Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
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communication = notification be phone [or even] eMail and at least Snailmail

why not ALERT a user that [at the worst] our 'TOPIC' is about to be deleted or [ the LEASTE] an important responce is in your Bit-Bucket ? ! ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by UNiRaC (talk • contribs)

Wait, what? Are you saying you want us to send you a postcard before AfDing "your" page? No. A talk page posting and maybe an e-mail is more than sufficient. --tjstrf talk 06:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

But most of the time, users don't even get a notification on their talkpage when an article is AfD'd. Admins just use their arbitrary powers to delete anything they don't like. Walton monarchist89 10:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Please (re)read WP:AGF - the view of most of us here, I believe, is that admins try their best (and usually succeed) in being objective about deletions.

Having said that, I do think that it could be a major improvement to have an automated system post a message on user talk pages (as is done, for example, with the Signpost), for, say, the person who created the article (but does NOT, as noted by someone else, own the article), and also post the same message on the talk pages of (say) the last ten editors (or, alternatively, anyone editing the page in the last 30 or 60 or 90 days). John Broughton | Talk 14:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

There are huge numbers of editors who fix typos, refine categories and DAB wikilinks on pages they have not made major content changes on. No bot could distinguish them from actual content editors. I would think most of them would be, uh, less than thrilled to start getting their Talk pages filled with notices like this. Fan-1967 14:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's keep things simple. Users want their page in good condition : they respect our policy and they put the page in their watchlist. They may use RSS too - see VP:Tech. -- DLL ^{.. T} 18:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

While a notification to primary contributors is nice and appreciated , no user is under any obligation to do so, because users don't own the pages they contribute to. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 22:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

• We have such an automated system, it's called a watchlist :) (Radiant) 13:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I personally always leave a message on the talk page of the user most active (if he is not the creator) if i have left an AFD on his article. Generally most articles to be AFD's are very recent in creation, so the creator will still see the tag or his talk page message. And if not, there are always other users who seem to get the word around, esp. with wikiprojects watching all of their own articles. I personally think the system works well. From articles I have seen AFD'd or AFD'd myself, if the user wants to contest it he has always found out pretty quickly and added the hang on template. SGGH 11:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Contacting users for academic surveys.

Should requests made to user_talk pages, article talk pages, and/or emailing editors be prohibited? Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Spam#Academic user surveys. -- Jeandré, 2006-12-17t10:36z

Style: dashes in page names

At Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Special characters it says "For use of hyphens, dashes and hair spaces in page names, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes)." And at that page it says:

For page names:

• Hyphens and dashes are generally rather avoided in page names (e.g., year of birth and death are generally not used in a page name to disambiguate two people with the same name).
• If hyphens and dashes are needed to write a page name correctly (e.g., Piano-Rag-Music, Jack-in-the-box, Nineteen Eighty-Four), prefer simple hyphens, and avoid hair spaces, even in the odd case of a range forming part of the title, e.g., History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991).
• If for greater precision another type of dash is used, always provide a redirect from the variant with simple hyphens and without hair spaces. Note however that using less common types of dashes in non-redirect page names can easily break Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), for the reasons given in the Rationale section of that guideline.

First, the suggestion to "prefer simple hyphens" is odd, since about the only case when a hyphen and dash could be considered interchangeable is within a range.

Second, the guideline talks about when not to use hyphens or dashes, but it doens't really talk about when to use them. I've noticed that articles about Canadian electoral districts do use em dashes: for example Etobicoke—Lakeshore. On the other hand, and this is what called the issue to my attention, Quebec City-Windsor Corridor has a hyphen. To my eyes that one is a mistake, since a hyphen can't reach across the space to bind with Quebec: I think it needs to be Quebec City – Windsor Corridor with an en dash. Alternatively, the page could be retitled Quebec-Windsor Corridor, which already exists as a redirect (and is in fact the way I'd normally say it; both usages seem to be about equally frequent in ordinary use as estimated by Google counts).

I raise this here both to suggest that it would be appropriate for the Manual of Style to provide examples of how to handle such page names, and also to invite someone to retitle this particular article if they agree that a dash would be better (anonymous users can't do that).

