Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals pages, or - for assistance - at the help desk, rather than here, if at all appropriate. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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Can we stop the re-sorting of categories in alphabetically order ?

Hi, folks. In many articles, categories are always sorting in alphabetically order, but results seems to be odd and inconvenient. For example, categories started with number (i.e. born year, etc.) are less significantly for users, but always on top of categories. Is there any role rule about it ? Or, if not exist, can we stop the re-sorting of categories ? Please give me your advices. --Clusternote (talk) 19:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorting in alphabetical order makes finding the category you want on a page significantly easier, especially on articles with many categories. Choosing another random method just ends up making a specific category harder to find and would involve a significant amount of POV in determining order. I would also note that some wikiprojects have guidelines to alphabetize cats on articles under their scope, however I believe there is no such wiki-wide guideline. Although it would be good if there was, because when categories are out of alphabetical order they hinder the reader quite alot. -DJSasso (talk) 19:51, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. Absence of global rule may mean I have a chance to change the situation through the further discussions in the future ... --Clusternote (talk) 20:51, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Instead of [[Category:Example]] you can use [[Category:Example| ]] or [[Category:Example|*]], which will sort that page to appear at the start of the category page. This is done for the most important or general pages in a category. Fences&Windows 20:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe they mean the order of the categories on the actual articles, not the articles in the categories. (based on looking at a recent edit of theirs) -DJSasso (talk) 20:13, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I meant the categories in the articles. --Clusternote (talk) 20:51, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll note that most sorting is done ASCIIbetical instead of alphabetical which would put numbers after "Z". — Dispenser 21:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Since we're discussing things I' say I'm against the pointless alphabetization of categories. the particular case which I think is most annoying is when there is a category named for the subject, such as category:Barack Obama in Barack Obama. I think those should go first. Another issue is of grouping together related categories. suffice it to say there are various opinions on the matter. This is an issue that should be discussed somewhere, though consensus might not be possible.   Will Beback  talk  21:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

It avoids the inevitable edit wars over which order the categories should be in. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 23:12, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• Hi, Will, that's exactly my worry ! Probably some kind of guidelines (or local rules) per wikiprojects, hinted by DJsasso, may solve my problems ... --Clusternote (talk) 15:43, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• Put me down in the "who cares" category when you get around to the great debate on what order categories should be listed in. What an utterly pointless thing to edit war over or even discuss. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:24, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

• That's right. I can't understand what drive a few users to cause reverting war on order of categories, so I came here to consult about it. --Clusternote (talk) 01:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I often find that a logical sequence is not necessarily alphabetical. For example, an article on a defunct company might have

[[Category:Companies established in 1980]]

[[Category:Companies disestablished in 2005]]

which is chronological; alpha sorting would not be sensible in this case. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:11, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I find alpha sorted categories to be most useful, but yes, in cases like that a small break in form is desirable. Resolute 18:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

How to view a article I contributed to now deleted for massive copyvio.

I'm returning to editing Wikipedia after a gap of 8 months. A article I remember contributing to regularly Annette Ackroyd has been deleted for copyvio. Being off-Wiki I couldn't participate in that discussion. Assistance needed - a) Can the old article be viewed somewhere so maybe I can salvage it or spot the copyvios ? b)If there was copy vio, then oughtn't only those bits be trimmed out when Annette Ackroyd is (i) dead and (ii) her notability is not in question. Annette46 (talk) 17:00, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

The article was actually at Annette Akroyd. I was not the administrator who closed the listing, but I am the person who tagged the copyright problem. Whether an article listed at the copyright problems board is deleted or trimmed depends on the extent of the copyright violation and the point of the areticle's development when copyright violations entered. It does not prejudice creating a new article. In this case, the copyright problem was foundational, as this was one of a series of copyright problems created by that contributor, and spread throughout the entire article, with content identified from [1] and Kopf, David (1979). The Brahmo Samaj and the shaping of the modern Indian mind. Atlantic Publishers & Distri. ISBN 9780691031255. Retrieved 18 August 2010.. There were other sources used by that contributor which were not available online and could not be checked. Since the copyright problems were foundational, edits building on them constituted a derivative work. Excluding infobox and els, but including references, the article only expanded from the point of its creation from 1,149 words to 1,194 words. Trimming would not have been possible in that case. Generally, articles that are deleted for copyright problems are not restored, but if you want to salvage it (which would require rewriting from scratch), I'd be happy to pull it back up with the copyright template still in place so that you can do so in the temporary space provided. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:13, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

P.S. If you want to discuss it further with me, particularly, please drop by my talk page. :) I've checked back in a few times, but this page is not on my regular rotation. I only picked up this request because I noticed the words "massive copyvio" in the edit summary on my watchlist. Those words catch my eye. :D --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:32, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Wiki Guides study/project

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to let you know about a study that we are getting together to start next month. As I’m sure many of you are aware we have had a decrease in new editors over the past couple years.

As a community we have a lot of ideas but We’ve been stymied by a lot of options and little data.

We want to conduct a study over the next couple months (with some resources from the Wikimedia Foundation) to help craft strategies to develop new users, to get data on exactly how our new users are finding their first, and later, experiences on Wikipedia and of course to help share the experiences of the experienced users who are here to find out what works, what doesn't and what resources they need to make their work easier.

The plan at the moment is to have several groups of users, 1 group that is just followed (the control) and several other groups with guides who actively reach out and try to help them edit and join the community. I hope that you can help us as we get ready for the study start next month and help the new users once we start! You can find out more information and sign up on the project page and if you can think of anyone who might be interested please please PLEASE point them this way or let me know so I can reach out to them personally! Jalexander--WMF 22:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Is there any reason to believe continued growth is a good thing? At what point are editor numbers allowed to start consolidating? When we have reached 7 billion? Hans Adler 15:23, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The data may need to be adjusted for the effects of the economy. If you are out of work and can't afford a DSL connection, odds are probably good that you won't be editing Wikipedia.—RJH (talk) 15:38, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

But if you are out of work and do have a DSL connection, you have plenty of time to write an encyclopedia ;) --Physics is all gnomes (talk) 17:12, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely. How else have I had the time to rack up 25000 edits since I lost my job (1 July 2009)? DSL isn't that expensive - I'm paying GBP 6.00 per calendar month for DSL, whilst some jobless people spend more than that in one day on cigarettes and/or beer. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:30, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

E-mail this user link will not appear

I have activated the e-mail function on my user talk and I am trying to e-mail another user. The option to e-mail that user on his page will not show up even though I have followed all the instructions on my user talk page to make this option available. Any suggestions? --Apocalypto13 (talk) 00:34, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

If the other editor hasn't activated the email function it won't show up. ~~ GB fan ~~ 00:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The option is to make your email visible, not others'. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:21, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The problems with Wikipedia

I thought everybody knew why we are losing editors. The same handful of problems are brought up over and over again in different places all over Wikpedia. But seeing the Wiki Guides study/project post above made me think twice, so I figured I'd ask everybody. modified post to 2 questions Hydroxonium

Question 1

Very briefly, why is Wikipedia losing editors? - Hydroxonium (H₃O⁺) 14:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I almost wonder if it's the size. I'd say the most likely case is that early 2007 was the time when the large majority of "it's obviously missing so I'll create it and noone will deny it's notable" type articles had been created. Just a guess though. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:59, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. In addition, I feel that for better or worse, certain types of people are associated with Wikipedia (WP:SYSTEMIC) - white, educated, young, male, academic bent, interested in writing an encyclopedia(!), etc - and that these categories are drying up. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 15:04, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

