles) so that they can then be a vandal cop. --NuclearUmpf 11:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not an admin and I am opposing it in good faith because I think it creates more bureaucracy than is needed. It seems to be making levels within levels where they were never intended to be. An admin should be trusted to act the same in all areas. Period. Ansell 11:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Your dichotomy between 'article contributing admins' and 'non-article-contributing admins' is a totally false one. You namecheck some users who have contributed significantly to our articles, and say 'their contributions should be applauded'. Indeed this is true. However, the contributions of users who do other things -- WP:CP, image tagging, OTRS and so on -- should also be applauded. These jobs are all important and valuable.
You also use language which suggests you misunderstand the nature of adminship: you don't have to be an admin to do new page patrolling or to welcome users, and adminship isn't some sort of 'promotion'. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 12:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
NuclearUmpf, you said "if you were elected by the people because of all the amazing mainspace work you do..." I wasn't. I was elected because I displayed an understanding of Wikipedia process and policy, and because I'm friendly and a resonably good communicator. As least, that's the message I got from my RfA. If you think mediating between disputing parties, and helping stop edit wars by judiciously using protection tools, for example, entails a disconnect from writing the encyclopedia, then you're simply incorrect. I don't doubt that there exist admins who are disconnected from the writing process, but it's not a simple matter of counting namespace edits. It sounds like people are asking for a technical solution to a personality conflict, which doesn't seem very likely to work. If someone seems disconnected, talk to them. That's the very first step of dispute resolution. If you have trouble talking to them, try asking a friendly admin for help. Some of us are admins because we're kind of good at that stuff. -GTBacchus(talk) 12:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry but I didnt say there was a disconnect so I am not sure what you are reffering to. But many admins are elected because of their mainspace work, for them to stop doing that makes the point they were elected null does it not? Dont you think you are elected and expected to continue what you were doing, not drop it to do other things? If the community picked you because you resolve disputes well and instead you spend your time working on AfD or clerking RfC then you are not doing what the community expected of you. Perhaps admins should be picked by by what they are expected to do. Admins of area X, not limiting them, but giving admins elected to Area X more of a say of what goes on in Area X. --NuclearUmpf 12:54, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To expand on this point, maybe admins picked for an area that do not participate significantly in that area for a decent enough time should be put up for re-call, say 2 months. This prevents a disconnect from the area they were elected to help in. --NuclearUmpf 12:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry if I conflated your comments with those of others above. I figured when you said "I support this," you were agreeing with what Pewlosels said, about "non-writing admins" being disconnected from the project of writing an encyclopedia. Sorry if I put words in your mouth.
Anyway, I think the community elects admins because they trust their judgement. I think that people who are elected on those grounds should continue to exercise their judgement, not drop it and do other things. There's not some particular Area X where one is expected to use judgement; one is expected to apply it to various situations. That's why it's judgement, and not a simple algorithm. If you select someone for their good judgement, then it's silly to start micromanaging them and telling them how to apply it; the essence of good judgement is knowing how to apply it. If people are selecting admins based on their good article writing, that sounds kind of misguided, seeing as the admin tools don't really help one write articles. -GTBacchus(talk) 13:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Putting aside my disagreement with the term "elected", then no I disagree. Admins are given the tools since their activity (which includes editing articles) shows they are trustworthy and unlikely to abuse those tools. If it were merely on the basis of their mainspace edits, then there would be little or no need for admin tools, adminship is not a promotion etc. etc. Admin tools don't help you writing articles, and most tools you shouldn't be using in the areas you are actively editing in anyway. Support votes on RFA are in my experience general, you don't support someone to do a specific piece of work. For the most part you couldn't do so anyway or it would be irrelevant. Your example of picking someone to resolve disputes is an example of this, resolving disputes does not require the use of the admin buttons, it is not an admin task. Admin tasks are things like closing AfDs as delete, protecting pages, blocking users, I can't vote for you to work in one of those areas because you are good at them, since until you get the admin tools I've no idea if you are or not (since you can't actually do them). You other example fails as well clerking RfC is not an admin task, it requires no admin facilities. --pgk 13:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Whenever I start to concentrate more on cleaning up the mess that vandals make and less on articles, I burn out extremely quickly. So it's self-correcting for me. But this is a really bad idea. --Golbez 13:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Admins are not paid employees (as the premise of the point suggests to me), they are just normal users with a few axtra buttons, which, in the grand scheme of things, don't even get used that much. Wikipedia only works because people do what they want to do, and happily what they want to do is normally in the interest of building an encyclopedia. When we start encouraging people to do things they don't want to do, or get annoyed when admins don't do what we want them to do, then Wikipedia won't work any more. Martin 13:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, this idea is idiotic. While I am a reasonable writer, I don't think I was given the admin bit because of the articles I created. After all, creating articles needs no administrative functions...and if I saw someone's RFA Q1 answer as "I only want to write more articles!" then I'd probably oppose. Why ruin a good thing? I probably spend 95% of my time trying to make Wikipedia a place where people who do write well and want to create articles (both admins and nonadmins) can concentrate on that, and not on recategorizing hundreds of articles or blocking spammers or being harassed by other editors (well intentioned or not). The other 5% of my time is little wikignome changes to articles, like taking a recent deaths obit and turning it into an article start. When I look at a writer-admin's contributions (such as BunchofGrapes or Bishonen or Violetriga) I like to think that by shouldering the lions share of administrator functions, they can continue to add quality content. Hopefully someone somewhere looks at my block logs, and my protection logs, and my page deletion logs and is thankful for my own contributions to the project instead of thinking in the back of their mind "What a f@cking waste of space that Syrthiss is, he better get back to making articles!111!!!!!!". Syrthiss 13:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with most or all of the opposition above. Also: it's just impractical. In many previous proposals for regular review of admins, it has become clear that the necessary mechanisms would be extremely unwieldy. Reviewing 1000+ admins every year (for instance) means doing 20 a week on average. Which would be an excellent way to draw some group of people away from writing articles. And which group of people? Who are you going to appoint to decide when an admin has done "enough" mainspace writing? Not to mention the agony of defining "enough." Sure, writing an FA is an excellent thing. How about writing 50 stubs? Rescuing articles from CSD/PROD/AFD? Hmm? (These are rhetorical questions. I don't want individual answers. Especially since each individual will answer differently.) There are problems with divisions between people who dedicate themselves to writing and people who dedicate themselves to keeping the machine running. But trying to divide a diverse group of people into exactly two black-and-white groups is not going to ameliorate the problems. FreplySpang 13:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd recommend to the proposer that you read some actual RfAs - you'll get a much broader understanding of what people expect from admins, and how different the demands are. Some people want apologetic admins, others want unrelenting ones. Some people only require admins to have AfD experience, others expect five thousand main space edits plus five FAs or more and don't care about AfD. Some people think being an admin is an honourable position that should be granted to any bona fide, long-term contributor. Others insist that admins that do not participate in AfD, copyvio-resolution or similar administrative work are not worthy of "the mop", or wouldn't benefit from it. Finally, you'll find that admins instil terrible fear in some editors to the point that it's very difficult to constructively work with them on simple editing tasks. I'm sure I'm not the only admin to have considered creating a second account just so I wouldn't have to deal with "but, but, you're going to block me if I disagree with you". It's not like admins don't scrutinise each other's actions. If you have a specific complaint, you can make it at WP:AN etc., as you are no doubt aware, and if there's any basis to it, it will be dealt with. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:55, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I had thought that policing NPOV and so on was part of building the encyclopaedia, so thanks to the proposer for setting me right on that. Speaking as an admin, I'd love to spend more time working on articles and if someone would be so good as to tell all the tendentious editors, POV warriors, trolls, spammers and assorted other distractions to fuck off and leave Wikipedia alone for a week I'm sure I'd get loads done. I made a resolution a while back to try and add an article a week, but most weeks I don't manage because I'm called off to help wth another problem editor or content dispute. Despite this I did manage to create Hanover Band and Stephen Darlington this week, which pleases me somewhat. I am seriously considering registering a role account. Just as a matter of interest, has anyone passed RfA without a high mainspace edit count recently? Guy 12:05, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the related ideas

