Wikipedia:Village pump (policy): Difference between revisions

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Linking to Redirects

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

There's no page discouraging the use of redirect links per se (what would be the rationale for it?) - I suppose it's some invention of people liking bot operations.

When is it advisable a redirect be replaced by a straight link? There are some cases:

redirects to disambiguation pages: in that case the redirect link should be replaced by a link to the intended page (replacing it by a link to the disambiguation page would be senseless)
redirect pages of the "common error" type, example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Socrate&diff=prev&oldid=32485082 ("Thompson" is the common error and an existing redirect - "Thomson" is the correct spelling of that name)
In the rare cases when the redirect page is eligible for deletion (see Wikipedia:Redirect#When should we delete a redirect? for criteria)

--Francis Schonken 07:11, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's preferred to link directly to the article because a redirect forces you to load both the redirect and target pages. It's not a big deal, however.--Sean|Black 07:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sean, that was the conclusion we reached, but is there anything official on it that you know of? --Falcorian 08:05, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Neither Wikipedia:Redirect or m:Help:Redirect say anything, so, er, no :).--Sean|Black 08:12, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, then we're back to square one! :) --Falcorian 08:24, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly are you talking about, why is this a problem? Common sense indicates that in most cases we shouldn't link to a redirect. But there's little harm in doing so. Note that many users work with a "Wiki plugin" that automatically fixes links to redirects. R adiant _>|< 10:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm talking about official polivy. The question came up, and I wanted to know if there was policy on it, that's what. I never implied there was a problem. --Falcorian 18:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Redirect fixing should not be top priority, but bots that scan pages for links to disambiguation pages also have the ability to check redirects, so hey, why not? I know because I've written a bot. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 18:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think (I haven't checked it...) that if you end up wityh a chain of multiple redirects, then the system only does the first redirect and subsequent ones don't take effect. Therefore a link to the article is "cleaner". One reason to link to a redirect is if there is a likehood that that the redirect page will get itself converted into an article at some time. -- SGBailey 22:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"A link going straight to the target is preferred over a link relying on a redirect." Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) However, there are a lot of exceptions, such as disambiguation pages. Personally, I think that using a nicely named redirect is handy to indicate where a new article would be useful. Unfortunately, the above mentioned bots keep converting the links. We need more policy discussion on this, and it probably should be at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (links).

--William Allen Simpson 17:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In cases where the redirects are obvious candidates for conversion to real articles at a later time, it would be a shame and a waste of future work converting these links to direct links to the current article. Example: the University of Halle and the University of Wittenberg were each important Early Modern German universities, merged after the Napoleonic wars. Both titles now redirect to the current University of Halle-Wittenberg, but it is obvious that separate articles will at some point need to be written on the predecessor institutions. If some bot goes around extinguishing all these links, it will have to be undone manually. With the current redirects in place, it is still possible to see at Special:Whatlinkshere to which of the universities other articles actually intend to link. Direct linking would make that impossible. Tupsharru 18:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removing warnings from user talk pages = vandalism.

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

Removing whatever from your own talk page is not vandalism; a user who does so can be assumed to have read it and if ignoring warnings, will face the consequences. Removing whatever from other people's talk pages may be vandalism, please ask the user who owns the talk page what they think of it. Radiant_>|< 22:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- This is apparently disputed, see Template_talk:Vblock#User_space. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:22, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We have a real problem. After posting warnings that the user deletes, then another user posts a warning at the same level, which the user deletes. Basically, without the rule against removing warnings, the warning method doesn't work in the case of persistent problems! You cannot have a 4 level warning/blocking system where the warnings are removed, as blocks will appear to be arbitrary. --William Allen Simpson 16:44, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

- A talk page that has been blanked will still show up as a blue link on the "Discussion" tab, alerting observant editors and admins that foolishness is afoot. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 17:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

- - Yes, if it's been totally blanked, but what about just having warnings removed? Yes they're in the history, but people might not look there. I think a user talk page is public space, just like an article talk page. Well, not just like, I think it's ok to remove cruft and clean it up, but if you remove properly-applied warnings it is not OK and legitimately could be seen as vandalizing the page. Also, I put sockpuppet warnings on a user's page (not talk page) that he kept removing... is that OK too?

To answer the question: I consider that it is vandalism. A user page is in public namespace. Therefore I believe that all polices apply just as to article pages and article talk pages. That's how I read it. There's some discussion of it here: WP:UP. Herostratus 10:43, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit?

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

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

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

You will also note that the blurb at the top of every page now says:

From Wikipedia, the free encylcopedia

it used to read:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit

The change happened a few weeks ago, but I saw no news about it. Maybe I'm just out of the loop --BostonMA 15:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, that change is just some sysops edit warring over the site notice. The appropriate place is MediaWiki:Tagline. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 16:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is new, put in place to help reduce the high rate of vandalism. Anyone can still edit, just not necessarily immediately. Anons can still create new articles, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-12-05/Page creation restrictions and Wikipedia:Articles for creation. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo instituted the "anons can't create pages" policy after the John Seigenthal thing. I'm really sorry that anons can't make new pages anymore but it does prevent a huge number of junk articles being created as newbie tests. Kappa 15:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Anons can, just not directly. Wikipedia:Articles for creation, if they do not wish to create an account. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:56, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

- Wikipedia is a project to build a free encyclopedia. "Anyone can edit" is not part of what Wikipedia "stands for," it is a method that Wikipedia uses to achieve that goal. It can be adjusted and modified as necessary in pursuit of that goal. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well said, in my opinion, Dpbsmith. User:Ceyockey 23:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

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

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

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

So has there been any noticible effect making things easier for RC patrol? If anything I'd think the new policy makes things worse. If new users were more likely to create junk, at least having them anon and show up as IP addresses made their articles easier to spot and look over. The new policy strikes me as just being silly hysteria, like taking away nail clippers from people trying to fly on planes. Someone wanting to vandalize anonymously won't be stopped by creating an account. Slowing down account creation or adding delays or Turing tests or other technical measures will create a technological arms race between Wikipedia and vandals. I've created probably a few dozen articles anonymously over the years, some of which have become substantial (e.g. Bill Bradley) and edited hundreds of others. I have a registered account which I use when it seems appropriate but mostly I prefer to edit non-logged-in, as a means of "egoless editing". Too many registered users get wrapped up in their contribution lists and user pages about their hobbies and their cats. As Kelly Martin put it, Wikipedia is not LiveJournal. Making most of my edits w/o logging in (and with dynamic IP addresses that change frequently) has (for me at least) been a satisfying way of sticking to the task of improving the encyclopedia without self-puffery.

What I'm trying to say is that (at least some) people who edit non-logged-in aren't newbies and aren't too lazy to create accounts, but rather, it's an approach to editing that they cultivate on purpose. ("Anonymous" isn't an accurate term since the public exposure of their IP address makes them easier to trace back to meatspace than a Wikipedia handle does--that's how the Seigenthaler prankster got located). Ironically, if the prankster had created an account, he might never have been found without Seigenthaler filing a lawsuit and issuing subpoenas, if WPF is the least bit serious about privacy. The published IP made it easy for a non-admin to figure out where he was, and identify him from there.

As it is now, when I want to make a new article, I end up requesting it at AFC and sometimes an article gets made, sometimes not. This stinks. Also, the policy change was a major, heavyweight decision that seems to have been done unilaterally by Jimbo with no process at all. What's up with that? With all respect to Jimbo, I thought Wikipedia had stopped being his personal fiefdom some time ago.

I think that the new policy should at best be considered experimental. A date should be set, like 30 or 60 days from when it started, after which there should be a discussion and evaluation of how well it's worked. Unless there's concrete evidence that it's doing something worthwhile, it should be undone. 71.141.251.153 18:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, somebody told me that if you submit many good articles into the articles for creation place, then people might see that anonymous users actually create good articles and won't force you to get a username. --anon

Article creation/movement waiting time for new users

Tangentially, I've a question about the above. I'm a believer in writing new articles in userspace for the first few revisions, till there is enough there that it's worthwhile to publish (I am not so keen on one line stubs). I encouraged my son to write an article, so he registered, and created the article in his userspace. I commented that it looks ready to go. But when he tried to move it from userspace to articlespace he got the "you are an anonymous/new user" warning although he was logged in. I could move it for him but I'd rather he did it as my doing it for him would be disenfranchising for him, I want his experience to be positive (he's not very old but he does have some good knowledge and has been well behaved elsewhere online). How long is the delay, or is it edit count based? Thoughts? (admins that want to converse with me can mail me for details, and I will share his email with them if they want to email him about it) Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 23:34, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have him wait a few days and he should be able to do it himself. Raul654 23:38, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

~~Are you absolutely positive? Has the restriction been extended to a time-delay? Already knowing the answer, can I read the on-wiki announcement of that? -Splash^talk 23:40, 1 January 2006 (UTC)~~[reply]

There is a delay of zero, in my understanding. The message didn't include any mention of "new user" for that reason. Positive a cookie hadn't been dropped by the browser or something? -Splash^talk 23:40, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The delay for page moves is 4 days if I remember correctly. Instead he should just make a new page and copy/paste the contents. Kappa 23:41, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Ah, of course. That's what it is. I was thinking that the page creation restriction was the problem, when it's not that at all.-Splash^talk 23:43, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- The screen does say "you cannot move pages because either you are not logged in or your account is too new", and I validated he's logged in. We'll wait 4 days, because I think moving by copying is not the most optimal way to go. For people that want to see the page, it is User:NikolaiP/Tumble bug (which will be moved to Tumble Bug, with uppercase P, because it's a ride name, when the time comes). A pointer to the announcment gratefully accepted as I didn't spot it in my searches...++Lar: t/c 00:26, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - The announcement for this was a very long time ago. New users have not been able to make page moves for a long time. The disabling of page creations was a Jimbo decree a couple of weeks ago, somewhere on the mailing list: note that this is not what has affected you, though. -Splash^talk 00:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
One thing you should note though is that creating a wikipedia account is infidently easier than creating an account at other websites baisicly you choose a name a password and your good to go, you don't even have to give your Email adress.Deathawk 00:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

Bobblewik (talk · contribs) has mass de-linked wikilinked years in literally thousands of articles over the past week or so [1], to the point where he has been blocked by an admin for running an unauthorized bot. [2]

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

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

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

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

Hear hear. About time someone dealt with this (now, if only someone could mass rollback Bobblewik's contributions for the last month). Ambi 13:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think everyone agrees that linking dates when relevant or for date preference reasons is absolutely fine. So the issue is linking all dates. I believe that this is bad for a few reasons