What we're seeing is that the "fancruft" has moved on to Wikia and Tvtropes. This is why the place seemed much more active 5 years ago. — Dispenser 18:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I would say it's because all the "easy" articles have been made. Five years ago you could throw a dart at the World Book and find a topic that didn't have an article; now, almost all of those subjects have articles, and we're left with the more obscure (yet of course still important) topics that less people are familiar with. Lots of people know about Iowa, or Mariah Carey, or tornadoes; not too many people know enough to help contribute to a list of governors of a small Kazakh district, or a video game that was released only in East German arcades, or a small regional newspaper in North Carolina. Some people know of these, but there isn't nearly the mass penetration that you had early on. So, people come and see very complete and well-written articles on the subjects they know, so... why should they edit? What they were editing is already, in many of their eyes, complete. We're kind of past our mass-market editing stage; now we need to focus on getting academics and experts in to refine the edges. --Golbez (talk) 20:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

For example: When I started, there were no, or very few, articles on Washington Metro stations and Pacific hurricane seasons. I created a good many of them. If I were to come along now, I would find well-written and fleshed out articles on most subjects in those categories, so I would have less reason to edit. Check out the difference in Than Shwe from when I tagged it as a stub nearly seven years ago: [2] There was much to edit then. There's still some to edit now, but there was more to edit then. --Golbez (talk) 20:15, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, Ill be busy for some time. Most articles related to Mexico, what I work on, are either non-existant or terrible. That includes most of the states. If youre looking for articles to write or improve on, look at topics related to non-English speaking countries. You'd be surprised how much work is needed.Thelmadatter (talk) 02:00, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Question 2

Very breifly, why is Wikipedia not keeping new editors? - Hydroxonium (H₃O⁺) 17:33, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

There is no clear path to contribute to the encyclopedia after registering an account. No online SVG/Image/Audio/Video editor. No email alerts (nag them to come back). No introduction/Hard find an appropriate active WikiProject. — Dispenser 18:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Comments
I can answer both IMO with the following. I believe there are too many editors involved in things like discussions and trying to change policy and not enough in writing articles. This causes 2 problems:

1. They are not editing
2. the changes they are making drives off the editors.

For example, There is too much bickering about things like project scope, whether an article is notable or not, why a certain link should or shouldn't be used, etc. Using the case of notability. Too many editors are too wrapped up about article notability. The issue is just too subjective. Whats notable to me is not to you and vice versa. If the article has references then who cares if its about a Soccer (international Football) player from Brazil and is not notable in the US. They are in Brazil. Another major problem is the sheer complication of the rules. It takes a long time to learn the rules making it too hard for the average newby. There are more rules here than learning to drive a car in most states and many of the rules contradict themselves and then there are catchalls and loopholes like IAR and we are adding more all the time making it more and more complicated. --Kumioko (talk) 21:10, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

If you want to see why there are more and more rules, check the comment two topics down ("National spelling guideline"). Three or four years ago fewer of that sort of complicated questions had come up, and fewer rules had been made in response to them.

It seems inevitable to me that the number of rules would grow as wikipedia becomes more complicated and more complicated situations arise. The alternative to rules is everybody winging it, which is no longer feasible because wikipedia is too important. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 21:16, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, a lot of newbies seem to make edits that are contrary to the Wikipedia conventions, so experienced editors end up reverting their changes. The revert is intended for the benefit of Wikipedia as a whole, but I can see how that can be discouraging to newcomers. (Likewise with the AfD process.) I also agree with an earlier comment that there is less and less room for newcomers to make edits on topics with which they are familiar. Common topics tend to be well-developed and receive frequent oversight, so edits have a higher probability of being stomped upon.

Perhaps what we need is some sort of friendly, encouraging "Mr. Wizard" tool that appears at the top of the article for new editors (with a button to make it go away). The tool could indicate whether a particular article is well maintained and so should be edited with care, or whether the article is poorly developed and would benefit from improvement. The wizard could likewise provide random suggestions for enhancing an article (based on content), or direct the editor to related articles that are in greater need of improvement.—RJH (talk) 23:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

A wizard idea would be awesome. I would edit much more if they had something like that. I am a newbie so i can speak well for others (I think) Imasomething (talk) 15:43, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Breakdown of Wikipedia articles by subject

I thought that such an analysis was carried out, and even gained some publicity, but I cannot find any links to it. Anybody can point me in the right direction? What I am looking for is something that says "35% of Wikipedia articles are about natural sciences, 20% about social sciences, 40% about pop culture..." and so on. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:50, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

National spelling guideline

The MOS specifies that articles on American topics use American spellings and articles and articles on British topics use British spellings.

But what if the article's topic is an American-made movie whose own topic is an event from British history? Do we have an explicit guideline on that?

--208.76.104.133 (talk) 20:54, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Probably fall back on the "Original version" rule - continue the method it had when you came to it. Only consensus should change it from there. --Golbez (talk) 21:19, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I'll do that. (Same poster, different IP.) --70.48.228.57 (talk) 05:05, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia as Advertising

Please forgive me if I am in the wrong place but I was going blind looking for the right place. It looks like an entry was created mainly for the purpose of advertising on facebook (by linking to wikipedia entry). Is this allowed. I am a newbie (maybe something worse) so maybe I am overly zealous. Imasomething (talk) 04:47, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are not supposed to be for advertising; WP:NOTADVERTISING and Wikipedia:Spam discuss this. Violating Wikipedia:Neutral point of view is against policy. Whether Facebook or other websites link to it doesn't affect Wikipedia guidelines. Which article is it? --Closeapple (talk) 05:57, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

It is the hotchkiss article and they are using it on the hotchkiss Facebook site. I actually found it because someone had recognized one of my edits (they had help me find the information). Imasomething (talk) 14:22, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Hotchkiss is a disambiguation page, can you link the specific article you are talking about? ~~ GB fan ~~ 14:58, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Very sorry about that, I hadn't realized it. Here it is (Hotchkiss School) and if you look them up on Facebook it is the same thing, Imasomething (talk) 16:23, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

The page is the same and it is properly attributed, at the top of the page it says:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and then at the bottom it says:

Description above from the Wikipedia article Hotchkiss School, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors here. Community Pages are not affiliated with, or endorsed by, anyone associated with the topic.

This makes everything they are doing legal. Reading through the article it does not read like an advertisement. I don't think there is any problem here. ~~ GB fan ~~ 17:23, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah , that is what confused me. But the context it is being used in is what is confusing me. It is being used as a fan page which are not normal facebook pages and are used for generating advertising. I think there were some questions on the hotchkiss school talk page about it being written like a advertisement . It doesn't bother me either way I just thought I would point it out since it got pointed out to me. Imasomething (talk) 17:32, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Relatively recently, Facebook began serving up Wikipedia information about places such as schools and cities. —Ost (talk) 15:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

yes but considering where it is cut it looks like someone (and in this case it is most likely someone from hotchkiss) had to put it up there. I talked with a friend who has a fan page and he said essentially the same thing (fortunately for him he does not have a Wikipedia page). Maybe it needs to be passed up the admin chain? Maybe they know and have okayed it already. Imasomething (talk) 16:26, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Unless there's actually something wrong with the content of the article on Wikipedia, nothing else really matters. We encourage people to use our content elsewhere, and they're allowed to do so for any usage. What other sites do with our content is not our concern as long as they use it within the requirements of the license. Mr.Z-man 21:22, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks that was exactly what I was looking for in terms of an answer (GB Fan had said it also but in a different way). Sorry for any unnecessary headaches Imasomething (talk) 07:18, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Ethnic over-classification

"Chloe Aridjis (born November 1971 in New York, U.S.) is a London-based Mexican and American Jewish writer".