At the risk of top posting, I can point out that there are other proposals getting at the same thing. First, my own view.

  1. It's true that the site has gotten more divided between inside and outside actors. Some people work between the pages of the encyclopedia, and some people work outside the covers. It's also true that this is growing and was not always there. In the dim mists of time, everyone wrote as well as controlled layout/content/hosting. Once the outside tasks grew large enough, once new toys were invented (like categories, then templates, then boxes), the amount of time all outside tasks could take grew. This allowed (not forced) those with a preference that way to get in a ton of edits, and every one of them outside.
  2. It's also true that the divergence between inside and outside is so large now that there are people running about who have never heard of even the brightest stars of the other side. E.g. if I only wrote, I'd have no idea who Carnildo is except some guy who blocked inappropriately. Similarly, I was stunned to see some arbcom members proclaim total ignorance of who Giano was. (I straddle the worlds just barely enough to be known by most of both groups.)
  3. If it is wrong to insist that everyone work inside, that doesn't mean that it is absurd to insist that outside work be understood as differentiated. Writing "Elvis presssly was a Singer in America" is "writing an article," and rolling back a vandal is "protecting Wikipedia," but neither is stellar.
  4. It seems to me that we should be as horrified (and disqualify) an administrator who works outside only just as surely as we would be horrified that someone who worked only inside wanted tools. If we say, "Why do you need tools, if you only want to write," it's fair also to say, "Why do you want to delete and undelete, if you only work on cats and tags?" I.e. an administrator needs to do both or exercise tools only in a specialized way.

So, some other ideas folks have come up with, including me. I realize that they range near and far.

  1. The Brag Bag: each person should keep a list of what they're proud of having done. This should be articles and actions. If you mediated a crisis at Gdansk, you should be able to brag about it. If you straightened out the mess at Robert, then good for you. If you presented the briefs in an ArbCom case, boast. If you created a template that has prevailed, be happy. Whatever it is, put it in your bag. Then, when conflict arises, no one can think you just sit on IRC all day... unless you do sit on IRC all day. If you have an overstuffed bag of articles, then, when there is an argument over content and content management, the person speaking to you can see that you might be somewhat expert. If you bag is stuffed with FA's, then your opponent might well understand that you know full well what "encyclopedic" means.
  2. The Credentials File: This is a portfolio like the brag bag, but no one includes any rollback or deletions, as those things are necessary, but not laudable. (This from me: the archangel of deletionists.) Routine admin functions are routine. We should all go clean out CSD. We should all do RC patrol. We should all do NP patrol. We should all do these things, and so they're nothing to boast of: they should be assumed.
  3. Renewal/Probational admins: This is where controversy begins. The idea is that each administrator gets automatically reappointed with any evidence of doing his/her job every year, but where any substantial complain causes a review/revocation after a year.
  4. Assigned tasks: Each administrator should have to do certain things every year. Just as every administrator is expected to do mop stuff, perhaps we can make it requisite (with what sanctions, I don't know) that every administrator write or rewrite five articles a year. That's a very, very low bar. Perhaps a single FA or GA attempt a year. If a person doesn't do this, perhaps it should be citable in evidence of any future review of the administrator.
  5. My favorite: Featured Wikipedians. If we set the bar very, very, very low, so this is not a contest, we have a new wikipedian every day whose Wikipedia biography (not real life, no references to real life, no references to outside websites at all) is written up as a "Get to know this Wikipedian: She or he is doing great stuff." If we do that, we can reduce the strangeness of each other, can show each other the strengths and interests of each other. It would also encourage people to know that they're going to be spotlighted and that they might want to get cracking. If nothing else, it would offer a carrot as well as threatening a stick to folks to get active all over.