Excessive amounts of blue links make the text more difficult to read.
The links are misleading. I know experienced editors don't think they are misleading, but people new to wikipedia often do, I know I did when I was new, and I have seen new users (normally IPs) remove date links and leave an edit summary along the lines of "Links were to wrong page" or similar.
Excessive links to largely irrelevent pages dilutes the overall quality of links in general, making it difficult to know when a link is to a directly relevant article

Thanks. (p.s. Bobblewiki was not using a bot) Martin 13:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I quite agree with Martin's comments. The year links are mostly irrelevant. If you want to explore Wikipedia, use the Random article link in the navigation box -- that allows you to wander through articles with about the same degree of relevance from one to the next as the year links. older≠wiser 14:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that linking all dates (except when they recur in the article) is actually fine and kind of useful. It helps provide even more information when one is on a date page and clicks "what links here" -- finding things to add in that way becomes pretty easy without any centralised effort, and even while overlinking makes things more difficult, I don't think that dates are typically packed together enough for that to be a factor for dates alone. --Improv 14:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Martin. 98% of the time, the only thing a year link does is clutter up an article and make it less readable. I think the style guide is correct, and if editors are ignoring it in favor of linking every occurrence of a year, we should work to undo it. Overwikilinking is a bad thing. We shouldn't encourage it. If we really want to wikilink every year, we need a technical solution that allows invisible links so that articles don't look hideously stupid when all words are linked. But until that happens, I strongly oppose this proposal. Nandesuka 14:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What qualifies as "overlinking" is very obviously a matter of personal aesthetic preference. No one is suggesting that every word be linked. A few people are suggesting that linking individual years does not qualify as "overlinking," and does not look "hideously stupid." Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 15:09, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Are you suggesting that all years be linked or only the first mention of a year? It seems that linking the first one is standard practice, and I'm surprised at the opposition. Sometimes people reapply the wikify tag if the years aren't linked. Wikify tags are sometimes even added specifically because a long list of years is unlinked. I don't click on the years and don't think they're very useful, though. I don't care much which way it is, but I think we should be consistent and not link and delink the years over and over again with different editors. I think that the delinking should stop until the issue is decided definitively. -- Kjkolb 15:38, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I personally adhere to the "link once, leave repeat instances in the same article unlinked" philosophy, but that's true for all of my links, not just years and year-related links. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 16:16, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, IMHO, all years could and should be linked on first mention. While I agree it's messy, in an article about 1899 - or something that took place in 1899 - to have "1899" wikilinked on every mention, I think leaving 1899 wikilinked at first, and not on subsequent mentions, looks good. It helps break apart and structure long blocks of texts somewhat, too, especially if there are hardly any wikilinks inside it. I do suppose it comes very much down to personal preference, though, but you've got my take on the situation. I'm very much in favour of getting rid of said dictum.--TVPR 16:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is a contention that date link clutter is harmful. If so, it is a very marginal harm. On the other hand they do provide an article with context, even if that is a very marginal benefit. On the whole, this seems like a wash to me and so whether or not to keep them should be left to the discretion of the article's contributors. As such, I would be happy to see the explicit "simple months, years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there is a strong reason for doing so" go away. This is especially true as it seems to be encouraging a campaign to systematically remove such links with little regard to whether an article's primary contributors find them useful. Dragons flight 15:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I largely agree with Martin, with some qualification. I think that there is more justification in linking to 1917 in an article than to 2004, even if neither link is directly relevant to the article. A link to an older date may be helpful simply to put the event into perspective. Also, the discussion at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) should probably point out that links to dates can be made more relevant by linking to a more narrow subset. For example, linking to [[2004 in music|2004]] in a discussion on an album released in that year makes more sense to me than simply bracketing the date. I think the problem is that a large number of editors routinely link all dates, including ones like [[January]], [[2003]] and every occurrence of a particular year in an article. That makes it questionable whether even links to single years are intentional or just due to some editor's misunderstanding of the function of wiki date formatting. Having said all that, I think that that the current language is a little too restrictive and I would change it as follows: "So unless there is ~~a special~~ some relevance of the date link, there is no need to link it. This is an important point: simple months, years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there is a ~~strong~~ reason for doing so." -- DS1953 ^talk 16:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I support this proposal. In my experience, most dates are "high value" (especially where month and day are included). The first use of all years, decades, and centuries should be linked. The major problem is the "assisted" scripted "AutoWikiBrowser" program that "suggests" removing most of the dates. Folks assume (incorrectly) that the program is accurate and approve the edits without thinking. The program is broken. A recent instance didn't add any links for day mon year or month day, year (both were needed), but unlinked 1947 and 1967 (and many others) for Israel! That's Not Useful! --William Allen Simpson 16:28, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a debate about how it is done, please dont confuse the issue. And the program is not broken, it's not even specifically designed for this task as you seem to suggest. Martin 17:34, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I quite like this proposal, but I wonder if the paragraph could also be ammended to reiterate that date links should only be for the first time it shows in an article, and that these are entirely fine if relevent, and that they should ideally link to a subgroup of that date as mentioned earlier. LambaJan 19:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the mass-unlinking of dates in an uncoditional or nearly-unconditional manner is a good idea. Further, I support the idea of clarifying or relaxing the "prohibition" against wikilinking years. The Manual of Style should basically say that not all years need to be linked, but some should because stuff happened then. The details of judgment should be left up to article editors. Demi ^T/_C 19:22, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that all dates should be links. Many times if you do click, you get totally irrelevent stuff. I'm particularly thinking about a biography where we're talking about how the person was elected on this date in 2002, and did something else in 2003, and ... It really (in my view) clutters things up to have all of the years in blue. I don't object to links if the editor considers them relevent, but the current policy sounds right to me. Morris 19:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the proposal. — Dan | talk 20:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I fully support this proposal, and also, I have yet to see a proper argument for how having wikilinked dates make the page more difficult to read. Could someone who feels this way demonstrate how exactly it makes the page harder to read? Talrias (t | e | c) 20:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One example of an article with too much markup is John Doar (US government official involved in civil rights momement). I know that this is a matter of opinion, but I agree with Nandesuka (below); a lot of the wiki links in that article (including the dates) do not lead the reader to anything related. Morris 22:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not harder to read, but a little distracting. Personally, I don't like wikilinking years, but I've always done as it seems everyone else does :-). I think that makes me neutral...! Dan100 (Talk) 20:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd describe it as: a link is an implicit suggestion that the linked page is relevant to what you're reading in more than just a tangential way. Part of editing is deciding what should not be included, as well as decided what should be. Nandesuka 21:44, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly oppose this proposal. I agree with most of martian's comments above, and i intend to continue removing such links. I also strongly suppor the creation of an alternate form of wiki-markup for date preferences, so that all dates could be unliked, except for the very few where a link is actually relevant. DES ^(talk) 21:56, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Can you clarify your declaration to "continue removing such links?" This seems to be an exceptionally "in your face" statement. Surely there is no harm done in waiting a week or two for this discussion to shake itself out? The wikilinked years will still be there should the consensus clearly indicate that wikilinked years must go. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 12:35, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support. -- User:Docu

Oppose change to MoS. Linking relevant dates is very desirable; linking all dates is unnecessary and could be considered as introduction of non-encyclopedic content (related to the notion of "lists of otherwise unrelated items"). User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 18:29, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think the popular misconception that date linking is essential is an unintended consequence of the date preferences mechanism. We pay a high price for date preferences and very little benefit. We are not eliminating ambiguity because almost all date formats used by editors are unambiguous (e.g. December 25 and 25 December). Furthermore, the date preferences mechanism does not operate for a lot of readers i.e. those without an account, and those with an account but no preference set. I think the current Manual of Style is fine. However, some editors have said that there are some specific and auditable constraints that they would like to add to the Manual. For example, dates in image captions must be linked, or dates of birth and death must be linked, or weekly events must be linked. I oppose such such constraints but if they were in the Manual by consent, I will follow them. Until then, I regard such links as silly. Bobblewik 19:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I see many people saying that date linking is harmless and should not, therefore, be prohibited nor unconditionally expunged. I see no one claiming that date linking is essential. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 19:36, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. There's no reason to totally prohibit linking of years, so Support a relaxation of the MoS in this context (also note that it's guideline, always has been, so if I decide to link a few years, it doesn't really matter).--Sean|Black 19:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The current guidlines specifically do not unconditionally prohibit date linking at all, that is a misleading exaggeration. Martin 19:53, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I know that, but Bobblewik seems to think that it does. Like, I said, I don't think it does any harm.--Sean|Black 19:56, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You misrepresent what I think. Bobblewik 20:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support --Revolución (talk) 21:47, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain There is no absolute prohibition on linking to years or months, some time ago I thought that linking all years was a good thing, however Bobblewick's aproach to delink months and years on sight is one I agree with at the moment. It is possible tht a less obtrusive linking and displaying mechanism for dates would change my view. Rich Farmbrough. 15:42, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If there is no absolute prohibition against linked years and months, then there is zero justification for Bobblewik and DESeigel going around to articles they otherwise have no interest in merely to delink the dates. Certainly not to thousands of such articles over the course of a week. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 13:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - I think that's implicit in my discussion, above, but I wanted to be clear. Nandesuka 15:47, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I'd like to see the MoS changed to suggest when it is appropriate instead of saying "never". I agree that it usually isn't appropriate to link to a year, but didn't like seeing articles I had just authored get visited by the assisted editor. ++Lar: t/c 23:14, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The MoS does say that! Martin 23:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well then I sort of wish that Bobblewik hadn't visited the brand new articles I worked on when he did. Some of the dates links were good ones, in my view. Still support revision of the MoS, and less automated editing of dates till this is clarified. ++Lar: t/c