I dare say she is, but as a London-based English-Scottish-Irish-Belgian-(or-possibly-French) Wikipedia contributor, I can't help feeling we are getting a little over-enthusiastic in our ethnobureaucratic labelling here. I'm not suggesting that this is anything other than an example that caught my eye. At some point, we are going to actually have to do something to prevent Wikipedia converting into a combined DNA database and sociocultural heritage repository. Ms Aridjis seems to consider her heritage significant (see article), but is it actually necessary to state 'P is an X, Y and Z' in such concrete terms in an age when it is becoming more apparent than ever that ethnicity is a state of mind rather than an inborn attribute? I'm sure I'm on to a loser here, but I'd like to think that some day, Wikipedia will stop stating subjective opinions as objective fact. Ms Aridjis seems to have spent much of her life roaming the world, and her influences and works no doubt reflect this. Shouldn't our articles do the same? AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:06, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality. In short, when you see stuff like this, its OK to kill it. Unless the ethnicity is central to the reason why the person is notable, it doesn't necessarily belong in the article. Being verifiable is only 1/2 of the reason to add a true statement to an article. The other half of it is being relevent. In this case, if the person writes about her unique ethnic background, if it is a clear element in her writing and she discusses it frequently as being a motivating factor in her work; if critical commentary by outside sources notes the connection, if SOMETHING like that comes up, it may be worth noting. If it bears no relevence, however, nuke it. --Jayron32 05:24, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that page refers to categorisation rather than the mentioning Andy seems to have brought up. Personally, I'd favour a similar approach. If it's not directly relevant and complex, perhaps we can leave the "Early life" or similar sections to explain place of birth, parents, etc. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 14:30, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

That is the exact proper approach - if an element is not relevant to the reason we're writing an article, it's not needed in the introduction. After all, why not add red-haired, left-handed, green-eyed, five-foot-seven, bilingual etc. etc. etc. etc. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:59, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality. I'm also aware that it is well-nigh impossible to persuade people to actually apply the criteria of relevance when discussing ethnicity (and all too often, even of actually providing a reliable source). I'm sure I could spend a lifetime attempting to remove irrelevant ethnic labelling from articles, without making a noticeable difference. Perhaps there is a need for a broader discussion of the issue, with the objective of making policy clearer. There have been attempts to do so, but they never seem to get very far. Perhaps another approach is needed? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:28, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

You just answered your own question. If the combination of reason and existing policies are not enough to sway some people, they will not be swayed by additional reasons and more policies. Cut your losses and just assume that there will always be some people who don't use reason to arrive at their conclusions. Those people will not be convinced. If it becomes an issue, start a talk page discussion, start a WP:3O or WP:RFC, prove those people wrong, get consensus, make the change. We don't need new policies to deal with every way someone can be stubborn. --Jayron32 20:30, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd also suggest reading through the previous discussion on the Village Pump (policy) about this issue, where some excellent points were made about this issue. There is a reason to mention ethnicity on some articles (Martin Luther King, Jr. comes to mind) but for a great many articles it is irrelevant and POV biased when used. --Robert Horning (talk) 20:04, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I actually started that discussion, and was quite pleased about the response. It doesn't seem to have led to anything concrete though, which is rather the point I started this discussion off with. We seem to get a (near) consensus that this overcategorisation is wrong, but nothing actually changes. This is why I wondered about another approach. I clearly need to think about this further, as I suspect that the problem is in part at least due to the fact that those doing the labelling aren't involved in the general discussions - indeed, some seem to be confined to a very narrow range of topics, and may not even be aware of the debate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:22, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

In terms of concrete steps, either a formal policy could be added (likely a sub-section on WP:NPOV would be most effective) or something put into the WP:Style Guide. I think general consensus can be found from the discussions so far in terms of not overdoing the ethnicity and sticking to sources that explicitly mention the ethnicity of somebody if it is mentioned. For the obvious articles where ethnicity is integral to the article, you would likely have so many sources for the ethnicity of the person or group that the issue would be picking the source, not finding one. Approaching it in terms of verification, requesting at least two sources for the information, or something else along those lines would be a good move. Be bold here and make a change or at least propose a change that can be used as a framework of the debate, in terms of if it should be accepted or rejected. The question here is where to put such a "policy" if one is made? --Robert Horning (talk) 21:46, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Regarding Jayron's If it bears no relevance, however, nuke it comment. Really? Because I tried doing that on Valery Shary, a tiny Olympic-athlete article. Half the text there now talks about the guy's supposed Judaism, using this source (and a duplication of the same information here), where Shary is listed as possibly Jewish. The "See Also" section now also links to the non-existent List of select Jewish wrestlers. "Select" here being some peacocky term I don't understand. After having removed both references as bearing no relevance and a BLP violation, it was re-added and I've since been reported to AN/I on two separate occasions for "deleting sourced content against consensus" (AKA: "Don't mess with Jewish articles"). So yeah... clearly the "bears no relevance, nuke it" approach can easily get you in trouble. Bulldog123 08:17, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not going to get involved in the specifics of an active case at WP:ANI, simply because it may give the false impression that people have behaved appropriately in all aspects of their editing, when they have not. However, if reliable sources don't support relevence, then it should be removed. Relevence is determined by consensus building discussions, however, and when one engages in disruptive behavior merely because they are right, it can lead to the wrong material ending up in the article; i.e. being a pain usually trumps being right, which is a shame, but still the way the world works. If you want to get the article right, work within the existing system. This is, of course, speaking in the general. I have zero opinion on whether or not you were right or wrong in the latest ANI case. Your assertions here are completely irrelevent as to the facts of the case. Your assertions may be 100% correct, or they may be a delusional or selfserving misrepresentation of the facts in a specific case. I don't know which of those situations this is, and I don't care. I still stand by my original statement. --Jayron32 16:46, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you are talking about. There is no active WP:AN/I case regarding this and I'm certainly not asking you to participate in one even if it did exist. I was just giving you an example of how "If it bears no relevance, nuke it" is met with extreme hostility and "shopping for a block" attempts... Bulldog123 17:26, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that this isn't about a particular article, but about a significant proportion of BLPs. I get the impression sometimes that articles are being created for marginally-notable persons solely in order to add the 'ethnicity'. This can introduce a systematic bias into Wikipedia, depending on the numbers of active 'ethno-taggers' involved. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:54, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I don't disagree with that in general at all. There is FAR too much attention given to ancestral ethnicity in just about every Wikipedia article where a person is mentioned. This goes back years, and is systemic in the sense that it covers Wikipedia like a rash. It is problematic in BLPs, but even in BDP's (D= dead), it is rampantly problematic; the Nicolas Copernicus nightmare ran for months and months many year ago, and it always flares up a bit now and again. --Jayron32 16:58, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