207.176.159.90 06:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a general guideline for wiki article titles that says that the most used name should be the edit title, for instance John Smith would be the title for an article on John Richard Peter Smith if everyone knew his has John Smith. Therefore, I think I'm right in saying that if a hyphen is used it the subject name in the majority of the time outside wikipedia, it should be used in the title. However that point doesn't address much of your question. Taking the Quebec-Windsor Corridor, that then may add confusion as to whether its the province or the capital for someone who is searching for it. To be honest, a possible policey would be to omit/include hyphens based on what is the most likly form for which someone trying to reach the article would search for? that ties in with what it's known as outside wikipedia aswell, personally I would go for that approach but I suspect there are plenty of reasons to disagree with me. SGGH 11:16, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

"THE QUÉBEC CITY – WINDSOR CORRIDOR" appears to be a sort of commercial brand name of VIA Rail Canada ([1]).

Other publications referring to the "railway" aspect also use e.g. "Quebec - Windsor Corridor" and "Quebec-Windsor Corridor" (sometimes both variants on the same page [2])

Publications of a more "official nature", referring to the area, use e.g. "Windsor–Quebec City corridor" and "Quebec City-Windsor Corridor (QWC)" (these two variants both on the same governement-operated website, Environment Canada)

No, apparently, there isn't a way of writing this name "more correctly" than any other variant.

I'd oppose "Quebec City – Windsor Corridor", because of its proximity to the VIA Rail Canada brand name (currently, the Wikipedia article is about the area, not exclusively about the railway aspect). But that redlink can of course be made a redirect to the current article.

Apart from that consideration, if several versions are "correct" there's not much use to advocate the "enhanced precision" rule of the third bullet quoted above from the "dashes" guideline. "Prefer simple hyphen" (second bullet, as quoted above) seems perfectly appropriate here. --Francis Schonken 13:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

First, VIA Rail is not using "Quebec City – Windsor Corridor" as a brand name. They do distinguish their services in the Corridor from those in other parts of the country, but this is no different from the way another organization might distinguish services in the Atlantic Provinces from those in another part of the country; they're using it as the name of a region where they do things differently. The form "Quebec-Windsor corridor" can also be found on VIA's web site, for example here and here (page 8 of the PDF).

Second, I argue that in choosing a primary title, "Quebec City-Windsor Corridor" is not one of the correct forms that can be chosen between; it's true that there are people who use it, but these are people who are unclear on the proper use of hyphens, or not used to having en dashes available, or that sort of thing. (As to which city is named first, that makes no difference to me, but "Quebec-Windsor Corridor" is the way I'm accustomed to seeing it, so I imagine it's the more common order.)

207.176.159.90 04:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, this isn't a problem of style only. The problem is f. ex., if you're saving a file on local HD, browsers by default take the title of the HTML page as a file name. For WP articles that is the article name. I don't know how US-en based Windows systems behave, but in CE (Central Europe) systems there's a problem if you want to reload that locally saved file back to your browser. In W95 and W98, what I checked, loading a file including an em dash in its file name, fail to load in total. In XP, what I use, reloading the file into IE works, but any pictures, styles and so on are missing since the browser doesn't recognise the subdirectory in which that data is stored in. I am pretty sure that effects any Latin 2 based Windows systems, maybe even Latin 1 (but I have no available). The test to verify would be. Save an article with an em dash, e.g. War in Somalia (2006–present) but don't change the name. Then finish your internet connection, empty the browsers cache. Then double click on the file in the Windows explorer. If now the article appears in your browser window without any images then you see the problem I am talking about. (I believe the reason for this issue is that em dash resp. ALT+0150 isn't a valide character of an URL, the file name of a local saved HTML page therefore has to follow browser conventions. As I understood the problem doesn't appear with other unicode characters (e.g. cyrillic characters) but I found out that left and right single quotes are causing the same issue.) --213.155.224.232 14:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for usability (see e.g. Wikipedia:Usability). What you describe is very much an Old versions of MS Windows problem ('95 and '98 are currently "officially" not even supported any longer by their manufacturer...). OK, I think Wikipedia technical people should do as much as they can to keep MediaWiki software (and its implementation on any Wikipedia site) as compatible as they can with whatever system that is still more than marginally used (across unicode compatibility or not). Then, the actual problem you describe is a problem that only occurs in an off-site situation (a problem that furthermore can be avoided by the way you save the files on such older systems). I'm not sure what the community thinks about this (that is: keeping absolute compatibility to all systems, whatever their age, and as well both in off-line as on-line situations, even for easily avoidable issues). In this case (for the easily-avoidable off-line problem with MS Windows 95 and 98 etc systems), I'd be inclined to drop that far-reaching backward-compatibility issue (why don't you ask Microsoft to solve it? They're the ones that for instance fail to give a correct implementation to the unicode standard!) - certainly if this far-reaching backward compatibility issue couldn't be saved without making the MediaWiki software lose too much of the unicode-related advantages. (could someone technically-experienced check the viability of the technical issues I asserted above)