Oppose making this change to the MoS. There is no blanket prohibition to linking years when relevant. I believe that most of the years I see linked add nothing to understanding the article. I get irritated when someone comes along and links every occurrence of every year in an article I've just finished working on. I also think it's distracting to see years of publication all linked in a discography or bibliography. Now, I don't go looking for year links to unlink, but I do remove them if I notice someone has just linked every year in an article, or if I think the year links are distracting in the context. -- 65.8.6.97 19:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly oppose linking to dates in every article, whether it be on the first occassion or not. Say there is an article on a popular muisc album released in 2004 and 2004 is linked to the article '2004'. What could anyone possibly gain from this link, except perhaps some confusion? In some cases it can help but for the vast majority its pointless and can be confusing. --SaltyWater 00:47, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support. First occurrence to be linked, only. User:Noisy | Talk 00:50, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. This is another thing that editors should take care of on a case by case basis. If too many things are linked in an article, leave the incidental years unlinked. If an average amount of things are linked, either way is fine, leave it how the original writer had it. —siro χ o 12:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose; the logic of whether to link something is clear: link only things that are relevant to the article. In most cases, a link to a year links to a page that is largely irrelevant to the context of the article. I support leaving WP:MOSDATE as is, since it reflects this logic (it does not say that linking years is prohibited.) I would however support a slight change of wording (explaining when exactly years should be linked). - Liberatore(T) 16:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, but be reasonable. Years should be like other articles. Discouraging over-linking is good and should be made clear in the MoS. If an editor thinks that the year article provides some important background for the article that they are working on, however, link to it. Otherwise don't. Jkelly 16:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose changing the MoS. I am convinced that year links are normally useless, and if it weren't for the date preferences thing, it would never have become normal to link them. Stephen Turner (Talk) 17:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Wikipedia is way, way overlinked as it is. I find it extremely annoying to follow a link and find nothing that adds or extends the article I was reading. I used to link individual years myself, simply because it seemed to be the norm, but I never checked policy. I commend Bobblewik for bringing this up. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose for all the very good reasons already given. - SoM 18:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strict support: I do not think MOS needs to be saying "link 'em all" nor "link few." I think that we should link them at the editors' discretion. The question should be "is it useful?" If an editor believes that it is, then we are the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Geogre 19:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support I think linking dates to the ' year in subject ' eg [[1987 in music|1987]] in an article related to music, gives the reader a link that provides extra context. --Alf ^melmac 18:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So how do you combat PoV-pushers?

I'd like to here from as many people as possible on this - what have people found to be the most successful tactics against users are trying to promote certain points of view within articles over others? Dan100 (Talk) 20:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

WOW! You find those quite a bit on most of the religious pages. A particularly long example of one editor pushing a POV is on Talk:Bahá'í Faith. If you go there you'll find 3 or 4 archives worth of discussion and a good example of a learning curve. At first the editors argued and frequently went off topic. Then they started turning to the manual of style for reference. Then, more recently, they started bringing in outside editiors and administrators who's claim to be neutral rests on their belonging to another religion.

These seem to help, and the nice thing about outsiders is they bring a fresh perspective. And if there's a particularly difficult edit to make because of a POV pusher, then it's really nice when the outsider just goes ahead and makes it because they are free of rediculous accusations of underhanded behavior (the ad hominum logical fallacy). LambaJan 22:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It helps a lot to be rigourous about citation oneself, and insist on the same from others. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:54, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps my question is - what do you do when you have been doing that, but they carry on regardless? Dan100 (Talk) 09:39, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Haven't figured that out yet. lol.

Yes, Jmabel. That very much helps.

In that last example, one editor recently asked "Is there anyplace to take this for arbitration?" but nobody followed up on that. It can be very difficult because, as I'm sure you know from your situation, one person can become an army and (best case scenerio) cause the other editors of a topic to be less productive in adding quality articles because they're too busy protecting one part of it from POV. LambaJan 20:29, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I just found a template that may be helpful, depending on your situation: Template:Protected. LambaJan 02:43, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The template only tells part of the story. Admins can protect pages to prevent editing, but admins are reluctant to protect pages except to allow a cooling off period, because it goes against the "wikispirit". Rich Farmbrough. 15:45, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The unhelpful answer is that Wikipedia proceeds by "conversion, not coercion" (for the most part) and you must convince the POV pusher. There's no other real way. If they will engage on the talk page (or their own), and if you can get other editors who are obviously not in complete agreement with, sometimes that will convince them. Never just revert, at least not more than once. Rewrite their material, never remove it completely. Respect their point of view; the rewrite may tone it down, may qualify it, may introduce opposing material, but what their main point was should not be obliterated and should still be clearly stated. Find sources FOR them: if they write "George W. Bush is widely regarded as dumb" change that to "Left-wing columnist Molly Ivins wrote 'George W. Bush is not the smartest guy to come along in over 200 years.'" That retains the point that was being made but takes the spin off it by qualifying it as a) an opinion, b) by a non-neutral source. If they've written ten paragraphs of POV in a fifteen-paragraph article, boil it down to a single paragraph. Oh, and do make a point of pointing out the Wikipedia policies on verifiability, neutrality, and citing sources, as many new contributors have not read them, and, believe it or not, if you can get them to read them it sometimes does change their behavior.

The key is to prove to them that they are not confronting a pack of censors determined to obliterate controversial opinions, or anything like that. You must retain their material, but keep it in proportion, etc.

No, it doesn't always work. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been concerned by this for a while now. All our current methods for dealing with POV-pushers are rooted in a basic assumption of good faith. However, this simply does not - and cannot - apply to all POV-pushers. Some people are here specifically for the purpose of pushing their POV, and will resort to any means necessary. Recently, it has been brought to my attention that one particularly prolific POV-pusher may be getting paid to edit wikipedia. How do we deal with cases like that? -- Nikodemos (f.k.a. Mihnea) 09:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

General "big spoiler" policy

The articles The Mousetrap (about Agatha Christie's play) and Diabolique (famous movie with a big ending twist) both deal with entertainment where the authors requested the audience not to spoil the big secret with other people that have not yet seen the movie. Knowing the secret detracts from the fun of those entertainment forms. And while we could have a stance of "no secrets here, information wants to be free", or "we'll just put a spoiler disclaimer up", so far the authors of those 2 articles have respected the authors wishes, and refrained from spoiling the surprise here. Which leads me to magical secrets, and my question: With magic tricks, too, the audience has less fun when it knows the secret. And with magic tricks, too, the autor or performer would prefer if people that know the secret wouldn't tell it to everybody else. Yet, for magical tricks, the consensus among wikipedians seems to be "those secrets have to be revealed, a spoiler disclaimer will just do it". What does the general community think about this, is it okay to respect the autor's requests in one field and disregard them in another field? Isn't this an inconsistent state? Peter S. 17:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We've never been particularly good at consistency in matters like this. I suspect that if you get people talking about it, hopefully people will go the route of distributing information rather than preserving fun. This is an Encyclopedia, not a tourbook :) --Improv 18:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In general, this is what the {{spoiler}} template is for. We don't deliberately preserve the surprise for movies or magic tricks; I'm a bit surprised that we have articles that leave out such important information. We presume that our readers are capable of deciding for themselves whether or not–once warned–they want to read the spoilers. See The Usual Suspects, for instance. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:40, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO, preserving the audience's entertainment is not a good reason for not containing some information. Perhaps we can present it in a tactful way (eg, The Mousetrap ending if need be), but to not include the information anywhere in WP is going against our charter of being an encyclopaedia, and hence a repository of human knowledge. Stevage 19:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks for your answers. Peter S. 18:48, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any prior revelation of any content in a narrative will, to some extent, "spoil" the enjoyment of watching the work unfold for the first time.

Even a statement like "Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue opens with a multi-octave clarinet glissando" has at least a little "spoiler" effect if you've never heard the work before. Generally speaking, anyone who wants to experience a work with a completely "unspoiled" perspective should avoid looking up any information about it beforehand.

And a story can be "spoiled" even if the twist is not revealed. I once read a story about which I can remember nothing except that the introduction to the story collection, in praising the author's skill, and mentions story in which "the surprise is not revealed until the very last word of the story." Even though the surprise was not revealed (and even though I resisted the temptation to flip to the end)I read the whole story tensely anticipating being bowled over by something amazing in that last word. And it was a disappointment, because the build-up had led me to expect more. I still remember the last sentence, which was "What's the use of luggage to a leopard?" (The gimmick is that until the last word you didn't realize that the narrator is a leopard).

Anyway, I think the Wikipedia spoiler warning is necessary and sufficient. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:User Bill of Rights edit war

Please keep an eye on Wikipedia:User Bill of Rights, which is undergoing edit and redirect attacks. Apparently some people can't discuss the topic and feel the need to hide it or mark it as Rejected while discussion is still under way. (SEWilco 16:51, 2 January 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Right, I found that out the hard way... I went there, found an article that was (IMO) kind of bad-looking and had some questionable wording, spent some time to try to pretty it up, got smacked down. Since the smack-downer is a senior editor I figured, OK, whatever, just take down the RfC so people won't waste time on this, but he hasn't (last time I looked)... whatever, I just wish someone would take down the RfC. It's not my place to do it, but people are still going there and wasting their time on an RfC that is not "real"... which is too bad. Herostratus 11:46, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Main namespace redirects to wikipedia namespace

Hi, we have the style-guide Wikipedia:Avoid self-references to keep the Wikipedia namespace separate from the encyclopedia one. However consider redirects such as AfD which redirect the user automatically to the Wikipedia namepace. Rather than a redirect should they be a link on the page using the {tl|selfref}} template, e.g.:

{{selfref|In Wikipedia, AfD may refer to [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion]]}}, displayed as:

? Thanks/wangi 14:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, I'll be bold and edit AfD to test the water... Thanks/wangi 17:32, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CSD: Could blatant advertising be added?

Sometimes, you get blatant advertising, but as it isn't in CSD, it has to go through 7 days of AfD. Can we just put this up for speedy? Sceptr e ^(Talk) 15:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Others, including me, have proposed it before, but the concern was that articles that are merely enthusiastic or biased towards the person or company will be deleted. However, blatant spam or advertising would have no encyclopedic content whatsoever, not just biased content. I think that the criteria should be based on whether there is anything in the article that can be salvaged in a rewrite. -- Kjkolb 16:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which is generally more likely to be discovered in Afd, not speedy. I think this one is never going to be on Csd, for that one reason - and it is a valid one, however annoying watching adverts go by on Afd can be. OTOH if policy changes, and it can be Csd'd, I will not complain because IMHO the articles will eventually be written if the topic is worthy. KillerChihuahua^?!? 23:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:User anti-anon

this discussion has been copied from Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia

please add {{user anti-anon}} to your user page if you agree with the statement that user registration should be required to edit articles.

Once you do that you will be automatically added to Category:Wikipedians against anonymous editing.

This is my only major criticism of Wikipedia and upon the institution of the new requirement that users must register before creating articles, I think this may be our opportunity to make the final step.