Anyway, this is a review of what I've seen so far. Y'all are free to support or despise any part of it, exactly as your consciences dictate, but, if you find some of these things worthy, I encourage y'all to work it up as a full proposal. Geogre 13:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not good policy, although I must admire your energy. Some jobs take up so much time, if done well, that extensive editing is just not possible. Fred Bauder 14:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it matters whether administrators edit articles or not, as long as they are helping Wikipedia. In a hospital, the administrators, the porters even, don't do operations, but the place couldn't function without them.
Right, but the porters don't refer to the surgeons as boils that need to be lanced. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I hope the surgeons dont refer to the porters as "trolls" and "uninformed masses" either =) --NuclearUmpf 15:03, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not met many surgeons, have you? ;-) Guy 23:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, I wish administrators would take a vow not to revert or rollback when they are editing articles where there isn't a problem. An article I'm working on recently saw reverts by a drop-in admin of 25kb of material that had been gradually removed by editors over the previous weeks and placed for discussion on the Talk page (the article is too vast). We have now restored most of our cuts, but our intervening additions had got mangled in the changes and some still need working back in, which takes time.
I've seen this drop-in-and-revert behaviour by other fast-moving admins who obviously didn't give themselves time to read and research properly the changes they reverted. I suspect that such admins are so used to reverting and rolling back that they can't help reaching for the same tools in a normal editing situation. The last thing articles need is revert-happy admins in a hurryqp10qp 14:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good point, and that is part of what is wrong with this whole idea. To do work well it takes time. Time to read through talk pages, get up to speed, test the water before you make big changes. Time to think. Fred Bauder 14:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to drop my 2p in. I have been an active article writer since March 2004 with a brief voluntary break that summer, and a brief involuntary break this summer, and had the sysop bit from January 2005 to last month. Whether admin or not my approach is that article writing is the first and most important thing and it's what I enjoy, and my writing of articles did not diminish at all when I was an admin. But, just as if you want to live in a beautiful home you have to clean it, so we have administrative chores to do in order to make our encyclopaedia better. We don't call it "the mop" for nothing. So I do think that it's a bad thing (TM) for admins to give up their article work, because it suggests that editors are at the bottom of the tree, and that once promoted into adminship, you don't have to do that work any more. Really, it should be the other way round. David | Talk 15:49, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Or it suggests that those admins are sacrificing their article-writing time in order to do other jobs for Wikipedia that need doing. No 'tree' or hierarchy is implied. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 15:57, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I hate it that this is personalizing. That's precisely what we need to avoid. However, if it's back to "well, I find that I..." I will say that I've written more since being an admin. That's just a coincidence, though. I got here in 2002, signed up in 2003, got to be an admin in early 2004, I think, and I write. I do admin tasks, too. If I get dragged into arguments, my time gets gobbled up and I do little writing. If I actually mop things up, I don't lose any time at all. I don't think this is "you can't be an admin." Let's be honest and precise, if we're going to talk about this at all, please. It isn't maintaining a page, cleaning out a category, or even watching a page that takes time: it's chatting and fighting and arguing that takes time. That's not being an administrator, or it doesn't have to be. If folks want to consider me an inactive admin, they're free to. If they want to think that 230 articles is a low number, they may. Let's stop just asking, "Is this going to hurt me" and start asking, "Can this prevent the damage being done daily now by people being brusque, personal, incurious?" Geogre 16:32, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well that pre-supposes that the damage being done is directly related to having admins who don't do much article editing. Since we have 1000+ admins many of whom will fall into that latter category, if there is a direct correlation between the two, then we would be totally over run with such disputes. If people have problems with some individuals and their approach to admin work then they should address that indivdual and the problems, just trying to extract a few characteristics of that admin and extrapolating that all admins with those characteristics must be treated as causing problems, is not too helpful. If you want to take the other extreme User:Freestylefrappe who was desysopped by arbcom has used socks since and been at the centre of numerous disputes and caused much animosity was also a reasonable article editor. Should we then decide that all admins who are good article editors are also likely to adopt the other characteristics? --pgk 17:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well said. However, the people who have been causing problems have also been long time non-editors who have announced indifference or scorn for article writing. That makes that particular attribute glaring. Myself, I think we are so large now that no one can be all things to all people and therefore that an answer, although never the answer, is to distinguish administrative functions. If administrators are drawn from the ranks of people who have specialized as editors, they should specialize as administrators as well. I won't argue with Carnildo on image rights, for example, even if I think he shouldn't be blocking people. In the absence of people limiting themselves, though, to their own comfort zones, and with the command that all arbitrators, in particular, step into any conflict of any nature, we're going to have some inexpert mediation, at least, if not some outright ignorance. Where some of the trouble has come from is people who may have very high value at, for example, software or rights or templates or categories not only getting involved in dispute resolution (where they may be frankly distrusted) and acting from personal prejudice. When a tagger wants to talk to me about content, I might well draw up to full height and sniff contemptuously, just as James Forrester does when people talk to him about copyright. That's my view, though, and I still think that everyone should have to do some of everything to at least be aware of the issues there. Geogre 18:50, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you on one level: I never did see anything wrong with a professor of classical Chinese literature hoeing corn for a year or two. But you proposal does bear a certain resemblance to such schemes, and I think experience has shown people intensely dislike such requirements. On the other hand administrators are expected to be courteous and helpful, not curt and dismissive. We have a few swelled heads. Fred Bauder 20:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
why are you comparing writing articles to "hoeing corn"? Article editing and writing takes an advanced level of skill and intelligence and being a puffed up admin simply IRC'ing all day and blocking people doesn't. Your analogy is not only 100% wrong, but it shows your subconcious disregard for those who actually write this damn thing.GreenCommander81 22:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good point; but the essence of the suggestion is for us all to be familiar with all aspects of our common life, so as you point out, we don't loose touch. Fred Bauder 01:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let's leave our cultural revolutions aside for a moment. It's true that you do betray a feeling of hierarchy, just as the writers do, and Wikipedia was supposed to have a flat hierarchy. The problem is that (queue user:Lar posting how contributions don't get anyone a free pass) we establish the things we're best at. There are people who are very good at conflict resolution, and that skill doesn't stem automatically from writing or software debugging or from beating people up over rights. It's a skill that can lie with any of these people. When our administrators behave top-down, they are violating the spirit and letter of the site. When they do this from admin to editor, it's horrible. When they do this from arbcom to admin, it's even worse, but only because our admins are an investment we've already made. (To keep our Cold War analogies going, it's why the Soviets wouldn't let physicists travel: they said the state had invested money in training them, so they couldn't be robbed of that by defection. If we lose an editor, it is a very, very bad thing. It is an evil amplified only by the amount of time and contribution an editor has to demonstrate to become an admin.) ArbCom is just dispute resolution admins. Admins are just editors who are supposed to never, ever step across the lines of policy. Editors are supposed to be the equal of each of these. None of these is supposed to be a promotion or a badge of office, and it's fair to say that you don't get a pass to put away your editing hat because you've put on the helmet of the cop. (And that's not my recommendation, anyway.) Geogre 01:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good points, Geogre. I am reminded of a question someone raised at the ArbCom panel at Wikimania this year. The person asked (paraphrasing a little for emphasis) what does an editor do when another editor follows the rules (without gaming them) when arguing for their version of an article -- yet is "clearly wrong"? I don't remember what the ArbCom representatives said, but my answer (had I been able to answer) would be simple: just keep talking, try to find something you & your opponent will agree to -- & keep the discussion framed as an exchange between friends, or at least people who respect each other. If the dispute drags on too long, propose a brief break. I think most people (not just people participating in this project) will respond usefully if approached in this manner. -- llywrch 01:35, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Civil Disobedience?