See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics)#Printability for characters/glyphs/... that should be avoided in Wikipedia page names for compatibility of the on-line Wikipedia with older systems, AFAIK the "ndash" is however not an unprintable character in that sense. Or is it? --Francis Schonken 15:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

After all the problem with the dashes appeared to be more than only Win'95/'98, so I updated guidance in several places:

Please don't use n-dashes (–), m-dashes (—) or any other type of dash, apart from standard hyphens (-) in page names of content pages, because such symbols, apart from regular hyphens, prevent that some systems (including Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP) could save the page as a file to their computer.

The non-hyphen dashes can however be used in redirect pages if an enhanced precision for the page name is desired for use in wikilinks elsewhere.

Rationale: see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dashes)#Dashes in article names.

--Francis Schonken 14:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

on the garbage of the English wikipedia - "in fiction and popular culture" - something NEEDs to be done

Many articles in the English wikipedia, and only in that language version, are currently plagued by irelevant information on the mention of different topics in popular fiction, such as soap operas, pop-concerts, comics, anime and TV-series - most of them look like a dump for fanboys and fangirls with virtually no encyclopediatric value - sometimes this garbage is twice as long as the article itself. I strongly suggest creating a policy taming this trend in this or that way by creating a standard. The article on Vampires seem to have a sane approach on medial reference, up to a certain point after which is starts reminding a dump. Surprisingly Jesus, love,death cancer,The Battleship Potemkin, and Mohammed articles remain completely untouched by it - there must be something holy about them ;). I have a couple of suggestions for policies, but yours are more than welcome - something needs to be done:

• Creation of a separate wiki such as wikipop or something to keep the tv-nanny children happy
• Creation of separate articles such as Cultural depictions of Rasputin or List_of_cultural_references_to_psychokinesis_and_telekinesis
• Adding hide and show buttons to cul.ref. parts of articles
• Prohibiting dumplike listing and enforcing encyclopediatric texts
• Demanding a mention to be influential
• your idea?

Examples: <commented out, see below> —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Internazi (talk • contribs) 16:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

I don't know why you felt it necessary to clog up this page with all of those lengthy examples, except to make a point. The solution is to spin those off into their own articles, such as The Art of War in popular culture, and move all of that there, then link to it from the main article. That's the way things are trending, anyway. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:17, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Commenting along the same lines as Zoe (apart from: don't spin off trivia in separate articles, such recommendation is not officially supported):

1. {{sofixit}} ("Thanks for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to change it. You can edit almost any article on Wikipedia by just following the Edit link at the top of the page. We encourage you to be bold in updating pages, because wikis like ours develop faster when everybody edits. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. You can always preview your edits before you publish them or test them out in the sandbox. If you need additional help, check out our getting started page or ask the friendly folks at the Teahouse. ") — the applicable guidance is at Wikipedia:Trivia#Practical steps suggestion
2. The guidance at Wikipedia:Trivia#Practical steps suggestion offers many possibilities. Copy-paste to WP:VPP is not one of these, so I commented this copied stuff out above. --Francis Schonken 17:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

1. Agree. The complaining party's username doesn't impress me much, either. Newyorkbrad 17:47, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