Just look at Vandalism in Progress or to the History page of any major page that gets a high level of vandalism and you will see the vast majority of vandals are IP addresses. --Revolución (talk) 00:57, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also look at recent changes, you will see a whole host of good anon edits. Making people register will not stop vandalism. Plus vandalism is pretty easy to deal with. Wikipedia has grown from nothing to what it is today in a few short years by allowing anon edits. Changing that is a major change in the way we do things and it simply will not happen just because a few people put a silly template on their user page. 01:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not arguing the making people register will stop vandalism. I am saying that it will reduce vandalism. And vandals are harder to track when they have a hard-to-remember IP address. I wrote the section in this article called "anonymous editing", please read it. --Revolución (talk) 01:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it willreduce good editing. I'd never have joined Wikipedia if i had had to register before making my first edit, and this is probably true of quite a few. Vandalism really isn't much of a problem. Especially as we now have semiprotection. it is simply not worth putting off potential good editors in order to reduce a problem which is easy for us to deal with anyway. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 01:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would've joined. In fact, if someone doesn't want to join Wikipedia because they have to register, they're not very interested in the goal of making a good encyclopedia. Registration is a simple and easy task, you don't even need to check your email for a confirmation message, your account is created on the spot. --Revolución (talk) 04:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know registration is easy. But I didn't know that until I registered, and I'm naturally distrusting of web sites that ask for registration - as are lots of other people. -- unsigned comment

Really? Then how do you account for someone like Louis Epstein 12.144.5.2 (talk · contribs · count) who "never register for registration-required websites,as a matter of principle". Maybe you think someone who before deciding to leave Wikipedia, having made 3849 edits from 2003-08-04 is somone who's "not very interested in the goal of making a good encyclopedia"....

Even if we're only talking about anon. who's only edits are spelling correction. That's better than not having them at all. A lot of feq. editors starts off as spelling correction anon. -- KTC 02:17, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And I simply don't agree with your assertion that vandalism is not a problem on Wikipedia. It's everywhere. --Revolución (talk) 04:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I I agree we have a lot of vandalism. But it's very easy to correct. Far too easy for us to think about requiring registration IMO. But the point I'm making above is not that requiring registration is wrong. (Although I feel at the moment that it is) it's that trying to push for registration by adding a template to your userpage is wrong and stupid. The only way to get anything done is by the use of a proper debate. Adding this template is more akin to voting that debating and voting is evil. 12:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Debate has been tried before. All that happens is the admin will direct you to "perennial proposals". --Revolución (talk) 21:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where's the template for those of us who believe that anonymous editing should be encouraged, as it's the number-one source of spelling fixes? --Carnildo 23:27, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have created Wikipedia:Wikiproject no anonymous editing. If you agree, please join. --Revolución (talk) 21:49, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is this really what Wikiprojects are for? And it isn't going to happen. --Golbez 22:09, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is this really what WikiProjects are for? --Revolución (talk) 01:10, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd *rather* have anon editing - if we require registration then the vandals will just create accounts and be harder to spot. Triona 02:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about Wikipedia:Wikiproject Wikiprojects are not for campaigning —Ilyan e p (Talk) 03:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You all do realize that non-logged-in editors are less anonymous than registered editors, right? Unless Revolucion is advocating requiring real names at a minimum, the proposal is in effect advocating more anonymity, not less. Usernames benefit the editor, at the expense of the site - more resources are required to handled a registered editor, blocking them requires more care and thought, identifying when they are the "same person" is more difficult, etc. Revolucion, have you read the material in perennial proposals on this? Because you havn't responded to most of the arguments that have been put forward... JesseW, the juggling janitor 01:21, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to limit requests for adminship

This is a simple proposal with the intention of limiting the need for request for adminship votes - Only two requests for adminship for the same user should be allowed within six months - after which there is a 6 month waiting period. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Triona (talk • contribs)

Six months? Way too much, in my opinion—I've only been on Wikipedia for a little more than six months! One month or so might by okay, but I don't think quick renominations after a failed one are so common as to warrant a hard limit.--Sean|Black 07:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is m:instruction creep. Quick renominations are generally shot down in short order, and usually don't stay on the RfA page for more than a day. --Carnildo 08:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, this hasn't been a significant problem, and it seems like instruction creep. -Greg Asche (talk) 20:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why are "talk" pages tabbed "discussion?"

This confuses me. Shouldn't either the tab read "talk" or the page names start as "Discussion:Star Wars Trilogy" or whatnot? MattShepherd 13:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Talk" is used for historical reasons; since the text on the tab can be changed, the more intuitive "discussion" was used. --cesarb 16:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anon user still creating new pages

The following discussion is copied from Jimbo's talk page. Please continue the discussion here:

I'm not sure where to put this, but I'll try here. We have an anon user going round creating new short-stub articles on cricketers on talk pages - as the article page does not exist he cannot create them in the main article namespace. (This user also goes round adding spurious claims that various people are vegans and various non-cricketers have played cricket - so it's all rather odd as to why he doesn't create an account, join WP:Cricket and cut out the vandalism.) Could the functionality that doesn't allow anons to create articles be extended so that they can't create talk pages (or at least can't create talk pages where the article does not exist)? jguk 12:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of anons point out errors by posting on talk pages, they probably wouldn't bother signing up and are likely too timid to edit the main page. Kappa 14:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not on the talk pages of articles that don't yet exist, they don't! jguk 18:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that anonymous users should not be allowed to create talk pages for non-existent articles. --Tantalum T e lluride 18:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As do I, however I agree with Kappa that they SHOULD be able to create talk pages about already existing articles. However, this seems like a lot of work for the devs, for what seems to be a small problem. -Greg Asche (talk) 20:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Maybe we should ask one of them how much work it would require. I'll be right back. --Tantalum T e lluride 23:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've asked a developer to comment[3]. --Tantalum T e lluride 00:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is this really such a large problem that it requires a software change? Where's the fire?;) —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 01:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've noticed only one talk page without an accompanying article recently. Then again, I haven't done much RC patrol lately, either. So... I don't know. I guess this isn't much of a problem at the present time. --Tantalum T e lluride 02:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen this user before and it is always the 210.55.x.x range. He tends to changes names in articles and prefers to changes the names people are married to. In the history I saw a couple of Talk pages being created about cricket players as well which I marked for speedy delete and they got deleted as per request. So my advice is to speedy delete them, because the other contributions are a form of vandalism, so I am sceptical about the content of those cricket players as well. The reason for the user being anonymous is probably the vandalism since it's a dynamic IP address so a week later you'll see him return with another IP. KittenKlub 11:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A few more facts might be useful:

The user concerned is known as Vegan vandal, although not all his edits are vandalism, and not all his vandalism is about vegans. His IP address changes several times a day.
The cricket articles he creates are ungrammatical sub-stubs, however they are verifiably true and not vandalism, and they do helpfully put the cricketer into categories according to the teams he's played for. There are usually a few new articles a day. Look for new pages at Special:Recentchangeslinked/User:Stephen_Turner/CricketersTalk to find them.
I think we all agree that anonymous users should be able to create new talk pages. The question is whether they should be able to create talk pages of articles that don't yet exist.

Stephen Turner (Talk) 11:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Probably a problem, but this seems to be attacking it with a hammer. Is there evidence of this going on from more than one user? Can we create a special page instead that hunts for article talk pages without articles? -- nae'blis _(talk) 18:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Use of Islamism and Islamist

Islamism has been coined by replacing the term Islamic fascism by many neo-conservative and anit-Muslim writers. The same way, they have also coined the term Islamist from Islamic fascist. Now these terms have been used by many writers to refer to any Islamic organization or any Muslim person. Most of the people with Muslim background have been refered to as Islamist they could be Muslim fundamentalist but they are not Islamic fascist. I would request that Wilikipedia review use of these two term and replace them with Islamic, Muslim, Islamic fundamentalism or Mulim fundamentalist as appropriate. The defination of fascism and fascist should also be reviewed in this context. User:Siddiqui 18:39, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's not an accurate origin. See: Islamism on Dictionary.com. There's no more reason to say that the words are formed from "Islam" and "fascist" and "facism" than to say that they are formed from "Islam" and "marxism", "marxist", "intergrist", "republicanism", "falangist", "falangism" all these ideology words are formed this way.

These terms are in some contexts correctly applied to all muslims (see the defs), but that usage would be confusing and should probably be avoided. But the usage of "Islamism" and "Islamist" for "Islamic fundamentalism" and "Islamic fundamentalist" is probably more accurate than fundamentalist, which is an analogous use from Christian theology.--Samuel J. Howard 21:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another data point, though I'm not sure anyone cares, is that yesterday's NY Times included Islamist in a headline. I don't think they'd use it if they thought it was horribly pejorative or linked to facism.--Samuel J. Howard 01:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed guideline: Wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia

The proposed guideline Wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia (talk) is being developed in response to concerns that such lists are sometimes used as subterfuges to bypass the Wikipedia policies of WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and WP:V. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just apply WP:NPOV and WP:V to lists rigidly. Make sure every list has NPOV inclusion criteria and that every entry is properly sourced. Problem solved - no need for a new policy, jguk 20:36, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wish it was that easy... List are a special type of subset of articles that requires special attention. We do have problems enforcing WP:NV, WP:NOR and WP:V in lists. That is the reason for this proposed guideline. It was developed after experiencing what you may call subterfuges to bypass policy in several lists and the frustration of not being able to do so under current guidelines for content articles. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

etiquette and VfD

When an article is added to VfD, contributors to that article do not necessarily know of the VfD nomination. If the contributor is busy with other wikitasks or is otherwise distracted from visiting said article, that contributor might not be able to chime in.

I have come across on article in VfD that is nearly 3 years old and has close to 1000 edits. I feel compelled to contact many of the contributors and alert them of the VfD nomination - but I also wonder if such solicitation is considered poor etiquette in Wikipedia. My messages to these contributors can be phrased in a way so as not campaign - such as "I just wanted to inform you that the article insert article name here has been nominated for VfD. I saw that you made contributions to this article, so I thought you'd like to know. Kingturtle"

Is such action wrong? Is it considered campaigning? Are there any rules preventing this? I think it is important that contributors to an article have the right to know that their work is under review.

Please advise, Kingturtle 19:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you contact people interested in the article without regard to the content of their edits, this is fine. It's quite common to alert people about pending actions for articles they take an interest in.

What isn't ok is to contact only people who you think would agree with your own view -- although I've seen that happen as well.