With the Arbitration Committee agreeing to hear the Giano case even when the crux of the case is the behavior of many of the admins and Arb Com members, it is clear how the ArbCom will end up ruling. They probably will simply tell us, as James F. already has done, that we're a "bunch of idiots," and to move on, as it were. If the ArbCom shall not listen to us and blatantly flaunt community wishes, we do have an option -- Civil Disobedience. We can simply refuse to implement future ArbCom decisions. They need us to enforce their decisions, particularly on bans. That way we can send a message to the Committe of Public Safety that we are serious and that we have serious concerns. GreenCommander81 04:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No decision is pre-ordained. Please participate at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Giano/Workshop if you have opinions as to the outcome. Jimbo may have to settle this eventually, but we are going to give it a try. Before you go to war make sure there is a cause. Fred Bauder 10:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So who were you before Tony Sidaway banned you, anyway? Choess 06:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
hm, and who are you, again? How about you address the point, not the IRC hipness quotient of the editor making it? dab (ᛏ) 08:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm an editor, and non-participant in IRC. The "point" made seemed sufficiently ludicrous as to require no further comment; I thought it was worth pointing out that the user appeared to be a sockpuppet and was perhaps not acting in the best of faith before he could inject too much additional heat into what's already a highly charged discussion. Choess 12:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
you were always free to not enforce arbcom rulings. There is no obligation to be active on Wikipedia at all, and if you do not believe in blocking someone, you are perfectly free to not do it, admin or no admin. The point is that there will always be admins around only too willing to implement arbcom rulings (which is after all perfectly fair as long as the arbcom isn't broken), so that your suggestion would seem to imply bouts of wheel warring. This will lead nowhere, and only lead to bitter infighting that will make us look pathetic from the outside I am afraid. If the arbcom doesn't have the integrity to honestly assess this case (which still remains to be seen), the only path open to us will be to campaign for the (partial) replacement of arbcom members, maybe for an early re-election. It is in any case in the best interest of the arbcom itself to examine this case with extra care and integrity, and I still hope they will. dab (ᛏ) 08:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
From his trolling pattern I'd say he smells like Wiki Brah, who is community banned. Who wants to do the honors? --Tony Sidaway 10:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly not you. Fred Bauder 10:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Civil disobedience is the weakness of anyone asserting power on Wikipedia. Other than the hosts being taken away, no one has any power. We are all supposed to be of equal rank. When people leave the project, we will have :10 of soul searching. When people go on strike, we have :05 of soul searching. I, myself, have thought about civil disobedience, as it is the achilles heel. However, I neither support it nor call for it. At this point, doing something like that would be to lend credence to the people who are acting abusively. If they stomp around announcing that they speak for Jimbo (Geogre's Law #7: Anyone who tells you how he's buddies with Jimbo is really saying that he has no legitimate arguments for his point of view), to believe them is the worst move. Forcing the dispute resolution folks to either annoint or defrock them is the better course, initially. Geogre 10:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting administrator assistance on IRC

I'd like some sort of consensus on whether it is OK for Wikipedians to make requests of administrators on IRC, and what procedures administrators taking requests from IRC should follow. Specifically, when a "move" request is made.

I am not impartial on this debate. There is a lot of mistrust and bad faith towards my own requests for article moves which I have done on IRC as a user, as documented in my request for adminship. I feel if a stronger procedure existed there would be less ill will, so I'm proposing an

IRC move request procedure:

An administrator receiving a request for a move on IRC ought to...:

  • If a user requests a move privately:
    • Advise the user as to whether you are looking into it, or say you're busy/not interested, or tell the user to ask publicly in #wikipedia (on irc.freenode.net).
  • If a user requests a move publicly (in #wikipedia or #wikipedia-en):
    • If you wish to help the user, say publicly (in the channel) that you're looking into it.
  • If the move is non-trivial or debatable:
    • Advise the user to use WP:RM instead (or to help the user do so). Done.
  • If the move is trivial:
    1. Check if the move is already proposed on WP:RM, if so, follow ordinary WP:RM procedures, or advise the user to wait for another sysop to finalise it. Done.
    2. If there is nothing technically stopping the user from making the move him or herself using the "move" button, advise the user to do so. Done.
    3. If the user is not using an identified account on IRC, advise the user to identify (/msg nickserv login ...), or otherwise request their Wikipedia user name
    4. If you are prepared to go ahead with the move at this stage, advise the user that you are doing the move for him/her.
    5. In all deletion/move comments, include who requested the move, e.g. "Move requested by USERNAME on IRC #wikipedia" or "Move requested on IRC #wikipedia by (un)identified IRC-NICK, user claims to be USERNAME"
    6. If you forget to include the requester in any of the page deletion/move comments, add it to the talk page of the relevant page(s).