And please avoid spaces before your lines : the text becomes scripty and the page can't be printed. Thanks! -- DLL ^{.. T} 18:19, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

This is being discussed at the "Official policy on "Cultural references" sections in articles" above, or does it get a new section every week? Johnbod 18:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The suggestion to "just fix it" is useless. If I had a nickel for every time I've deleted a trivia section and it was reverted, I'd be rich. We need a policy on this. Otherwise people will hold on to their precious trivia sections until their last dying breathe. Kaldari 06:36, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's try not to mix up everything here. Trivia section and ".... In popular culture" are two different things, even if the second is sometimes incorporated in the first. I will first start by saying that while I'm opposed to Trivia sections per se, it doesn't mean all the info that's in it must be deleted. Most of the time, there is some notable info there that could find its way to either "legacy", "production", "reception", etc. Sometimes, it's non-notable, trivial, non sourced information, that can be deleted for these three reasons.

About the subject at hand (popular culture), I think it is often a part of what makes a subject notable. The reason for the "popular" is only because they are recent subjects. I don't imagine anyone complaining that the article on Jeanne d'Arc lists a few books and paintings from the 17th c. under a section "in culture". Zoe's suggestion seems very reasonable to me: split to own article, as you would with any section of indue length per summar style.--SidiLemine 16:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that there is a lot of relevant or just plain interesting stuff that simply isn't notable enough to have an entry of its own. For example, I can see a page citing examples of the lampooning of a fictional character in other media being AFD'd on the grounds that it was a list of non-notables. However one or two (but not much more) relevant examples, such as a tribute episode of another shows, would be valid trivia items.

perfectblue 18:07, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I am going to have to agree with the original poster that some sort of policy needs to be developed which will address if and when a section on 'cultural references' is appropriate for a given article. I've run into this problem on a number of ocassions in articles where it was clearly inappropriate but also where edit conflicts may be sparked if attempts are made to remove the section. A good recent example is the article on the country of Kazakhstan where a cultural references section existed that talked extensively about Borat and also listed several US movies which showed the country; this information clearly should not have been in an article about a country. There are several reasons why these types of sections are not usually appropriate:

1. The very concept of popular culture is ambiguous and tends to essentially boil down to "This Topic in American Movies, American Music and American Television."

2. These sections tend to become simple trivia sections and are typically far longer than they should be in proportion to the rest of an article.

3. The notability of such mentions is often questionable and tends to detract and trivialize the articles topic. Encyclopedic articles should be focused solely on the serious and notable information regarding the topic at hand, they don't need to catalog every time that topic has been mentioned in movies and on TV. --The Way 07:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

NPOV and minority opinions

I would like to discuss what seems to be an ambiguous clarification provided by Jimbo Wales in 2003. He states that for an opinion to be that of a significant minority "it should be easy to name prominent adherents". The issue with this is it does not make clear how many adherents there should be, nor how their prominence should be measured.

For example, two professors may be prominent in their field and their opinions in academia may constitute those of a significant minority, but if they are commenting on an issue that is a mainstream one, should their prominence not be measured in relation to mainstream opinion rather than their prominence in their field; even if the subject they are touching on does relate to their area of expertise?

An extreme example I have used in a discussion is that if you could find another two professors with Ward Churchill's opinion on the victims of 9/11, would it be wrong to say that his view is then the view of a significant minority, even in the knowledge that the overwhelming majority of people do not share the opinions of him and whoever agrees with him?

A slightly different example is if sociologists were in some agreement among themselves that violence by soccer fans is not really mindless hooliganism, but motivated by a reaction from working class males to their surroundings. Where one individual professor and maybe one journalist had commented on a case of one soccer fan killing another soccer fan and asserted the opinion (or speculation) that this was not mindless violence (and these opinions were lone voices, where mass media coverage and the state accepted this killing was mindless violence), would this qualify as a significant minority?