What specifically is the problem? Sources say she is Jewish; she says she's Jewish. So why is mention that she is Jewish removed in this edit? Bus stop (talk) 17:27, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The article still mentions she's Jewish and she's in a Jewish category. There's no requirement that one source concerning her Judaism requires seventeen mentions of it. Bulldog123 17:35, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

"Seventeen mentions"? My position on the subject is that it needs only one mention. Bus stop (talk) 17:53, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I was using a hyperbole. It does have one mention. In fact, if you count the category, it has two. Bulldog123 18:00, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Does it have two mentions? It has only a quote from her. In her own language she waxes poetic about feeling nomadic, more Mexican when she is not in Mexico. She mentions her dual citizenship, how she feels at home in England. She mentions the fluidity of her identities. And yes—she mentions her "Jewish identity". Does her mention of her "Jewish identity" rule out our mentioning that she is Jewish? I am not trying to mention that she is Jewish seventeen times. But we don't have to remove all editorial mention of her Jewishness either. She writes about Jewish issues. Her book "'Book of Clouds" touches upon issues specifically Jewish. ("Imagine the sort of energy those children imbibed, playing games in the room where the 'Final Solution' for getting rid of every single Jew in Europe was laid out to top Reich administrators, or going for a dip in the tainted waters…") There is more than enough reason to mention that she is Jewish, just once, in the article. Bus stop (talk) 18:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand what the issue is here. If we're going to have a category describing her here as Jewish, then there should be a mention within the test of the article supported by a reference describing her as Jewish. I fail to see how this means that there are two references or how we should make the arbitrary choice to eliminate only either of them as they are part of a matching set and I see no way to implement your position that the article "needs only one mention" of her being Jewish. Alansohn (talk) 18:33, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that the article should have only one mention. It was implied that I was in favor of multiple mentions, which I'm not.

A similar argument that I have heard, and which is equally untrue, is that I am in favor of extensive treatment of a person's Jewishness. I am not. Unless there is a particular relevance to such a delving into the nuances of a person's Jewishness, I find inclusion of such material superfluous. I find at an article such as Isaac Asimov there is to be found too many references to him as a Jew. This is uncalled for, in my opinion. At such articles the Jewish identity should merely inconspicuously be mentioned with sources that the reader can follow if they are so inclined. Bus stop (talk) 18:40, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I believe that people's national and ethnic origins are typical encyclopedic information, on par with their gender, the years of their births and deaths, the places of their births, and the names of their parents. We wouldn't exclude the names of a notable person's non-notable parents solely on the grounds that the information is only listed in one reliable source. For that matter, we have people who insist on including this sort of basic information even when the only known sources are somewhat less than completely reliable, e.g. WP:FINDAGRAVE.

Also, for someone in a distinct minority—here, I'm thinking of someone from Niue as a simple example—the fact that someone else is also from your tiny country might seem hugely important to you, while a less-informed person might say, "Niue? I've never heard of it, so who cares?"

In other cases, the effects might be subtle, but important. For example, it's probably relevant to identify the race of every person born in South Africa before the end of apartheid, because that person's race had a significant effect on his or her education and other opportunities, even if s/he is notable for some unrelated reason.

So while it may seem superfluous, and while we might like to adopt a posture of being so enlightened and color-blind that it can't possibly matter, I'm not convinced that we need to excise this basic information (when it is not disputed). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The problem with the "typical encyclopedic information" argument you present is that while information such as birth date, parents' names and nationality are verifiable facts, ethnicity is always going to be a more subjective and slippery concept. I'm not against mentioning ethnicity in an article if it is reported in reliable sources (or, even better, if the person is on record as identifying as belonging to a particular ethnic group) but I think we need to think about the prominence given to this information (i.e. it's better in the background section of an article rather than being the first item in the introduction) and its use to categorise people. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:53, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The extensiveness of the treatment of such information has to be considered. I feel that the extensiveness of treatment should vary with that material's relevance to the individual's notability, or accomplishments. Peripheral information of this nature should be only perfunctorily noted. Bus stop (talk) 19:10, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Also, we don't typically highlight people's gender (although it becomes obvious through the use of pronouns and names) unless it is relevant to their notability. Bulldog123 19:01, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I disagree that such information such as ethnicity is "typical encyclopedic information". This is something that can get incredibly charged and is very subjective, where even in the context of this conversation I could put some incredibly incendiary remark that would pull the focus of this discussion off of what it needs to be about. Ethnicity is something that is very subjective, and unless it is something very much relevant to the article, it simply doesn't belong there if for nothing else than to preserve a neutral point of view. Does the fact that Elon Musk was born in Africa matter if he was black or not? Would he be African-American, since he now has American citizenship? Most people wouldn't consider him such and certainly wouldn't consider him to be in the same category as Barak Obama in terms of ethnicity, yet it technically would be correct. Frankly, I don't know much about Mr. Musk's ethnicity at all nor do I care, but that is the point. It shouldn't matter. Assigning ethnicity is a matter of perspective and unless you can find a verifiable and reliable source (preferably a couple sources that go into depth about the topic) it shouldn't be in the article or for that matter in a sidebar. An editor certainly shouldn't "guess" what that ethnicity is, particularly based upon birthplace or some other silly criteria. --Robert Horning (talk) 19:16, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

According to QI (Series G)#Episode 10 "Greats", everyone who was born in Europe is descended from the 8th century king Charlemagne. Therefore we're all French. Let's populate that cat! --Redrose64 (talk) 20:01, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

From Charlemagne and Muhammad! Look, I even found a reliable source. Now, what nationality was Muhammad again? Cordless Larry (talk) 20:05, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

To follow up Jayron's point: how far back do we go in including this information? I was surprised to see Dean Cain and Mark-Paul Gosselaar added to List of Asian Americans, but I see they both have Asian ancestry from two generations back. I think that's cool, and I think it's great to add them to the list to show the diversity of "Americans of Asian descent" (as Asian American defines the term). And I think pointing out African, Asian, Native America, Latina/o, Arab, etc. background is more significant in terms of US history than pointing out that someone is a mix of European ethnicities. But I do think we should consider a cut-off point for these issues: how many generations back do we want to go? Aristophanes68 (talk) 22:41, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

[[Category:Edenite]] is hereby suggested. This stuff about categorizing people has gotten a tad absurd. Collect (talk) 22:45, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

[[Category:Edenite]] already exists, just under the alternate spelling of Category:People.  ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:16, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

• I do not think there is any longer actual consensus to avoid ethnic categorization. People care about ethnicity, on and off Wikipedia. On Wikipedia, the discussions here and elsewhere make it obvious, if you think about it.. Outside, the wide variety and great number of sources devoted to it makes it almost as obvious, if you look. Assignments to write papers on people of given ethnicities have been for decades a staple of school curricula, as a simple way of encourage cultural sensitivity. It is reasonable for people to come here and expect to find this information, not just in individual articles, but to find guide to those articles, and that;s the purpose of categories and lists.

Yes, we generally have mixed ethnicity. But almost always people have one, or two, or three; that an occasional person may have more & thus be awkward to handle is an the sort of exception we should not base a rule around. And ethnicity should not be confused with biological descent—biological descent is only a part of ethnicity. But even with biological descent we may have multiple appropriate designations. We all ultimately had a common pair of ancestors, but have gone different paths since then. People will not normally have significant ancestry in more than a few of them. that we are all ultimately related to each other is not relevant in this context. It's the same with nationality: occasionally people may have a great many nationalities in the course of a life time, but almost everyone has a small number. Ditto for college affiliations. As for Edenit, one can destroy any reasonable scheme by carrying to ridiculous extremes of forced interpretation. The solution to that is of course is to follow the sources, not one's imagination.