The above is a first draft. This is also a wiki, so I'd suggest cleaning it up directly (edit it) rather than proposing minor changes. Comments, changes, suggestions welcome. —Pengo talk · contribs 00:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Uh - what? Sorry, I don't understand any of this. If a request is reasonable, by all means you can follow it. I don't think we need more instruction creep outlining what specific requests administrators can follow. Cowman109Talk 00:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that users should be able to request admin assistance in any way they want to: talkpages, email, IRC, and carrier pigeon are all acceptable. An admin should respond to all of them in the same way. --Carnildo 00:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's very optimistic, Carnildo. In my experience, the IRC channels can get pretty thick with OT chatter and giggles (and every time I'm there, I'm the worst offender), so it's not unusual for a request to get ignored or worse. We very nearly need to note that IRC is so disconnected to Wikipedia at this point as to be only a service offered and not part of the site's process at all. Geogre 01:13, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are many other channels than the chatty #wikipedia, and I don't see what the problem is you are trying to fix. —Centrx→talk • 01:16, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You mean the one Pengo is trying to fix? Me either, really, but "there are other channels," but only people who spend a lot of time on any of them know which do which. I was merely observing that a lot of admins on IRC don't want to deal with requests and aren't very polite about them. Some are, some are not, but a form won't help: staying off of IRC is better advice than trying to find a form that will automatically get someone to respond. (And I see so little actual use to IRC at present that I don't know why we bother.) Geogre 02:11, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, no, no, no, no, no, no - This is m:Instruction creep, it does not solve anything, and it isn't really needed. Administrators remain responsible for their actions regardless of what prompted them. Whether they randomly came across something requiring action or were prompted to do so by someone's request, they still carried out the action, so they are still ultimately responsible for it. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 01:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflicted) My two cents: Instruction creep is bad. If somebody wants to help, they help.. otherwise the person looking for help goes off and finds a policy page where they can find out what to do. Also note that a lot of people who need help and show up in #wikipedia don't need a sysop, but somebody who knows their way around copyright or purging caches or something else a newbie wouldn't know. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 01:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm probably going against the grain here (Or I'm just plain wrong) but I thought the situation is this:- 1. Trivial moves can be done by the user themselves unless there's some technical problem that prevents them doing it -such as the move destination already exists and has a history. 2.Potentially controversial move are posted on WP:RM so that the community can decide what to do about it. I don't have IRC (and have no interest in getting it) Does that mean if one of my articles is going to be moved (controvertially) that neither I nor the non IRC wikipedia community will have no say in it? I'm all for cutting out the red tape, but surely the procedure is there for that purpose - If it's become unwieldy and slow then let find a way to make it work that doesn't require us all to be on IRC. (expecting a right grilling now!!). --Mcginnly | Natter 02:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Three words: speedy move request. If the issue is that requested moves take too long, then try to define uncontroversial moves which could be speedy moved. Move requests are funny beasts. The requestor always thinks his/hers is uncontroversial - until suddenly people oppose it and it dies. Regardless, I'm highly unlikely to back any process that involves using IRC. There are plenty of folks here that are not particularly computer-literate. One of WP's advantages is an easy interface. IRC doesn't even employ a standard client and will be unusable by many. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
IRC is not part of process. Yes, it can be a convenient way to get an administrator's attention (when it works), but an administrator that decides to help someoen over IRC does so of their own will, not because of any policy. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 03:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused, I see a solution here, but I don't see a problem. What problem does this fix? --Golbez 03:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem as I see is the disenfranchisement of non-IRC using 'pedians in commenting on move requests --Mcginnly | Natter 09:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't see a problem here. If someone asks me on IRC to move a page, I see if it's a logical move, and if it is, I do it. If not, I suggest they go to WP:RM. I will decline more moves than I accept. I think most of us act in the same fashion. --Golbez 12:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can;t they just use admins' talk pages? I have done uncontroversial but admin-only moves based on talk page requests (and the moves are my responsibility no matter where they were suggested to me). Kusma (討論) 09:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So what constitutes an uncontroversial move? No one has defined this in any way as long as I've been part of this issue. If we could make a policy for this, neither IRC nor admin poking would be necessary - just create a speedy move. If no one can define what is and isn't controversial as far as moves are concerned, then I'm not sure WP:RM should be bypassed like this. —Wknight94 (talk) 10:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is possible to codify this ("I know it when I see it"). But non-admin users are also allowed to make moves that they believe to be uncontroversial just by using the "move" button. I don't think that the presence of a target with trivial history that needs to be deleted always necessitates a WP:RM. That's what we have WP:CSD#G6 for. Kusma (討論) 11:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well I still recommend a speedy move tag so that someone will at least have a chance to see it on their watchlist in case they really wanted the article named the way it is - even if it seems ridiculous to the move requestor. Like I said, I've seen a lot of supposedly uncontroversial moves become controversial in a hurry. (See Talk:Fire + Water where folks thought it was quite uncontroversial to fly in the face of this guideline and this guideline and this project). —Wknight94 (talk) 13:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Come to think of it, why would a move ever need to speedied? What is the huge hurry that a user needs to find his/her favorite admin and get a move done right this instant?! —Wknight94 (talk) 13:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anybody who opposes the move can just move the article back. I really think this is no big deal. It should be perfectly fine to ask an admin familiar with the subject area to perform a blocked move (especially as reverting it will be automatically unblocked by this). I am not talking about move-protected pages, of course. Kusma (討論) 13:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like the problem is "Getting spanked in an RFA for requesting page moves via IRC instead of through WP:RM or whatever." Ξxtreme Unction|yakkity yak 15:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Admin accountability

(Please also see WT:RFA) I believe that the RfA process is under many pressures partly because there is no similar organized way to hold admins accountable for their actions or desysopp them if necessary. If we answer this latter question, we will see more people ready to say "adminship is no big deal." The consensus issue will also become less sensitive, and I'm sure that stuff like the Carnildo affair won't happen. To get the ball rollin':

  1. Blocks are serious, last resort measures. It can be useful to desysopp an admin who has been blocked (justifiably) by a fellow admin, but for just like a week or so to allow him/her to cool off - this is different than the "cool off" mandated by blocks themselves. The second block should result in a 30-day "cool off," and the third block should lead to desysopping.
  2. WP:ANI should also become a place where admins can receive advice and suggestions on how to perform potentially sensitive tasks. There are many admins who aren't abusive but simply make a mistake - they need immediate guidance of more experienced admins.
  3. Maybe a bureaucrat's committee can be created (subordinate to ArbCom) to look into cases concerning proposal no. 1 and cases of serious admin abuse. Rama's arrow 10:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Perhaps admins should be encouraged/required to hold an editor review each year to receive suggestions and criticism.
  5. More and more admins should be encouraged/required to help at Admin Coaching. This way, they get to improve themselves and learn how to help others.
  6. Promote greater teamwork and coordination between admins. If you create a WikiProject Admintasks or a similar device to inform/coordinate admins on backlogs and serious issues, we will see greater efficiency as well as a culture in which admins don't feel compelled to make sensitive decisions themselves, in their own interpretation of policy. Rama's arrow 10:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That said, this process should not revolve around the question of desysopping. Rather how admins can improve and learn. The same for RfA - every productive editor is a prospective admin, so the process should encourage learning instead of creating a contest, vote-like atmosphere. Rama's arrow 11:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The answer for #2 is WP:AN, which already exists. --Golbez 12:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]