And lastly, I wouldn't assume that people that work on an article would all vote against its deletion; there are a few articles that I think are not fitting for wikipedia and that's precisely why I pay them such attention. Also, if it's a merge request rather than just a deletion, most people wouldn't have a problem with it. Also, keep in mind that VfD are not really votes to begin with; although voting is encouraged, an admin has the last word and may go against the vote outcomes last I checked. --Quasipalm 21:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your advice. i don't want to politicize or campaign, but i do think it is important that contributors know their work may be up for deletion. what they do with that information is up to them. Kingturtle 18:12, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Verifiabilty

There is a redraft of WP:Verifiability on Wikipedia:Verifiability/temp. The new version is intended to be a clearer statement of existing policy, not a change. So far the response has largely been positive - but there are a small number of issues to be addressed before it goes live. Constructive comments would be welcome on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/temp, jguk 20:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vote in progress on "City names" guideline in Manual of style

This has probably come up before, but just in case you haven't heard, some editor named Serge Issakov has again raised the issue of whether there should be a separate policy for American city names, even though most American editors (myself included) have no problem with the existing policy and there was already a vote on this three months ago. Please review the arguments and vote at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names). Thanks. --Coolcaesar 21:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image with visible copyright information & advertorial

User:Discomike has uploaded a bunch of images with visible copyright and advertorial information on them, such as Image:Acton Depot March 2002 2.JPG and others, all linked to EN pages . They're great photos, but what do we make of the spam on the bottom right of each of them. (Clearly, I think it sucks & they should be deleted, or cropped). Is there a policy on this? --Tagishsimon (talk)

The user probably isn't aware what the implications of licencing his photos as {{cc-by-sa-2.0-uk}} are... Where as normally he'd put that (c) on to prevent casual copying the licence in fact allows (nay, promotes) copying, distribution, derivative works and commercial use of the photo.

It's a mindset thing I'd say... Perhaps a bit of helpful discussion & education on the user talk page? Thanks/wangi 11:52, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Plus of course you can crop the photo and overwrite (derivative work). Thanks/wangi 11:56, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I will get around to cropping them if I have time. I see that Wikipedia:Image use policy Rule of Thumb point 8 says "Don't put photo credits in articles or on the images themselves; put them on the description page." On that basis, as they currently stand, they look like speedies to me. --Tagishsimon (talk)

No that does not make them valid speedies as that is not an entry on WP:CSD. ONLY, I repeat, ONLY the criteria on WP:CSD can be used to make a valid speedy deletion claim! ALKIVAR™

13:00, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. Yes. I'll put them on WP:IFD then. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Please, only if they are redundant to images we already have (with equal or better licence). There is absolutely nothing to gain in deleting unique images simply because of a copyright symbol which can be cropped out. Thanks/wangi 13:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They'll go on IFD because they breach policy. If they get cropped first as replaced with compliant images, then well and good. If not, take it as part of the normal ebb & flow of image addition and deletion. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Wikipedia:Notability (websites)

I've pulled down a rewrite at Wikipedia:Notability (websites), leaning heavily on Wikipedia:Notability (companies and corporations) for insiration. I've tried to make the guidelines broader so that they can be applied to any form of web content, rather than focusing on specifics. To my mind, the goal shouldn't be to set bars to take account of particular examples, but rather to outline existing policy and consensus at various places. Feel free to read the new version and comment on the talk page. Steve block talk 12:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copyrights question

It may be a silly question, but is it OK that copyrighted materials (books, magazines...) could be sources for articles? Doesn't this violate Wikipedia:Copyrights?. 212.98.150.6 13:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's no problem, or at least there only is if you copy the text so closely that it would be considered a derivative work. If you cite the book as a source but describe its conclusions in your own words, it's fine. (I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice blah blah). Stephen Turner (Talk) 13:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Raw information cannot be copyrighted, merely the words or images used to describe it: hence we are free to take the information from copyrighted sources so long as we do the work of describing it differently. Physchim62 (talk) 15:18, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Physchim62's phrasing of this point is very well-put; it is vital to "do the work" of creating original text rather than making superficial changes. Monicasdude 15:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

birth_place in infobox

If person was born in a place that back then was in country X, but is now in country Y, what should be written in infobox? A currently geographical place (for instance: Alexandria, Egypt) or historical geographical place (for instance: Alexandria, Roman Empire)? Of course, the article clarifies this matter, the article says that the person was born in Alexandria which, back then, was part of Roman Empire, and is now in Egypt. But, what about infoboxes which should present short but accurate info? Infobox for Pope Adrian VI says "birthplace=Utrecht, Netherlands", and article clarifies that back then it was "Low German-speaking part (whose inhabitants considered themselves to be part of the German nation) of the Holy Roman Empire". On the other case, Nikola Tesla article says "Smiljan, Gospić, Austrian Empire (now Croatia)". To be frank, this sounds a bit funny to me because Austrian Empire does not exist, but I'm not the one to deliver guidelines :-) Therefore I ask, which style of the two should be followed? Currently geographical place or historical geographical place? --Dijxtra 16:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can not say he was born in a nation or city that did not exist at the time. But you can say something like 'born in Judea (modern day Israel)'. A more modern example would be 'born in Czechoslovakia, in what is now the Czech Republic. --mav 19:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't that too long for a infobox? So, Pope Adrian VI article should be fixed? --Dijxtra 19:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of Adrian, "Netherlands" is defendable as that can be seen as a descriptive term ("Low countries"). However, as Utrecht was more or less an independent state then, a simple "birthplace=Utrecht" suffices for the infobox. Especially because more complete info is given in the article. Note that his place of death was already given as "Rome" only. Eugene van der Pijll 10:56, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think that including both is a good idea, but if we have to be more brief, saying "historical Czeckoslovakia" would be better than saying Czech Republic (because it establishes the historical context better). --Improv 01:40, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... but, wouldn't it be better to have precise geographical location in infobox, and to establish the context in the article? Do you think that this (what ever we find appropriate in this discussion) should be made into a guideline, to make infoboxes uniform? --Dijxtra 10:59, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively, wait and see if Template:Infobox Biography survives this TfD vote before struggling with the issue. User:Noisy | Talk 11:40, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, thing is, not all articles use the template explicitly. Nikola Tesla article has just a bunch of code, not the infobox template as such. So I think this matter needs to be discussed and cleared. BTW, hasn't it survived one TfD vote before? Just curious... --Dijxtra 15:59, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it makes the most sense to give the name of the country or place the person was born, with the name it had at the time that person was born, link to a reference for that place, and skip the "present day" add-on. The trouble with all of these "present day", "currently", "modern day", "which is now", etc, type of phrases, is that they all have to be located and changed every time some country changes its name or borders. In my edits in this encyclopedia, I assume it's going to be around and still read, and still useful, 200 years from now (assuming humanity isn't wiped out by some natural or man-made disaster). If it can be written in a way that won't need to be changed later, as opposed to a way that almost certainly will change, then I think it should be. Aumakua 05:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's why we're here :-) To update wikipedia on change of borders or country names. Which does not happen so often, right? I mean, every current prime minister or president has word "current" in his infobox... --Dijxtra 09:39, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IMO this is a good reason not to use an infobox. this kind of complex situation can be better described in article text than in any infobox. DES ^(talk) 00:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget that you can pipe a link. For example [[İstanbul|Constantinople]] (not the best example, because there really is an article called Constantinople, but I'm sure you get the point). - Jmabel | Talk 07:40, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)

Today someone put Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) again under {{proposed}} flag. If I'm allowed a personal remark: this is shameful that such quintessential guideline can't be made stable, on the other hand: IMHO this was the right decision, the guideline has been in bad shape for some time - who wants to help out? --Francis Schonken 00:54, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (thorn)

I just started the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (thorn) (talk) guideline proposal, in an attempt to break of a small part of the problems re. WP:UE --Francis Schonken 10:16, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pokémon Card Game - Copyright

How much of a Pokémon Card can be included. I want to use a picture of the card and its text, to discuss battle strategies on wikibooks. How much can I use? Gerard Foley 01:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IANAL, and you might want to take this up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject fair use. That said, it will depend heavily on factors like:

How hi-res a picture?
Are you only quoting material relevant to what you are writing?
How large is your derivative work compared to the copyrighted material you are using?

In any event, be extremely clear about acknowledging copyright. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addressing the Hierarchy Trap, an informal proposal

Here's something new. Listen:

Statement of the problem

There are people who are long-timers, excellent and productive editors, and experts in a difficult and import field. These people are very important to Wikipedia.

It goes along with that these people are often the types who do not suffer fools gladly. Some might have a tendency to be a bit crusty, even abrupt, and so forth.

Therefore, these people would make poor administrators.

BUT -- as it stands now, the only way to "rise up" and get formal recognition in Wikipedia is to become an administrator. Recognition of one's value is satisfying for most of us. Nothing wrong with that – it’s healthy, human, and good.

Also, these experienced, valuable people might want to have a strong ability to protect erudite work from people who don't meet their expectations of suitability, which are often high due to their meatspace experience of working with other highly qualified people. (Nothing wrong with that, either.)

Therefore, for one or both of these reasons, some of these people want to become administrators. Some of them are administrators. Which might be a problem.

Obviously, we want administrators to be decisive and effective at protecting the encyclopedia, but I don't think we want my-way-or-the-highway types as administrators. (For one thing, those types often create more problems than they solve. I've seen this in meatspace, and I bet you have too.)

Administrators need emotional intelligence, people skills, communication skills, patience, the ability get things done crisply and efficiently while working through process. Listening, considering, negotiating, deciding, explaining, that sort of thing.

Almost the opposite of the skills that a focused, erudite, scholar who

What to do?

A proposal

Well, in meatspace, they have Management Track and Technical Track, right? I know, I know... meatspace. Still, they have had to deal with issues like this.

Anyway, what about the creation of a new category of user: Senior Editor.

I know I will probably be immediately attacked and consumed by a host of white blood cells for suggesting this, but before I dissolve into a mass of protoplasm let me state the case.

Let's face it, there are people who are de facto Senior Editors, and these people de facto get more respect and leeway than new people, like it or not. This is just human and organizational nature.
I one is anti-hierarchical or has an anarchist bent, one should welcome the existence of "tribal elders" who have moral but not coercive authority.
On the other hand, if one is pro-hierarchical, one should welcome the formal co-option into the hierarchy of major contributors.
And if one is just pro-encyclopedia, recognition of people who are major contributors can’t be bad.
~~Step 3: PROFIT!!!~~So its win-win

So what would it MEAN? I’m not sure.. I can feel the antibodies eating me already, must hurry...