It is interesting that the particular case is where the subject has made it plain that she considers specific ethnicity important to her writing, which is the source of her notability. We would be deliberate ignoramuses if we did not accept that as a basis for categorization. I'd in fact hazard as guess that ethnicity is important to the notability of most writers, for people tend to write about their background, and the criticism on them makes much of it. DGG ( talk ) 00:35, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Once again, the discussion is not about eschewing ethnicity from wikipedia all together, it's about eschewing irrelevant mention (and overemphasis) of ethnicity. The latter relevance can be determined just as easily as "finding a source" to begin with. Bulldog123 19:01, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Great talk ....i would also like to point out that there are many cases were someones birth nationality and/or ethnicity and citizenship are combined. Like with all this "Famous" Canadians.Moxy (talk) 00:50, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems mostly like a no-brainer to add something like this to existing guidelines: Avoid mentioning ethnicity (via a category or list) unless you can find both 1) a reliable source directly establishing that person as a member of that ethnicity and 2) a reliable source (preferably, but not necessarily, the same) that establishes the person as notable for being a member of that ethnicity, not merely notable for something unrelated. Take John F. Kennedy, who you can source as Irish American in a heartbeat and who you can source as notable for that classification because there are entire books apparently devoted to it. However, this doesn't mean that adding Kennedy to Category:Irish-American murder victims (which, I'm sure will exist soon) would be legitimate because you'd need a separate source establishing the notability for that particular intersection. Why is his Irish-American-ness relevant to his death? Now, let's look at another case. Here is a reliable source that calls Chester A. Arthur "Irish American" by including his name in a book about Irish-Americans, but it doesn't give any information for what makes this notable - it just includes his bio. Under normal circumstances, this RS would have him thrust into dozens of Irish-American cats and lists. Yet, upon further investigating, it becomes clear that Chester A. Arthur actually isn't of Irish descent at all - his father being Scottish and merely born in what was Ireland. His mother not being Irish at all. At best, he can be called of Scotch-Irish descent. Arthur seems to have never identified as Irish-American in his life and, more importantly, there are no sources indicating that he is notable as an Irish-American. Therefore, we wouldn't include that... and look... we just made wikipedia a little bit cleaner, a little more accurate, and a little bit less ethnicity-obsessed all by doing one simple extra thing. Point being: reliable sources mention a lot of things about people (especially celebrities) that we just generally avoid adding because it's WP:FANCRUFT or straight-up WP:TRIVIA. I don't see why this should be any different. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Bulldog123 18:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Bulldog, I don't think that accurately represents the community's views, and furthermore, I don't think that it represents normal encyclopedic practice. For example: Show me an article in Encyclopedic Brittanica that is (1) indisputably about a black-skinned person of African descent and (2) doesn't mention that this person is not white. How about a Latino person, that fails to mention that s/he is from Central or South America? How about an article on a Chinese or Japanese person that leaves you uncertain whether he's white or Asian? I can't find one. Can you?

Usually, when people get worked up over this, they really have only one ethnicity in mind—Jewish—and they are concerned about what "really counts" for being Jewish (or ought to really count, according to whether they personally take an inclusive or exclusive notion of the Jewish community). IMO we can and should follow the sources there, giving it as much or as little attention as appropriate (and IMO mentioning this in passing in a section on family or childhood is usually more appropriate than putting it in the first sentence), but never completely excluding the person's race and/or ethnicity unless high-quality sources are actually contradicting each other to the point that we can't figure out what the verifiable answer is. And, yes, that means catting people into cats like Category:Cree people and Category:Dinka people, whenever we are reasonably certain that we can identify the correct category, even if these categories are not apparently hugely important factors and attested to by a notarized document from the person in question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:31, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Bulldog, I don't think that accurately represents the community's views, and furthermore, I don't think that it represents normal encyclopedic practice. For example: Show me an article in Encyclopedic Brittanica that is (1) indisputably about a black-skinned person of African descent and (2) doesn't mention that this person is not white. How about a Latino person, that fails to mention that s/he is from Central or South America? How about an article on a Chinese or Japanese person that leaves you uncertain whether he's white or Asian? I can't find one. Can you?

In my mind, and in most encyclopedic definitions, Race and Ethnicity are two different things. They are treated as different by most institutions as well. College applications, for example, ask for race, not ethnicity. I'm talking exclusively about ethnicity here. And it would not "fail to mention" that a Latino is from South America if he's a first-generation immigrant or his parents were immigrants and that made his upbringing different and relevant (which it would)... but that's different because that's in the article... I'm talking about categories and lists.

How about an article on a Chinese or Japanese person that leaves you uncertain whether he's white or Asian?

Well, there would be no question, because the article will likely say "Of Chinese descent" or whatever. But if a 6th-generation "Chinese American" has absolutely no connection to anything Chinese whatsoever... who are we to say he is a Chinese American if he wouldn't consider himself such? His genes may indicate he is "of Chinese descent" unequivocally, but - as mentioned above - ethnicity is more than just blood. Ethnicity is defined as: identifying characteristics shared by a group such as culture, custom, race, language, religion or other social distinctions. Ann Curry is rarely listed as "Japanese" in other encyclopedias despite verifiably being so. She may be "of Japanese descent" and that's fine... but why pigeonhole her into five "Japanese American" cats and lists because of something that may have little relevance. (I'm not saying it doesn't - I don't know. I haven't looked for sources).

Usually, when people get worked up over this, they really have only one ethnicity in mind—Jewish

I think that's for two reasons. One, for some reason, there seems to small sect of users very much devoted to compiling and maintaining as many lists and categories of Jews as possible - and are largely to blame for the horrible states of those lists todays. Two, a large amount of regular Wikipedia users are Jewish and so tend to have greater expertise in Judaism-related areas than others. However, I've seen a similar amount of list and category obsession associated with Irish, German, and Russian articles - though it many not be obvious to uses who don't frequent that part of wikipedia. In fact, the whole List of X-American dilemma is one big example of this unencyclopedic practice in action. Bulldog123 23:47, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

TL;DR - I'm talking about ethnicity not race. And I'm talking about a standard for category and list inclusion not mentioning it in the article. Bulldog123 09:11, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

What really is the distinction here between "race" and "ethnicity" in this context? Why is there a different standard for inclusion in an article as opposed to inclusion in a category? To me, in the context of this discussion, they are pretty much one and the same... or at least the same standards ought to apply. Since this is something that can be politically charged and be pushing POV when it is used, the argument I'm at least making is perhaps the standard ought to be a little tougher when racial or ethnic information is applied for either categorization or inclusion in an article.

BTW, I think the whole concern over antisemitism is not the real issue here, but the issue does apply to that and other racially charged topics, of which the national socialism political movement certainly contributed its share of problems in this area. I'll admit here that some people are obsessed with racial/ethnic distinctions, some that go so far as to start wars and enact legislation about racial distinctions so it is certainly a part of human experience that needs to be documented.