  • we need a working WP:RFDA. We may not have needed it in the past, but we do now.
  • CAT:AOR should be understood as a matter of course. Admins too enamoured with their position of power, or too deluded with their own importance to subscribe to this shouldn't keep their buttons.
  • IRC is not part of WP. An editor's merits and admin-worthiness are exclusively a function of their on-wiki work and behaviour.
  • admins are WP editors trusted with some minimal good judgement. Tendencies to re-cast them as some sort of separate caste need to be firmly countered. Admins who have ceased to see themselves as members of the community of editors should hand in their mop.

dab (ᛏ) 12:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like all of Dab's ideas. Rama's arrow 12:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How do you propose to resolve the problem of the Tyranny of the Masses that has plagued all previous proposals for an admin recall policy? Or are you arguing that the chilling effect that would be caused by the threat of a de-sysopping attempt against an admin performing an unpopular task such as enforcing copyright policy or protecting an article in the wrong version will not be an issue? --Allen3 talk 12:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If there is to be a solution, it is that of balancing the scales and not tipping one side over another. In the rudimentary ideas laid out above, desysopping comes only if an admin is blocked thrice - in previous two, he/she is temporarily deprived of tools to "cool off." I'm not particularly enamoured to any proposal - I don't think recall is necessary, but unless we brainstorm we won't get the golden nugget either. Rama's arrow 12:57, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I want to see bureaucrats play a corrective influence on admins, so that the masses are not given authority over admins. That helps create a system of checks and balances, which is the model for good administration. Rama's arrow 12:58, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the tasks admins generally perform (copyright enforcement, protection of articles and others) should not, understandably come under the microscope. Only real disputes should. We need to figure out more ideas to not create a police state while trying to reform. Rama's arrow 13:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like Dab's ideas. As for Rama's Arrow's, I prefer the idea of demotion, which I have on one of my subpages (go to my talk page, and at the top there is a link to it) to admin blocking. However, there is the problem of mob voting and an uneducated votership. We all feel that "democracy is evil" from time to time. I have said in the past and maintain it still that that does not invalidate a voting or consensus-making process. Instead, it shows us that we need to carefully consider the individual franchise, definitions of consensus, and quorum. In any case of reform of this nature, we would need to have admin-only voting (with a plebicite if we get it wrong (meaning estranging the editing community)), a recognition that status quo always enjoys an advantage over any change, and an insistence on high participation. My feeling is that we need several proposals and that we present each other with "A, B, C, D, or status quo" as choices. A high percentage for any alternative to the status quo, or for not-status quo, should indicate that proposals need more refinement. Geogre 15:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've got an idea. How about something modeled after AfD? If someone specifically believes that an admin has acted improperly, instead of making them go through the convolutions of RfC or having them navigate the shark infested waters of AN/I, give users the means to get quick feedback to the effect of whether or not they have been the "victim" of a rouge admin. Here's how I would see the workflow: There's a Wikipedia:Administrator Review page. The user clicks an edit link, specifies an admin and review reason w/ an AfD style template, ala {{subst:adminreview|user=Chairboy|text=The article [[It puts the lotion on its skin]] was improperly deleted (it did not meet WP:CSD) and the admin blocked me when I asked him to review the situation. Also, we had a disagreement on a different subject at the same time, so I feel Chairboy blocked me improperly and should have involved another admin to avoid a conflict of interest.}}. This would be saved as Wikipedia:Administrator Review/Chairboy and would allow for a centralized depot for all "issues" each admin has. This would be transcluded the way AfD and RfA are and the result would almost always be a "Speedy close" or "Speedy RfC" that would then be expanded appropriately. This would give have a calming influence on frustrated users who feel wronged but aren't quite sure enough to begin an RfC, plus it would serve as a pressure release for users who need to hear from other admins that "Nope, in this instance Chairboy acted properly." Articles for Deletion has reduced a lot of tension from situations where users would have otherwise felt a single user was being capricious. Seeing everyone else agree that an article needs to go makes people stop and ask themselves "Wait, is it possible that I've misunderstood the situation?". An equivalent for admins could highlight administrators who have screwed up and give other admins the means to validate when the person has actually acted properly. This is less expensive than regular admin reviews, only targets admins who have gained the ire of others, and gives fast, unified feedback to the accusing party. Thoughts? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 15:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a great idea, especially if its expanded to keep track of multiple incidents, then it can also help users in compiling a RfC and finding incidents that support them. I think community feedback, not just admin feedback is very important for both sides involved. --NuclearUmpf 16:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I like this idea, too. The potential problem I'm seeing is with transclusion of a page like Wikipedia:Administrator Review/GTBacchus. After the 20th or so complaint on that page, it would become a transclusion nightmare with long-ago resolved disputes popping up again and again. Surely, only active cases should be transcluded to a main page, right? Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you described. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Inactive items could be archived to a subpage, good point. The idea is that all of the past incidents (or non-incidents) would be available somewhere. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disemvowelling on one's user page of other's comments