Maybe... for starters, they have a little symbol appended to their sig, or something (strictly enforced that no-one else can use). So one knows with whom one is dealing.
Maybe... immunity from 3RR enforcement? On articles in area of expertise, anyway?
Maybe... I dunno… access to a special board where they can get speedy admin support?
Maybe... some limited sysop privileges (if the software supports this), such as partial protection of pages (subject of course to review) or whatever?
I dunno... what else?

It should be REAL hard to get this status, harder than getting admin status, with a real vetting process… maybe something like:

Minimum one year (maybe should be two years)
Some minimum number of edits, such as 2500 or even 5000, but not too high, edit count can be misleading.
"Major useful contributor" to articles on... I don’t know what word to use, vacademic topics" or something... I’m just thinking, expert on Medieval Turkish Literature, not expert on Morning Cartoon Shows Of The 1990’s, not that that’s not valuable too, I’m just saying. "Major useful contributor", that could be quantified somehow... lines of text in major articles, I dunno, something…
Plus of course voting and all like admins.
Plus, after clearing backlog, number admitted to this status should be really low, like just a very few each month…

Urgh… antibodies... I can feel the hate... must... finish... anyway if Senior Editor sounds too pompous it could be Lord High Tutnum or whatever... …urk... glurg... just... a... thought... gahkrggg... Herostratus 17:33, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Your solution to the hierarchy trap is to create a new step in the hierarchy? :) Talrias (t | e | c) 17:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Herostratus 01:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My gut instinct was to say no, but that's a shotgun response. I'm like this for most things I haven't thought about, but you've established credibility with your anticipation of opposition. I'll at least offer you the technical side.

This would be easy to difficult to implement: at the very least, you create a new user group that has absolutely no extra permissions. Part of the problem is that getting turned into this "Senior Editor": only Beaurucrats have the ability to grant user groups, and that adds more load on them.

I believe this is the main problem with your proposal: it seeks to grant a title without associated priviledges, and perhaps that is too much trouble just for "reputation". Rollback for certain users would be nice, but I think that got shot down a while ago. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 01:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting proposal but, within the present system, it seems to offer nothing except for recognition. If the cap fits, the individual becomes an admin. If not, let the editors work quietly (or not, depending on temperament) to protect their "turf". Among the others working in the same field, there will be an informal recognition and peers may rally round if a newcommer disturbs the equilibrium. If you could change the culture here, you would be able to offer limited or full protection for pages that have achieved a maximal standard of accuracy. I suppose a senior editor role might administer this new system, deciding when pages deserve the protection and hearing argument from editors on proposals for amendments or insertions. But the chances of such a system being adopted are remote. David91 05:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the context of the recent war that started over userboxes, and spread to other theatres of negative interaction, I suggested that several Wikipedians could benefit by reading The Mythical Man Month to understand challenges of learning management of large projects that have lots of objectives, and how many diverse people can get the job done by effectively utilizing the skills of the different contributors, and using communications wisely, to avoid too many people talking at each other ineffectively. Here is another place with participants who could also benefit from this perspective, since I am not convinced there is clear understanding of the hierarchical alternatives. User:AlMac|^(talk) 10:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So do we get the exclusive right to wear Imperial purple on state occasions? I don't think the formal idea of a senior editor is all that useful, because expertise is always in a subject-matter area. For example, I'm certainly more qualified than a random editor to write about Yiddish theatre, or Grunge rock, or Jorge Luis Borges, but I'm not particularly qualified to write about fundamental particles or the Norwegian language. I do think that it might be useful to come up with a more formal way of recognizing subject-matter expertise, but I don't see an easy way to do it. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah, maybe you're right... yes, purple, at Wikigatherings... actually, I was thinking, seriously, of a little graphic that attaches to one's sig... although graphics in sigs are not recommended. Could just be "S.E." or something, but how to police? Also could be (say) "S.E., History", but that's awfully broad, yet probably as narrow as you could easily get... I dunno... I don't really see an easy way to do it, either.Herostratus 06:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Small caps and Surnames

I see in February 2005 in Hong Kong and Macao that Surnames are written in Small caps. Is this a convention wikipedia uses? Should it in fact be done there? -- SGBailey 00:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is used for names in some languages which use the opposite name/surname order as English, to avoid confusion as to which is which (since the surname might be in its original place or might have been moved to the end). However, I think it's normal uppercase, not small caps. --cesarb 03:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, it's explained in the article you linked to: Family name#China, Hungary, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. --cesarb 03:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

shooting first before asking questions (blocks)

I've noticed that several fellow administrators have been blocking accounts without solid evidence of them being vandals. I mean, blocking names like "I will vandalize Wikipedia on wheels" is acceptable. But for accounts with less obvious names (such as "WheelsGoRound324"), I think that it is better to give them the benefit of the doubt. For example, a recent vandal has been defacing Australia-related articles under Australian-themed names. As a result, several administrators have responded by blocking new users with similar-themed names. While the blocks may have been legit, innocent users could have been caught in the crossfire. It is definitely possible that a legit Australian contributor decided to register at the wrong moment.

There is also a similar issue with impostors. For example, we have an administrator named Angela (talk · contribs). However, Angela is a very common given name. Are we going to automatically block all users who have "Angela" in their name?

I don't think that we should be so trigger-happy. Unless the usernames have bad-faith characteristics, we should not block them on sight.

I'd like to hear other users' thoughts on this. --Ixfd64 04:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you ask me, only offensive usernames should be banned on sight. There's just too much window for error if you do it any other way. --82.7.125.142 14:02, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked users can edit their own talk pages. One who is accidentally blocked can object there. --Wikiacc ¶ 20:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My User:RefBot got blocked two times without good reason. Blocks were complicated by admins who chose to use blocks despite their being incommunicado. That doesn't seem like good self-administration.
1. Once (by User:Curps who has no email) within minutes of creation on suspicion of being an impostor, although it had by then copied its definition from the supposed victim (my User:SEWilcoBot) and deleted that section of text from the supposed victim's home page (tinkering with victim's home page seems like an odd way for an impostor to not be noticed). Of course, I had no links yet to RefBot to confirm my ownership because the account's page was still being set up. Blocking admin requested confirmation of ownership, despite having no email address and having triggered the autoblocker which blocked all my normal access. User_talk:SEWilco#Blocked
2. RefBot got blocked (by User:David Gerard) with a message of "operating it to try to game the AC ruling" and log reason "(username created only to evade arbcom ruling)", both of which the blocker recognizes are not valid reasons because "Conditions are per person, not per username." Gerard apparently left on vacation, leaving the account on indefinite block; which doesn't matter because it's idle during a rewrite and I can use my other accounts until he gets back. User_talk:SEWilco#Blocked_with_poorly_defined_explanation User_talk:SEWilco#RefBot_blocked_erroneously Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive58#User:William_M._Connolley_14
- (SEWilco 02:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC))[reply]

By the way, there is currently a large ongoing discussion about a similar issue. You can view the discussion on the talk page of the administrators' noticeboard. --Ixfd64 17:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any further comments before the Wikipedia:Verifiability rewrite goes live?

Are there any further comments before the rewrite on Wikipedia:Verifiability/temp goes live? I don't want to rush things, I just want to be clear as to whether there are any outstanding points, and if so, what they are. Please put any comments on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/temp, jguk 11:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MP3s

How come they're not allowed for audio on Wikipedia? --82.7.125.142 13:54, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The encoding/decoding algorithms governing MP3s are patented (in the US and other countries that recognize software patents), and the licensing terms essentially mean there can never be such a thing as a legal open source MP3 player/recorder while those patents remain in force. In what is essentially a showing of solidarity, Wikipedia made a decision to avoid using an audio format that did not play well with the open source software community. Might I suggest you have a look at Ogg Vorbis? Dragons flight 14:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I myself prefer Ogg Vorbis. The compression is better and of course, like you said, it's open source and not covered by the MPEG patent. The problem is that few programs currently have the ability to record Ogg Vorbis, and I have no conversion utility to convert MP3 file. --82.7.125.142 14:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Media#Audio has some suggestions, though I have never tried to use them myself. Dragons flight 14:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You should not have to record an Ogg Vorbis file. Simply record a WAV file and convert it to Ogg Vorbis (or MP3 if that's what you want) later. --cesarb 15:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymous bots with no information?

(I've also posted this at Wikipedia talk:Bots) At the moment User:70.193.215.124 is making robot-like interlink edits, and getting a few wrong, but there is no information on what bot is running in the edit summary. The User page and talk page are empty, so I assume it's a user not-logged in. However is it good policy that robot edits can occur with insufficient information in the edit summary? In this case I want to alert the bot that it's sometimes messing up the interlink order. -Wikibob 14:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Something in bot interfaces sometimes causes anon edits by a logged-in bot. If the edits seem to be regular in timing it is more likely to be an anon bot. If the edits have very irregular timing it is more likely the quirk is involved, or a bot with manual approval from a human not trying to process stuff quickly. (SEWilco 03:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC))[reply]

"U.S." and "UK"

I was noticing in the article Filibuster that it uses the spellings "U.S." and "UK" consistently. It seems to me that common U.S. practice is to use "U.S." and "U.K." while common UK practice today is to use "UK" and "US", although there certainly are exceptions both ways; I don't think there are many people anywhere who would mix "U.S." and "UK".

The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (with its subsidiary article on spelling) is generally neutral on the question of British vs. American English, but (1) disapproves of mixing styles within an article. This makes sense. It also says (2) that British spelling should be used for articles on British topics and American spelling for articles on American topics. This also makes sense.

But what about article sections: if one section of a longer article is about American practices and another about British practices, as here? If policy 2 is extended to sections, policy 1 is violated for the article. But if it isn't, then all contributors to one section who are from the relevant country will have to write in the other national version of English, and will likely have trouble getting it right.

On the specific subject of "U.S." or "US", the Manual of Style (3) mandates the form "U.S." because it is useful to have a single form and that is the one most commonly used in that country. It does not say anything, that I can see, about "U.K." or "UK" (or any other acronyms / abbreviations / initialisms commonly written both with and without periods / full stops). If it is argued that the same reasons apply, policy 3 should logically be extended to prefer "UK"; but then this would violate policy 1 in articles like the one in question where both abbreviations are used.

If there is an existing style policy that addresses these conflicting pressures, please point me at it. If not, should there be? For myself, I'd rather see "US" and "UK" everywhere, but as that's already against policy, forget that; I'll just say that I do not advocate any particular choices on the issues raised here; I only suggest that they might be desirable.