Still, a legitimate argument being raised in this discussion: How much is too much? I would have to agree that in some cases it is being carried out too far on Wikipedia and perhaps some formal policies ought to be put forth to cull some of that behavior where it has gone too far. Using the example of Ann Curry, I would argue that even in the article itself the fact that she had an American father of mixed European heritage is inappropriate to list all of the different supposedly specific nationalities... particularly where the source of the information is dubious at best and certainly is irrelevant to the reason why she is notable. This category in particular, Category:American people of French descent, is something that I'm really scratching my head over and wondering just what that has to do with anything in the article or why it is even necessary, even if it is remotely true. It gets back to the issue mentioned above that technically you could throw this category on just about everybody of European ancestry... which to me makes the category meaningless as well.

For this and many other articles on Wikipedia, I think such racial/ethnic information has gone too far and it makes for poorly written articles that violate NPOV principles. --Robert Horning (talk) 14:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your basic position that writing articles requires judgment, and that an excessive emphasis on the less important aspects is inappropriate. But I think that by concentrating on a few inappropriately added tags, the point is being missed that these categories are useful. People want to find out about other people of a particular sort, and such as cross-category as French Inventors is much more useful than trying to manually do a intersection between the two parent categories. Looking at the category you mention, it would be much more useful if it were subdivided--perhaps by occupation. Since these discussions are getting repetitive, I've summarized my views in an essay WP:Ethnicity is notable, abbreviation, WP:YESE (it's still preliminary, until I incorporate more of the arguments I've made on this). It's intended as a counter to the essay WP:Ethnicity is not notable--whose perhaps somewhat misleading abbreviation is WP:ETHNICITYISNOTABLE, DGG ( talk ) 20:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Factors of identity should be noted, but not expanded upon unless these factors are somewhat tied to notability. I do not think that a cogent argument can be made for leaving out sourced material relating to a person's attributes of identity. That is not to say that there cannot be exceptions—but I think the default condition should be for inclusion. The real issue, in my opinion, is how much coverage should be given to such aspects of identity. I am obviously speaking right now about prose material included in the body of the article. I am not addressing the questions regarding such indications in the two other areas for this—the Infobox and the Categories. My feeling is that if the person's notability has little to do with these identity considerations, that they should not be delved into to any great degree. Arguments can exist as to the degree that identity considerations enter into the determination of a subject's notability, but the implication of this is just that a sliding scale exists as to the degree that identity considerations should be expanded upon. In the case that no argument can be made that an individual's identity plays a contributory role in their notability—I think mere perfunctory mention of identity factors is all that is called for. But again, I do not feel that in most cases a substantial argument can be made for entirely mentioning one or more identity factors relating to an individual—but I will allow that exceptions to this are certainly also possible. I feel that these are editorial decisions that should be made on a case-by-case basis. Bus stop (talk) 21:25, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I can see the argument for 'factors of identity' being included in the body of a biography, where there is sufficient other detail to avoid giving it undue weight, but this rather begs the question: what exactly is a 'factor of identity'? If one is talking about self-identity, then is ethnicity necessarily a factor at all? The presumption by many Wikipedia editors seems to be that it is, and if it can be sourced, it should be included. To return to a previously-mentioned case, consider Richard Feynman. He was a Nobel-prize-winning physicist, and he was from an ethnically-Jewish background. However, he made it very clear that he did not consider 'Nobel-prize-winning Jewish physicist' to be a valid description of him - His ethnicity and his field of study were two differing aspects of his life, and not significant in relation to each other. Given that few Wikipedia articles are about people notable because of their ethnicity (at least, they shouldn't be), to assume that the subject of a biography will consider their ethnicity relevant in an article about them is questionable. Wikipedia is not a database, and was never intended to be. We should not be collecting data (often of questionable reliability) simply because we can. A person may be 'notable', but is their ethnicity necessarily 'notable'? I'd suggest not, and including often-contentious data for no better reason than to 'help people compile lists' is hardly something we should be encouraging. I surely don't need to comment further on the ugly past history of this particular practice? AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:49, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump—you say "However, he made it very clear that he did not consider 'Nobel-prize-winning Jewish physicist' to be a valid description of him - His ethnicity and his field of study were two differing aspects of his life, and not significant in relation to each other."

We go by sources. Do sources refer to his Jewish identity as an "ethnicity"? Furthermore, even if we do not refer to him as a "Nobel-prize-winning Jewish physicist", we could still mention that he was Jewish, could we not?

You said above that "…His ethnicity and his field of study were two differing aspects of his life, and not significant in relation to each other."

There are two problems with that:

1. ) Is his Jewish identity an "ethnicity" according to sources?

2. ) Why can't it be mentioned separately from mention of his winning a Nobel prize in physics that he was a Jew? Bus stop (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump—you say "Given that few Wikipedia articles are about people notable because of their ethnicity (at least, they shouldn't be), to assume that the subject of a biography will consider their ethnicity relevant in an article about them is questionable."

I think that to varying degrees a person's attributes of identity could be related to their notability. These are discussions that have to take place on the Talk pages of the article involved. The relationship between factors of identity and that which a person is notable for, I think exists on a continuum. This has to be discussed at individual articles. But I don't think a cogent argument can be made that omitting such information is justifiable, but I hesitate to state that as a rule. I merely feel that the default position should be for the perfunctory inclusion of well-sourced attributes of identity. Bus stop (talk) 22:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Feynman wasn't Jewish by faith, so if he wasn't Jewish by ethnicity, he wasn't Jewish at all. And as for why it can't (or at least possibly shouldn't) be 'mentioned separately' is because he gets an article in Wikipedia because of his work in physics. There are lots of non-notable things about Feynman that could undoubtedly be sourced, and included in a biography if we wished. We don't include others, so why include this? It seems to me that insisting it should be 'mentioned separately', you are suggesting that his ethnicity is notable: if this is so for particular biographies, it should have to be proven with reliable sources, on a case-by-case-basis. To do otherwise is just persisting with the unjustified (and often unsourced) ethno-tagging that has marred Wikipedia in the past. And no, as for anything else in Wikipedia, the default position must be not to include non-pertinent facts (more so in BLPs, and even more so still where the 'facts' are often questionable, and where, as I've already noted, such 'facts' have a long history of resulting in harm to individuals) AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump—do sources say that Feynman was "ethnically" Jewish? If not then that is original research. If the best quality sources addressing this aspect of Feynman's identity refer to him as "Jewish", and not "ethically Jewish", then we would not be justified in referring to him as being "ethically Jewish". We follow sources. Bus stop (talk) 22:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump—you say "And as for why it can't (or at least possibly shouldn't) be 'mentioned separately' is because he gets an article in Wikipedia because of his work in physics."

At wp:notable we find: "Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only their existence."

Also: "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not directly limit the content of an article or list." Bus stop (talk) 22:48, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Our Feynman article puts him in the category Jewish atheists. Are you suggesting that he shouldn't be included in this category? Do you think there are other ways of being 'Jewish' other than by faith, or by ethnicity? If so, I'd like to know what they are. And no, we don't 'follow sources', we follow reliable ones. (can I ask you to try to compose your replies as a whole, rather than entering them in installments - it makes replying difficult) AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:55, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump—I agree—we go by the best quality reliable sources available to us. Do the best quality sources refer to him as a "Jewish atheist"? If so then yes—we would be justified in referring to him that way. You say, "Do you think there are other ways of being 'Jewish' other than by faith, or by ethnicity?" This would be original research—it doesn't matter what I think. Sources are our key to answering such questions. Bus stop (talk) 23:20, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Error in UK Daily Mail article regarding Christina Aguilera

I have been looking around for an appropriate place to post this message - having initially done so at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communications_committee, I've just noticed that no one else has posted there for two years, so it's probably not active.