I have noticed that some users, one in particular, have a habit of disemvowelling statements that others make on their talk page. Usually, the reason given is that "I don't want to read such nonsense". I was under the impression that, barring racist type remarks, we were NOT supposed to change in any way comments left on our talk pages. What is the specific policy on this? As an example, please refer to the talk page of Calton to see what i am talking about. Is this sort of behaviour permissable? I cannot find in ANY Wiki policies that I have gone over ANYTHING that allows this sort of thing, which honestly seems to be a form of self vandalism (if one could actually vandalise one's own talk page). TruthCrusader 16:35, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I had to look that word up, and then I was certain you couldn't really mean that, until I looked at the talk page in question. Wow, that is pretty rude, in my opinion, to disemvowel others' comments. Additionally, it's not smart dispute resolution, as it tends to increase the negativity and potential drama rather than decreasing it, as an admin should always be trying to do. What a poor way to de-escalate a disgruntled editor. If it's an attempt at humor, it's one that's almost guaranteed to fall flat every time. I'm a little bit shocked. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is generally bad form to delete or otherwise alter messages on your talk page: however there is no fundamental reason not to. There's always the page history. It would be silly to have a policy against it. The Land 16:56, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's generally bad form to delete messages on your talk page; but significant alterations—particularly those aimed at misrepresenting the editor who originally made the comments—are quite rightly seen as vandalism. Whether merely making the editor seem illiterate counts is, perhaps, open to debate; but consider: would we tolerate someone who went around inserting spelling mistakes into other editors' comments, or would we simply block them? Kirill Lokshin 17:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It seems very incivil and potentially (although not necessarily) disruptive. Current policies and guidelines would seem to cover it adequately. --Siobhan Hansa 17:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can the user I pointed out be warned or blocked for this? I am curious if action can be taken retro-actively. TruthCrusader 17:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm curious what the point of their modification is... They're not trying to alter the meaning of the text. If they don't like a message, tell them to just speedy-archive it instead. --Interiot 17:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It seems the user was warned[12] a couple of weeks ago. Which makes me wonder - why bring the issue here, now?
Users are, with few exceptions, allowed to manage pages in their user space as they see fit. Some do consider it a bad idea for a user to edit or blank the comments placed on his/her talk page, but there is no policy or guideline against it. In short, if Carlton wants to disemvowel statements on his talk page, he's free to do so. --Aaron 18:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think that the the civility policy doesn't apply to user talk pages, or do you think the practice isn't incivil? --Siobhan Hansa 18:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Err, what about Wikipedia:Vandalism#Types of vandalism, in particular the "Changing people's comments" (and perhaps the "Random character vandalism") points? Speedy archiving (or even outright deletion) is fine; replacing signed comments with gibberish (but keeping the signature!) really isn't. Kirill Lokshin 18:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree, I think its better the comments are simply deleted then maimed in this fashion, while particularly comical, it also serves to make the user look foolish, not saying this is done on purpose, but other editors viewing the talk page may see it that way. I would reccomend this user just delete comments instead of changing them in this fashion. or at least post the dif of the original in the same section as the disemvowelling (sp?) --NuclearUmpf 18:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that we are given leeway with DELETING user comments on our talk pages, but CHANGING them in any way to mis-represent what the author stated seems to me to be in clear violation of the civility policy TruthCrusader 18:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
He isnt really misrepresenting what they say, just how they said it ... He is removing the vowels from comments he does not like. --NuclearUmpf 18:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Which is changing what they stated, which IS mis-representing them. I think disemvowelling needs to be added to Wikipedia:Vandalism#Types of vandalism TruthCrusader 18:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to get into an arguement of symantics, but he is not changing what they said, its clearly there if you know its missing vowels. If he converted it to spanish it would still say what it says, just not how (english) they said it. --NuclearUmpf 19:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you to go Calton's talk page, this is one of the comments he disemvowelled:

"If you remove sources from articles it makes it difficult for other editors to check the matters referred to. Please don't do this in order to make a point about Arbitrarion Committee decisions having to be kept to even if you don't like them. David | Talk 15:07, 9 September 2006 (UTC)"

it was changed to this:

"f y rmv srcs frm rtcls t mks t dffclt fr thr dtrs t chck th mttrs rfrrd t. Pls dn't d ths n rdr t mk pnt bt rbtrrn Cmmtt dcsns hvng t b kpt t vn f y dn't lk thm. - David | Talk 15:07, 9 September 2006 (UTC)"


I don't see WHY a statement like this should be rendered vowelless, it makes no sense to me and really smacks of being massively uncivil. TruthCrusader 18:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I am defending it, but he does specifically state why he does it on his talk page. Perhaps the accusations of WP:POINT is what caused that to be disemvowelled(sp?). Anyway as I said I dont think its vandalism but someone should ask him to just delete the messages he doesnt like or speedy archive, though I see a new complaint coming shortly after he begins that proccess. --NuclearUmpf 19:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That specific statement is part of the problem. By disemvowelling a comment, he implies that it was "Especially bogus, hostile, and/or trolling", and that implication is itself uncivil. Melchoir 19:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That is true and I did not look at it from that angle. While I would saying laying down a WP:POINT accusation is hostile, I agree with you that the removal of vowels should cease. I just worry that removing the comments entirely would also imply the same or be seen as such from the people who's comments are being removed. I think a policy needs to be expanded to cover this or similar issues. --NuclearUmpf 19:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't call this disenvowelling "incivil"; it's much like saying "I don't like your comment, so I'm going to stuff these beans up my nose." I could say more, but I think we've all offered enough clues on this matter. -- llywrch 20:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

External links to Uncyclopedia

What is the policy on allowing external links to Uncyclopedia articles? Some examples are [13] [14]. In some articles, such as German Wikipedia, some context is given on the corresponding Uncyclopedia article. Should such links be removed? Thanks. --Vsion 21:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's linkspam and should be removed. Cowman109Talk 23:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In the article Mad Libs#External links, there is a markup "[[Uncyclopedia:Mad Libs]]" which links to http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Mad_Libs . This is strange, is interwiki link to uncyclopedia acceptable? --Vsion 02:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, it fails WP:EL and should go. The only page that should link to Uncyclopedia is a page discussing Uncyclopedia itself. Ziggurat 02:22, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the "Uncyclopedia" links from about 18 articles which are obvious spams. However, there are still many articles which I'm not too sure. They include: Captain Obvious, buttered cat paradox, Helengrad, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, Batroc the Leaper, Batroc the Leaper, Leeroy Jenkins, Time Cube, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Russian Reversal. Is this an organised spaming? Perhaps someone with more experience can help to clean it up. Also, the interwiki markup is pretty strange; shouldn't it be disabled? Thanks. --Vsion 02:54, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

...in popular culture

My watchlist is mostly fruits and vegetables (I'm a farmer and these are the things I'm interested in), and many of these seem to have rapidly growing sections on "trivia" or "this fruit in popular culture".