66.96.28.244 01:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any problem with continuing with this inconsistency. 62.31.55.223 04:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"United States" or "U.S." in Category titles

I've proposed changing the category title Category:United_States presidential candidates to Category:U.S. presidential candidates (see proposal here). It looks like there's an opinion on the "Categories for deletion" page against changing. That's fine with me. But we need some consistency.

What I'm looking for is a consistent standard for Category titles when the name of the country starts the title. This isn't about Articles, Templates, or content (although it's not unrelated). If you look at Category:U.S. presidential elections you'll see both used.

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) says to use "United States" when in a list of countries or when using "…of the United States" or "…in the United States." But what I'm talking about is when "United States" starts the category name, such as Category:United States presidential candidates, or the like. Surf around near Category:United States presidential candidates and see what I mean.

—Mark Adler (markles) 13:40, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This debate is done and dusted. Abbreviations are deprecated and converting U.S. to United States in category names is one of the speedy correction criteria on categories for deletion.

There is no reason to have abbreviations in article, category, etc. titles. Avoiding ambiguity is the goal of an encyclopedia, and claiming "everyone knows what 'US' means" (which you are not necessarily doing, but would be the only rational counterargument) is americocentric. I could just as easily say "everyone should understand 'CAR' is the Central African Republic. Semiconscious · talk 10:02, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BIO

The current guidelines for inclusion set the audience at 5,000 (for book or actors alike, it appears.) The feeling is that this is much much too low. There's discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(people)#Total_audience_of_5.2C000_or_more, and even a straw poll. But polls are evil, so don't take part in that. - brenneman ^(t)^(c) 00:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymity

Is there an explanation somewhere in a policy or guideline page on an editor's "right" (for lack of a better term) to remain anonymous? A group of editors, including me, is being attacked by another editor (who has chosen to reveal his true identity) as "cowards" for not providing our real names, credentials, etc. android 79 13:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Check out the section on Usernames about real names vs. pseudonyms - I think that's what you want. Essentially, you're free to do so, though some people may complain based on personal preference. -- nae'blis _(talk) 21:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know its his true identity? Anyway, that's crazy... I'd never do that. The last thing I need is some disgruntled editor with a gun knocking on my door... Herostratus 06:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Changes on his personal website coincided with comments left on talk pages. Thanks for the tip, Nae'blis. That's not worded as strongly as I had hoped, but it least it's policy. android 79 07:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Limited administrators

I have created this policy proposal because of my recent observations about admin and community issues. Increasing vandalism and increasing admin disputes are not good. In any case I just want to let users know I've created this and maybe more discussion can go on there. Basically to summarize: some "limited admins" would have power to delete within 3 days, rollback, and would be encouraged to participate on admin noticeboards and the like. gren グレン ^? 13:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Repeated deletion/restoration

The template Template:User GWB has been speedily deleted 4 times (3 of which by Tony Sidaway), and restored 3 (by different people each time). This should not happen, becuase there is an ongoing discussion, with > 70% of votes from more than 70 users voting keep at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion. Check out the log here. I hope something will be done about this. I hope this is where to bring up this issue, because I couldn't think of anywhere else to.

Shardsofmetal ^{[ Talk | Contribs ]} 17:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I brought the mater up at WP:ANI, wher ethere has been more of a discussion. the next obvious stage is an RfC, but I frankly don't see any point to that -- Tony has read pleanty of comment on this, and he knows what the views of those who thought this action improper are. DES ^(talk) 20:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Attack templates

There is a discussion starting at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Attack templates about the possibility of adding templates that serve no purpose but to disparage an individual, group of people, or ethnic/religious/racial group to the criteria for speedy deletion. -- SCZenz 20:50, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Video game screenshots

Are screenshots of video games OK to use in articles or is there a copyright issue? --Revolución (talk) 21:27, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Generally these fall under Fair use and so need a proper justifiction. a screen shot of the game in an articel about the game, will usually qualify. DES ^(talk) 23:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about: Sectioning off of/possible banning of Fictional Universe articles

Information is, in general, good. But not all of it is really valuable.

And I, like many people, enjoy some computer/video games/science fiction/fantasy stories/worlds. But think about this: How much do articles like "Star Forge," "Luccia," or "Sarah Kerrigan" really add to our knowledge of the world?

I propose that there should be a separate "Fictional Universes" wiki. We know that games/movies like Star Wars, Final Fantasy and Lord of the Rings have influenced world pop culture, and that they often have huge amounts of detail, but with the goal of Wikipedia being useful knowledge, too much information about those things begins to seem frivolous.

Put another way, I don't think Wikipedia needs to be a competitor to Gamefaqs, or starwars.com, or battle.net.

I just think that Wikipedia, assuming it is an encyclopedia, might be best limited to at least real information about completely real things.

Please criticize/respond. --Zaorish 21:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am strongly opposed to this idea. First of all, we are an encyclopedia- and, as such, we need to contain encyclopediac information. Time and the Rani is perfectly encyclopediac. Second, anything that factions Wikipedia, as a community or an encylcopedia is a very, very, bad thing. So, again, I'm strongly opposed to this idea.--Sean|Black 22:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I support the idea to move this to a separate wiki. The information should not be lost, but it would be excellent to move it elsewhere. --Improv 22:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ummm no. Mememory alpha is worrying enough. The articles are not doing any harm and tend to be fairly accuret. As long as thier minor characters lists don't suddenly tern into lots of stubs I don't see a problem.Geni 23:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to adopt a mergist approach to these -- fewer larger articels are better than more smaller articles, particualrly stubs. I especially oppose the creation of stubs for minor fictional characters, adn will merge these with the appropriate article on the larger work. But fictional works are often of significant cultural importance and there is no simple way to draw the line between thsoe that are and those that are not. I do wish WP:FICT was more rigourously followed, however. DES ^(talk) 23:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where would Sherlock Holmes, Horatio Hornblower, Elizabeth Bennet, Tarzan, and Sam Spade go? Dsmdgold 23:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to discount you so lightly, but this is a perennial proposal and the subject of endless contention. See Wikipedia:Fancruft for example. This isn't changing overnight, and I personally favour the status quo. My policy is, if I see a topic about a fictional entity that is too obscure, I merge it with related entities into a summary/list article such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time characters. For what it's worth, I think Sarah Kerrigan is an excellent article consolidating plot information from diverse primary sources across many games (perhaps overdoing it a bit on the links). She may not be as notable as Link or Mario, but I hate to see good content obliterated. Deco 23:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is no problem with covering the subject matter of fictional characters on Wikipedia. The problem is instead how they are covered. It is mostly done with very little context—no attempt to firmly tie everything that is said to be true about the character to the works of fiction in which they are depicted. See Radioactive_Man_(Marvel_Comics) for an example of this flaw; excepting the word "fictional" in the intro sentence and the infobox details, the article is written as if the subject were real. No reference is made in the article text to a single writer, artist, or even comic book issue or title. See also the "character history" of Spider-Man, which starts with summarizing a plot about his parents having been spies that was not written until after over thirty years of publication history. These articles merely paraphrase fiction rather than describe it, and appear to be written from a fan perspective rather than a cultural historian.

Compare those with Captain Marvel, a recent featured article, or Superman. Both summarize the history of the characters in the real world, revealing the "facts" of fiction according to that framework. We need a very clear set of guidelines to make sure all articles about fictional characters are written in this manner. Postdlf 23:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, that's a problem, but that's what {{sofixit}} is for.--Sean|Black 23:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think both fiction-oriented and real-world-oriented presentation orders are each appropriate in different circumstances, sometimes both in one article. Summarization of the plot of a fictional work in chronological order is an integral part of many articles on books, movies, and other fictional works. On the other hand, an article should never exclusively summarize the fiction, but should also talk about the entity's history, practical aspects of its creation (e.g. influence on gameplay), and cultural impact. Deco 23:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just think that Wikipedia, assuming it is an encyclopedia, might be best limited to at least real information about completely real things. Someone better tell Brittanica that their article on Hamlet ain't encyclopedic. And I can't wait for the deletion wheel war on Jesus. android 79 23:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: the interest in "fiction-oriented" presentation, I think the chronology we should be most concerned with is real-world. A story written later but "taking place" earlier should be described as such, but the publication order should dictate the structure of the article; fictional canons are not our concern, but instead how the character has been used at different times. A true history of the character will only get obscured if the present bleeds into the past. Why should a recent story lead the info given about a character that has a much older body of work depicting him? Summarizing the plot in an article about a book is necessary and appropriate. But in an article about a murder mystery novel, for example, you wouldn't start the summary by describing who done it and how even though the murder is what happens first in fictional chronology, if the book reveals the murderer's identity last. The order in which things are revealed to the audience, whether within one work or across a series, is of utmost importance.

But the lack of real-world context is not only a problem of academic integrity, but an issue of copyright infringement. Both of the major comic book companies, as well as the Star Wars, Star Trek, and other sci-fi franchises have officially published numerous encyclopedia-style books about their characters and associated fictional universes. I suspect that many of the cruftiest, context-less articles are mere paraphrases of these (or of video game manuals, role-playing games, etc.). Even those that aren't are still doing more than merely reporting facts—they are simply summarizing fiction without transforming it or adding new information to it. This arguably makes these articles mere derivative works of the original fiction.

This is a systemic problem probably because the ones most driven to write about certain fictional characters are fans who are mostly concerned with "knowing" the complete and "true" story of the fictional universe. We need a guideline page (something like Wikipedia:Writing about fictional characters) that sets out the principles I've described above, with an accompanying template that will label and categorize an article about fictional characters as lacking that context (the trick is finding the right concise language). We have Template:Fiction, but it needs to be made clear that inserting a "this character is fictional" disclaimer in the introductory sentence of a ten paragraph article is not enough. I lack the time to solve this problem on my own, but I will definitely assist anyone else who wishes to contribute to solving it. Postdlf 00:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would favor soemthing of the sort Postdif suggests here. DES ^(talk) 00:31, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Uncle G/Describe this universe might be a worthwhile starting point. —Charles P. (Mirv) 14:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the examples of good and bad writing that Uncle G used make it clear that he's getting at the same point that I am. Postdlf 15:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We do have the ability to create interwiki links to many, many other wiki projects, like those over at Wikicities (I'd like to see these become more transparent, but excepting MΑ and Wookiepedia, there's not much completeness over there). I'd like to see some of the cruft trimmed, true (and am working on it with The Wheel of Time series), but if it helps our regular editors to do a [Star Wars]] article or three before jumping back into quantum physics, it does little harm. -- nae'blis _(talk) 00:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, I'm impressed that this 'perennial proposal' caused so much controversy. Looking over the responses, it seems that Consolidation of those articles might be best--ie, an article about "Star Wars," then maybe an article on "Minor Star Wars Characters" and not an article about every single Jedi and their favorite ice cream flavor. In the future I'll try to generally put this into practice, by suggesting merges.