Basically, I want to raise an issue regarding this article in the UK Daily Mail:

Christina Aguilera FLUBS the lines to the National Anthem at the Super Bowl - by singing botched lyrics found on Wikipedia

The article is blaming Wikipedia for the error in Aguilera's lyrics at the Superbowl, implying that she read a vandalised version of the article before her rendition.

However, the vandalised version (as cited in the article) was actually this one, added *after* her performance and reverted eight minutes later, so Wikipedia had nothing to do with it. I think we should look into contacting the Daily Mail as this kind of press isn't very good for the encyclopedia. I could contact them myself, but it might be better coming from someone within the organisation? Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Seems like something the WMF should make a statement about. Yoenit (talk) 11:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

You can email the WMFs press liaison at the address found at WMF:Press room. That seems the best way to do it. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 11:53, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

As if living in the damn country all your life isn't enough to learn your own goddamn national anthem... The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:13, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

And the tune - sing the notes as written, no more, no less, it's not an exercise in improvisation or scat. – ukexpat (talk) 20:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

At least I'm a Green Bay fan, so I was able to enjoy the game after that. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:34, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, today's example showing that there's a reason that rag gets labeled the Daily Fail... Agreed that the WMF should be looking for a retraction and apology for that. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:26, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Don't feed the troll. If the daily mail gets something wrong it's best to ignore them if at all possible.©Geni 18:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Mass delinking of United States

I was recently notified to some activity of Colonies Chris delinking United States and some other items from templates. I am not sure that there is consensus to do this and I am concerned that it is not appropriate to delink some of these. Perhaps some of them but not on a mass basis. --Kumioko (talk) 18:11, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Please provide a list of the templates that are affected by these changes (or a representative sample, if it's a long list). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Or why not limit it to whatever you think is a problem. Generally, from what I've seen such delinkings appear appropriate, but let's see what you have in mind. Thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:01, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

See here for templates that are being discussed. Moxy (talk) 20:02, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Request: Please folks, can we not link to the secure server -- NavPopups doesn't work on them, making a quick review impossible. – ukexpat (talk) 20:15, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Opps forgot i was in there..I have changed it.Moxy (talk) 20:20, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

This seems to be very similar to the concerns raised at WT:WSS#Delinking of templates and WT:STUB#Valueless links in stub templates.

@Moxy: you could have linked it like this: [[Special:Contributions/Colonies Chris|here]] to be server-independent. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:32, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

This delinking is in line with the MoS (see WP:OVERLINK). I raised the question at WT:STUB months ago before I started this delinking. It was also raised at WT:WSS. There were no objections. It has also been raised again very recently at WT:WSS#Delinking_of_templates by an admin who wished to confirm that there were no objections. There were no objections. Colonies Chris (talk) 00:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I thought the community had moved on from this one. Wikilinking is optimised where linking is undiluted by links to extremely well-known and general article topics such as whole country articles. I have rarely seen a link to common countries that was not either (1) unnecessary (i.e., so unlikely to be clicked it's not funny); or (2) better replaced by a more specific link (Agriculture in France, not France). Some years ago, the best content contributors accepted without comment that linking needs to be intelligently applied. See FAC, FLC, etc, for examples. The "news" in the templates in question might be linked, but a common country name is not "news", and bluing it is∂ a distraction from the more valuable links. Tony (talk) 01:17, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I looked through about ten of the recent changes, and I think this is great. The work is clearly being done with thought (e.g., <United States> <Armed Forces> became <United States Armed Forces>, which it ought to have been all along), and most of the outright removals are clear instances of overlinking. Colonies Chris deserves a barnstar for doing this tedious work, not complaints. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:38, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for this support. So often the only feedback is criticism, so this is much appreciated.
I'm now performing a similar process on templates with links to Canada, but they're being consistently reverted by User:CKatz. I really don't want to get into a battle over this but it seems clear that my changes are in line with the MoS and with consensus, and I really don't want to make the same changes all over again - as you say, it's a tedious process to do even once. Can this user be stopped from continually reverting my changes? Colonies Chris (talk) 00:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Please avoid hyperbole, as it really does not help anything - 13 out of 59 edits is hardly "continually reverting". Note that the reverts involved cases where you stripped out useful links, not ones where you actually refined the links. --Ckatz^chat_spy 07:43, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps a note to relevant projects that you are about to change all there temples could avoid this type of confusion. Simply state your intentions with a Copy and pasted version of what your about to do. As some projects may have there own formats they have agreed upon and are not aware of the MoS on this. Moxy (talk) 07:49, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The "overlink" section speaks to articles, not templates; as an aside, it also directs us to retain relevant links, which the geographical links would appear to be given the nature of the templates in question. --Ckatz^chat_spy 08:04, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

@Moxy: are you seriously suggesting I should gain the approval of every project before bringing anything within their purview into line with the MoS? This is hard enough work as it is without having to reverify basic matters over and over. In any case, this appears to be a personal crusade on the part of CKatz, not a project thing. I can find no discussion of this on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada pages. Colonies Chris (talk) 08:49, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

@CKatz: perhaps you could explain why you consider the link to Canada to be vital in Template:Canadian television networks but you're happy for me to unlink it in Template:Religious television channels in Canada, for example? This makes no sense to me at all. And what could possibly be the benefit of links to Canada and British Columbia in Template:BritishColumbia-geo-stub, which only ever appears within an article that already would have a prominent link to BC? Colonies Chris (talk) 08:49, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

@Colonies Chris no i dont mean ask for permission and/or gain approval from the projects..all i am suggestion is a notice to projects that your about to bring the temples in line with the MoS. Or even easier for you would be to add a link in your edit summary to a sandbox page that explains what your doing..as the current edit summary does not realy show the reasoning y. I agree 100 percent that this is not a requirement on your part - however its has come up now a few times by different editors in different forums. We should find a way of communicating whats going on better so we are not here again when others see this edits. Moxy (talk) 22:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Paid Editors?

I am a new editor replacing another new editor that got trashed with rules and jargon by an experienced editor. I've got this bad feeling I am working against an editor who is editing wikipedia for pay. Rather than discuss that specific problem, a general question comes to mind: How could we possibly determine the number of editors who are paid and working as teams on wikipedia articles? Has anyone tried to infiltrate a for-pay group of editors? Has anyone tried to form such a group and will admit it? OoZeus (talk) 04:01, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Just a general overview of paid editing at Wikipedia:

• Insofar as a paid editor does a good job of being indistinguishable from a purely volunteer editor, they are unlikely to be spotted, at least hypothetically.
• Insofar as the motivation for paying an editor is either to a) write an article about a commercial enterprise which doesn't qualify for a Wikipedia article under WP:GNG or b) To whitewash an existing article about a commercial enterprise, political group, or individual so that it accentuates positive aspects and eliminates the negative ones, such editing is obvious and usually goes very badly.
• Wikipedia as a system discourages paid editing both officially and systemicly. Officially, the WP:COI guidelines make it very hard to establish paid editing as a regular practice as accepting money to edit an article with a certain point of view is a direct violation of Wikipedia policies (and if you are paying someone to edit an article, you probably have a clear image of what you want the article to say, and it likely violates WP:NPOV pretty egregiously). Systemicly, Wikipedia has an community ethos which is so hostile to paid editing that such editors are basically driven out of town at the head of a mob bearing pitchforks and torches. This is not wrong in most cases, as editors so run off have usually broken so many rules and burned so many bridges that the same result would have occured even if they hadn't been editing-for-hire.