I hate to be the stick-in-the-mud complaining about how fun (and often silly) trivia isn't really encyclopedic, but fun (and often silly) trivia really just isn't encyclopedic. (For the latest example, see radish). --SB_Johnny|talk|books 23:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

People are obviously more interested in this kind of stuff than the actual encyclopedia article though, half the time. I guess that's a testament to the modern attention span. I think a good compromise is a "WikiTrivia" or something, much like WikiQuote, so this stuff is no longer on Wikipedia but people who are interested in it can still easilly find it, and in probably a better format anyway. If we are determined to compile a list of every pop culture to everything (as we seem to be), well we might as well create a place where that's fully appreciated.
In the meantime, I say if nothing else, remove the stuff from articles if the teeming masses will let you. It will stay in the page history. Of course, if it can be converted into meaningful prose, that's a better option. --W.marsh 00:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a Good Article reviewer, a designated Trivia section or bullet point "In popular culture" list is generally frowned upon. Ideally anything that is relevant or encyclopedic about the topic should find its way into the main sections of the article. However, I have seen well written "In popular culture" sections that are presented in a prose format instead of the bullet point list. Agne 00:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's a brilliant idea actually - a fork of wikipedia that could be solely based on trivia. Someone should propose that :). Cowman109Talk 00:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is no actual policy on trivia additions, specifically. Instead, there is wide precedent for trimming/removing it. The author's complaint is valid. One of the first articles I rewrote after getting to Wikipedia was parody. All that stuff in there about the history of the term and literature is me. Immediately, people began adding in "list of parodies." The list was out of order, biased toward whatever was on television at the moment, and preserved genuinely forgettable things. I didn't want to squash the egos of the editors, but, at the same time, that thing was ugly and unhelpful. It's best if you announce on the talk page first that the trivia section is getting hairy and that you'd like to give it a trim. Wait for comment a couple of days. If there is no objection, go ahead and tame the mess. There is little question that trivia sections (and most "in pop culture" sections) are just folks tossing in whatever they can think of, and it's not good to be brutal, revert, or insult them. Geogre 01:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have a style guideline at Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles that is part of the Manual of Style. The nutshell version is "Lists of facts, as found in trivia sections, are better presented within the context of the text rather than in a section of unrelated items." We have a proposed inclusion guideline at Wikipedia:Trivia, while it is more for trivial complete articles than material within an article, it also contains some suggestions on what to do with overextensive trivia sections when found at Wikipedia:Trivia#Practical steps suggestion. GRBerry 01:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How many images does a stubby article need?

To be honest, I dislike such pages as city square, which look like they were imported from Commons. Neither do I approve addition of similar Commons images, sometimes arranged in piles and galleries, without adding anything to the text. The article about Saint Basil's Cathedral had six images of the church. Four of these were arranged into a gallery at the bottom of the page. Today, someone started to expand the gallery with more Commons images of inferior quality. I pointed out to WP:NOT which says: "If you are interested in presenting a picture, please provide an encyclopedic context, or consider adding it to Wikimedia Commons." I was instantly reverted with the edit summary "Restore images: best part of the article". By the way, the article links to the Commons page with images of this cathedral. I would like to know the opinion of others — how many images are appropriate for a short page about a church? Is six enough? Perhaps sixteen? Twenty six? Is there a guideline as to this? --Ghirla -трёп- 10:36, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My own opinion is that if they're there, which they have to be to be snapping photos, then they can also get a history of the place from the gift shop or ask a curator about the place. Wikipedia is not a pop-up book or a cartoon: it's an encyclopedia, and I prefer twice as many lines of text as the image takes, myself. I think complex articles need illustration, simple articles benefit from illustration, and stubs are overloaded by illustration. (E.g. all the the genital and "paraphilia" articles can very easily become "Danni's Second Hard Drive.") Geogre 12:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
you can always just weed out excess images and place a {{commons}} link instead -- the gallery will be one click away for those who want to see it. dab (ᛏ) 12:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On city square i think the massive wodge of a gallery should go, taking three of the best image into the article proper - the commons link will take the user to a large selection of additional images. Regardless is a square is not notable enough to have it own article then it probably should not be in that massive gallery (if it's kept).

On Saint Basil's Cathedral I do not feel the four additional images in the gallery at the bottom add anything to those already in the article itself. I'd also remove the explicit thumbnail sizing on the images (it's far too big). The article could probably handle three images (at the default thumbnail sizes), but those additional ones aren't great. Thanks/wangi 12:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I really dislike the City square one; there is no picture at the top, and you have to read or scroll through the entire thing to get to the gallery, and then the gallery never ends. Yet that's an article where trying to include just one image at the top of the article could well lead to an edit war (and a stupid one at that). Everyone and their hound dog is going to think that their favorite city or image should be the image at the top, and the image will change every week or so. This week it'll be Times Square in New York. Next week someone will come along and think that's Americentric and change it to someplace in Europe. Then someone will come along and change it to be someplace in Asia. Then someone will change it back to Times Square... ad noseum. It's situations like that where I think someone should make an image like Image:Flores.gif, which is used to illustrate the flower article. Then you've got a good, illustrative image which cycles through a variety so that Times Square (or whatever) does not become the definative image of a city square, and you get rid of the annoying gallery at the bottom. Unfortunately, I understand that images like that are difficult to create, require special software, are a strain on Wikipedia's servers, and can't be seen in all browsers. So maybe that's not such a great idea.
As for the Saint Basil's Cathedral one, I think the image gallery adds something to the article and doesn't seem excessive. Though it would be nice to have some images of the inside of the cathedral. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 13:46, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lists that replicate categories

Is there a policy on list articles that essentially replicate the function of a category? I'm thinking about lists such as those in the category Lists of Museums. I don't see what Museums in China does, for instance, that Category:Museums in China doesn't already do. Cordless Larry 14:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That list has two redlinks; lists can include topics that should have articles but don't yet. Categories can't. Also, this is less of an issue with this particular list, but lists can be annotated to explain the inclusion of the entry in the list, and can also be organized by other methods than alphabetization. Postdlf 14:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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