It's true, assuming Wikipedia has unlimited space, then articles about fictional universes could/should indeed be unlimited, because there is no harm in posting them. I was just taking into account the fact that Wikipedia is nonprofit and that more space/server power costs significant amounts of money.

And obviously Jesus and Sherlock Holmes are more important than something like Star Forge. Your argument, friends android and Dsmdgold, is something called reductio ad absurdum.

Postdlf: Your idea on a new fictional character template could be valuable, to put fictional concepts/characters in their cultural context before delving into obscure details.

And thank you all for your (generally) well-reasoned responses. ; 3 --Zaorish 14:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm checking back. I found this article: StarCraft Secret Missions. It's literally a /verbatim/ transcript of a few levels from a computer game. I personally would move to delete it. Any objections? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.216.217.174 (talk • contribs)

What an awful article. The text forgets that it's describing a video game and instead tells a story. I can't even tell who the player is supposed to be, what the player controls, what events are mere contingencies, or what events are actually experienced in game play versus read about or seen in movies. This is not an article. Postdlf 15:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly oppose such an idea. Fictional universes are an important part of our culture. I would possibly support the merge/removal of fictional stubs, but content which can make a decent article should be kept. -- Astrokey44|talk 15:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree. Wikipedia is not paper and to make restrictions of this sort on content would, IMO, open the door for further content restrictions to the point where Wikipedia will become nothing but a bunch of articles on nuclear physics and Shakespeare (and even then, banning an article on, say Mr. Spock means you'd have to ban articles on Shakespeare's characters, right?) and that's not what this place is about. I've already seen some people grumbling about banning articles based on film and TV shows, for example. I've nothing against guidelines, but creating a separate wiki for this would be a mistake. The priority should be on improving articles if substandard ones arise. 23skidoo 15:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Two points:
1. Wikipedia is not infinite, but we are specifically advised by WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia not to worry about space limitations. Our concern should always be only on the encyclopedic nature of the topic and the quality of the article.
2. I think the real problem is not so much that there are all these fictional-universe articles, it's that so many Wikipedia editors lavish so much attention on them rather than the more mundane topics like "Gary, Indiana" or "Container Security Initiative". But there are many dimensions of perceived imbalance in Wikipedia, like "not enough people articles" or "too many stubs" or "not enough cleanup being done" or "too much focus on the manual of style". We must remember that the whole project operates on the assumption that a worldwide community of freelance editors will eventually get around to working on any perceived deficiencies — and do them justice as well. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- - As a sub-point to this one, I thought I should mention that although Wikipedia's space is unlimited a lot of people still think that the effort spent on editing stuff is zero-sum - ie, that if someone spends an hour working on a Star Trek article, then that's an hour they didn't spend working on something of "real importance." I think this is not the case, personally, and eliminating the "unimportant" articles would have the opposite effect; people who come here to tinker around with Star Trek articles and every once in a while toss something useful into one of the real science articles would just leave altogether. They almost certainly wouldn't turn all the energy they spend refining articles on their favourite fictions toward topics they aren't interested in, these are all volunteers here. Bryan 16:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly Oppose this idea, but also empathise. I think a compromise is good. A lot of Fictional Universe articles and all their linked sub-articles have too many sub-articles. For instance, you probably don't need a sub-article for a character that appeared once on a show. Or in Stargate Atlantis, for instance, you probably don't need an article for the minor few-episodes character Bob (Wraith). So scrap the stubs and unneeded articles, but certainly keep the main bulk. Fiction like Stargate, Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and so on are massive cultural influences and have shaped both our history and television/cinema's history. And to be honest, I feel that most of the articles under these are concise whilst being detailed, informative, without POV or fancruft, and ultimately also useful. -- Alfakim -- talk 16:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal is hopelessly bad, IMO. But if it does make any progress towards being implemented, by some chance, I insist that we also include sports-related articles under its umbrella. There are thousands of articles in Wikipedia about trivial unimportant sportsmen who play trivial unimportant games that have nothing to do with curing cancer or military battles or whatever it is that're supposed to be "serious" subjects. Since I have no interest in sport, there's obviously no value in having articles about it and it's just a waste of everyone's time writing them. (The preceeding opinion is only a semi-parody :) Bryan 16:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Templates are always a good idea, though. --Happylobster 18:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, deja vu all over again. :) I well remember the contretemps at Talk:Mithril, lo these over three years ago. :) User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pages in MediaWiki namespace

I believe that many Wikipedians are not aware of the secret society... the MediaWiki namespace. Even though all these pages are, by default, only editable by Sysops, many of the issues in these pages, including especially MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice, should recieve more attention from users. I invite people to contribute to discussions on these talk pages, which usually affect the site globally though only being discussed by a minority of those who know about them. Thank you. (More admin accountability on changes to the .css pages would be nice too). — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 00:11, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia as its own source

What is the policy about using Wikipedia itself as a cited source for a Wikipedia article? I vaguely remember reading a policy or guideline that mentions this but I can't for the life of me find it again. Reyk 06:59, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For obvious reasons, this isn't allowed. However, other Wikipedia articles may help you find an external source for the info you wish to add, jguk 12:00, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "For obvious reasons, this isn't allowed." - true, but some nuance:

See Wikipedia:Citing sources#'''(DELETED SECTION)'''
Every time one uses these handy things called "double square brackets" ([[...]]), inevitably one additionally supports an article with sources that are in another article.
Some wikipedians contend that the "For obvious reasons, this isn't allowed" doesn't apply in the case of lists, hence two complicated guideline proposals (wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia and wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia/Alternative version) - unnecessary in the case one wouldn't first assume an "exception" w.r.t. lists, see Wikipedia talk:Lists in Wikipedia/Alternative version

--Francis Schonken 12:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A list is an article in the main namespace. There are no special rules about lists. Indeed, as lists tend to contain an awful lot of information (namely that each and every entry meets the list inclusion criteria), having direct sources on the list page is very, very important, jguk 12:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

With the growing popularity of Wikipedia, such a circular reference may happen by accident, in an indirect way; for instance, if a questionable fact, unsourced, makes it into Wikipedia, people on other sites might start citing it, causing it to spread all over the place and eventually wind up on sites that in turn get cited back here when an editor insists the original mention of the "fact" get a citation. Also, a "Google test" of the notability of someone/something might turn up the various mirror sites of Wikipedia, distorting the result. *Dan T.* 13:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is true. I always do google tests with searches that include "-wikipedia" to reduce although not eliminate this effect. DES ^(talk) 19:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Concerns over personal attack templates

I am concerned about templates surviving AfD that appear to contrast with established policy. In particular, I feel that these templates are Poisoning the well when it comes for how we treat our fellow wikipedians. There are circumstances where knowing too much about one's neighbours politicises how one deals with them. This is, to an extent, unavoidable in society, but wearing signs of hate as badges on our shoulders takes what is a small problem that we can usually deal with into the realm of being damaging to the community. Already, there have been signs of people refusing to help each other because they are on different ends of a political spectrum -- this seems likely to get worse if this trend continues. Some people cry that this is an attack on their first amendment rights (if they're American, anyhow), but that doesn't apply here because Wikipedia is not the U.S. government -- it is a community that has always self-regulated, and more importantly it is an encyclopedia with a goal of producing encyclopedic content. We have a tradition of respecting a certain amount of autonomy on userpages, but never absolute autonomy. We might imagine, for example, templates with little swastikas saying "this user hates jews". I am not saying that such a thing would be morally equivalent to this template against scientology, but rather that we should aim to minimise that aspect of ourselves, at least on Wikipedia, so we can make a better encyclopedia. The spirit of NPOV does not mean that we cannot have strong views and still be wikipedians, but rather that we should not wear signs of our views like badges, strive not to have our views be immediately obvious in what we edit and how we argue, and fully express ourselves in other places (Myspace? Personal webpage?) where it is more appropriate and less divisive. --Improv 20:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 762: / Line 762: @@
 With the growing popularity of Wikipedia, such a circular reference may happen by accident, in an indirect way; for instance, if a questionable fact, unsourced, makes it into Wikipedia, people on other sites might start citing it, causing it to spread all over the place and eventually wind up on sites that in turn get cited back here when an editor insists the original mention of the "fact" get a citation.  Also, a "Google test" of the notability of someone/something might turn up the various mirror sites of Wikipedia, distorting the result. [[User:Dtobias|*Dan T.*]] 13:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 :This is true. I always do google tests with searches that include "-wikipedia" to reduce although not eliminate this effect. [[User:DESiegel|DES]] [[User talk:DESiegel|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 19:19, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
+== Concerns over personal attack templates ==
+I am concerned about [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion&curid=895730&diff=34790720&oldid=34790144#Template:User_against_scientology|recent templates] surviving AfD that appear to contrast with [[WP:NPA|established policy]]. In particular, I feel that these templates are [[Poisoning the well]] when it comes for how we treat our fellow wikipedians. There are circumstances where knowing too much about one's neighbours politicises how one deals with them. This is, to an extent, unavoidable in society, but wearing signs of hate as badges on our shoulders takes what is a small problem that we can usually deal with into the realm of being damaging to the community. Already, there have been signs of people refusing to help each other because they are on different ends of a political spectrum -- this seems likely to get worse if this trend continues. Some people cry that this is an attack on their first amendment rights (if they're American, anyhow), but that doesn't apply here because Wikipedia is not the U.S. government -- it is a community that has always self-regulated, and more importantly it is an encyclopedia with a goal of producing encyclopedic content. We have a tradition of respecting a certain amount of autonomy on userpages, but never absolute autonomy. We might imagine, for example, templates with little swastikas saying "this user hates jews". I am not saying that such a thing would be morally equivalent to this template against scientology, but rather that we should aim to minimise that aspect of ourselves, at least on Wikipedia, so we can make a better encyclopedia. The spirit of [[WP:NPOV|NPOV]] does not mean that we cannot have strong views and still be wikipedians, but rather that we should not wear signs of our views like badges, strive not to have our views be immediately obvious in what we edit and how we argue, and fully express ourselves in other places (Myspace? Personal webpage?) where it is more appropriate and less divisive. --[[User:Improv|Improv]] 20:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)