The basic summation is that it does go on, and when it does it almost always goes badly because there's nothing a paid editor can do correctly that a volunteer editor couldn't also do correctly, and paid editors have motivations which run directly in conflict with Wikipedia's core values, and those motivations are usually so obvious that it never goes well. --Jayron32 04:22, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

The TLDR version the the the above -- basically editors need to follow the rules, paid or not. The community is very split on if they should be 'allowed', per se, but if they follow the rules (including neutrality and so on) then there's nothing to be done, officially. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 05:12, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Meanwhile back in the non-hypothetical real world instance of Wikipedia, it is practically impossible for a paid editor to be neutral - he who pays the piper... It is inherently a violation of WP:OWN regardless of any attempt, no matter how sincere, to pay lip service to WP:NOTABILITY, WP:COI, WP:NPOV, etc.

Anyone taking money to write in WP is IMHO comitting fraud as they have no way of ensuring that their "product" will be delivered or if it does manage to survive until it is "delivered", that it won't simply disapear very quickly as such articles are often speedied. Their "customer" often gets a big fat nothing for their money. Roger (talk) 07:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Nevertheless, paying editors may still be profitable, a high-quality article about themselves at a popular page like this is clearly positive. Articles must be about notable subjects and keep a neutral point of view, but for a company that is already notable and stayed clean of conroversies, that's not very hard to do. And yes, there are many other policies to list, but from the point of view of the company, that's nothing special. All areas where a company may desire to expand their activities or promote their name have rules to follow, and most of them are so strict that, once being used to it, to follow our policies is child's play. Only an amateur would write such an article here and not expect rules. MBelgrano (talk) 12:01, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Something that has become clear to me as a new editor is that the search engines always put wikipedia articles near the top. If I were running a company or a political campaign, I would want my view put forth, and I know that could be wrong. Good thing I am not paid! I haven't searched, but I would be surprised if wikipedia was not on the agenda of advertising companies. Perhaps that is internal information for the ad company and never makes it to a posting of "Wikipedia Editors Wanted - Make Thousands of Dollars per week from home". LOL OoZeus (talk) 18:58, 8 February 2011 (UTC) By the way, I am having a hard time starting as an editor. Is there some "junk" job I could do to contribute time but stay out of the line of fire on editing? OoZeus (talk) 19:03, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

If you are looking for relatively easy jobs to do, that is low-intellectual-effort and somewhat simple and repetitive, there is Wikipedia:Community portal/Opentask which has lots of good suggestions. My I suggest CAT:UNCAT and Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories/uncategorized, where you can work on categorizing articles which lack categories; this can be a good introduction to the category structure at Wikipedia, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikify which is about converting plaintext articles into house style, with proper use of Wikilinks and section headers. It helps you to get to know basic aspects of the manual of style and how to properly introduce wikilinks and sections into articles. --Jayron32 20:47, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

You might like to see WP:PAID, if you haven't found it before. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:40, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

It is possible that a company as I have described, already notable and clean of controversies, may consider that they have nothing to fear from our policies and that a good wikipedia article may benefit them, even following all applicable policies and guidelines. Remember Wikipedia's main flaw: users write about the things they want to write about; in other words, an article nobody is interested in writing about will stay undeveloped even if notability, information and sources are everywhere. The "wiki" style, where articles are written by casual users who add a litle more as they passed by, works only up to a certain limit, good and featured articles always need at least one user to focus in the article and work a lot with it. We have ways to control which topics have their own articles, or to control the way the articles are developed, but we don't have ways to expand articles that nobody is interested in and are not developed up to their potencial. MBelgrano (talk) 03:46, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

sinebot, signatures etc

Sinebot is acting weird, but so is the signature autogenerated using the four tildes. It added a second signature to previously signed material. [3] [4]. The autogenerated signature looks different from normal. NOTE: since I am on an IP account, my signature is unmodified, it is Wikipedia default.

Has a change in Wikipedia default signature occurred, which in turn is breaking sinebot? (This is signed using four tildes) 65.94.45.238 14:03, 8 February 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.94.45.238 (talk)

When you sign you no longer give a link to your talkpage, which is probably breaking the bot. Did somebody change the default signature? Yoenit (talk) 14:45, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

test 89.146.39.186 (talk) 14:46, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

It would seem your signature is not standard, despite editing from an IP adress. I have no idea how that would happen. 89.146.39.186 (talk) 14:47, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I have added {{NoAutosign}} to your talkpage, which should stop Sinebot from bothering you for now. Somebody should probably file a bugreport, but I have no idea how. Yoenit (talk) 14:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Whatever caused it, it seems to have disappeared again. My signature is now normal once more. 65.94.45.238 (talk) 19:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Culture.si

The wiki Culture.si was launched in April 2010. Texts about the culture of Slovenia are available under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, the same license as used by Wikipedia. See Enhance Wikipedia! and Terms of Use. Published by the Slovenian Ministry of Culture and Ljudmila (media laboratory). --Eleassar ^{my talk} 13:51, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Category:Fictional characters by superhuman feature or ability

I wonder if it's time to try to do something about these again. Some of them, e.g., Category:Fictional characters with superhuman strength, Category:Fictional mutants, have previously been nominated for deletion with no consensus. Some excerpts from the discussions:

• Delete: "too broad", "ill defined", "pointless trivia", "useless", "far, far too broad", "It's chuff and too broad", "no precise real-world definition for a jargon sf term", "Definition for inclusion seems murky",
• Keep: "needs to be pared down, with more sub categories", "and define: humanoid characters who can lift over 1 ton", "make a few nice subcategories"

Few arguments for keeping contradicted the reasons for deleting; in fact, many expressed the same concerns — most were conditional on renaming, subcategorizing, or giving the category a more specific definition. While some were renamed (super strength to superhuman strength) the latter mostly has not happened. The result is an inconsistent and disputed interpretation of how the categories should be defined (see for example Category talk:Fictional characters who have mental powers). Furthermore, many are being used inappropriately, e.g., Category:Fictional crocodiles and alligators as a subcategory of superhuman strength. I've removed a number of similar examples.) The bottom line is that the issues raised in the "super strength" deletion nomination continue to apply to many of its sister categories.

I think we need to either develop a consistent set of guidelines, which should be given on each subcategory, or else delete the problem categories. Feezo (Talk) 21:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a real question, not an insult disguised as a question: Does it really matter? What harm does a crappy category do, really? Categories don't show up atop Google searches, fooling readers; they doesn't block good material. They slightly clutter the very bottom of articles, but otherwise - so what if they suck? They're just a sort of wikified link farm, after all.

I'm a longtime admin and editor, but I've never really seen why people get so worked up over them. It's much more fun to go ballistic over American-vs-British spelling, or some other wikipedia time suck. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Y Answered on user's talk page. Feezo (Talk) 22:12, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Jizzy Pearl

I am very sorry, but I have made a mess of Jizzy Pearl, and I do not know how to fix it. I was trying to add a reference section. Please help!--DThomsen8 (talk) 23:05, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say that without wikilinks, that statement might lose its context. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 23:07, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Heh. I fixed the article markup, but noticed this section because the title seemed like it was some really funky spam. — Gavia immer (talk) 23:12, 9 February 2011 (UTC)