--Guardian sickness 20:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a judgment call and must vary depending on the subject of the article. The key is the word "prominent". Even one prominent adherent can be enough in some situations ... if he or she is prominent enough. In others it may take several adherents of lesser prominentce. Be sure you read WP:RS and you may want to look at WP:FRINGE. Blueboar 15:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Blueboar. I was hoping someone could make a rough judgement from the above examples. Anyway, it is interesting that you are not following Jimbo Wales clarification to the letter. It would seem to make sense to me. If one very prominent person held a view then it is likely other prominent people would agree with that person. Maybe that is what he was thinking when he stated "adherents". Guardian sickness 18:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

GS's reading is that NPOV=MPOV i.e. neutral point of view is mainstream point of view (using a definition different from that in WP:FRINGE in that it excludes specialist publications entirely). See his comments on Talk: Kriss Donald as to what constitutes a prominent adherent.

""I believe “prominent adherents” on mainstream issues should at least be easily recognised in the mainstream and have mainstream acceptance of their opinions when the issue they comment on has been the subject of mainstream opinion. Prominent, in my view, would be someone who determines what is news and what is not rather than a journalist who writes articles. I would also say that someone in an important position of responsibility in an institution, be that a Director, an editor, a government minister. Also, someone who has achieved mainstream recognition or fame through their work." “Otherwise opinions like those of “Ward Churchill” could be described as prominent, which is ridiculous. An opinion of one or two professors who are seen as “prominent adherents” on a subject covered by the national media, politicians etc. could give a misrepresentation of an opinion being that of a “significant minority” when it is not. For example, if you could find another professor with Ward Churchill’s opinions, his would still be the opinion of a very tiny minority” “The idea that any BBC journalist who reports on a subject automatically has a “claim to authority” at all is fanciful.”"

GS has argued for the removal of the following sources from the Kriss Donald article on the grounds of being insufficiently "prominent":

1) a politics lecturer specialising in race/racism, writing in a fairly widely-read but non-mainstream magazine, 2) the main BBC investigative journalist assigned to the case, 3) anti-racist groups of all kinds, 4) the trial defence, cited in the mainstream media

(He also claims the disproportionate coverage of the case by far-right organisations and websites should not be mentioned because the sources are insufficiently prominent, but the main dispute is over the inclusion of anti-racist viewpoints and of framings of a killing other than those of the prosecution and the verdict.)

GS has also tried to draw a distinction between "mainstream" and "non-mainstream" topics - i.e. to argue that material which is sufficiently prominent or "mainstream" for inclusion in Wikipedia in general (in articles on academic topics, dealing with adherents of theories, etc) should be excluded from articles dealing with "mainstream" issues.

My own view is that all the sources listed above are sufficiently prominent for the use made of them; further, that opposing narratives of "anti-white racism" more broadly is majority opinion in the relevant specialism and the mainstream definition of racism is not accepted in the specialism (see racism), so the question is of whether mainstream opinion can be used to exclude informed specialist opinion entirely. There are only a few sources because the issue has not yet been addressed extensively in the specialist literature due to the usual academic research/publication delay.

I offered a strong counter-argument that GS's position would require the exclusion of round-earth theories, in a context where flat-earth theories were dominant in the mainstream, regardless of the status of scientific knowledge. I think it is absolutely against NPOV to try to exclude scientific and specialist views simply because they are ignored or peripheralised in the mainstream media. I also think the status of a general theory (e.g. definitions of racism, existence or not of anti-whtie racism) in the specialist literature is relevant to each specific instance, and that comments by people aligned broadly with a majority or significant minority specialist position on the relevant general issue, commenting on the specific case, are

I edited the article initially because I felt it was utterly non-encyclopedic, simply reproducing a dominant POV with no recognition of different viewpoints. I come to Wikipedia as a reader, looking for information and coverage from different angles, to follow up different controversies and make my own mind up - not to be restricted by what editors seek to include. The verifiability, prominence and tiny minority criteria have a legitimate purpose in dealing with baseless claims and "crank" theories, but GS's reading effectively turns them into tools of political censorship, wrongly implying that a perspective popular in the mainstream media is true and preventing readers from exploring alternative explanations.

Incidentally: there's no reason in principle why Ward Churchill shouldn't be included in a 911 article (in practice the 911 article is already burdensomely long and the Churchill issues addressed very extensively elsewhere, so it's a bad example). The 911 article (in its protected version) does include reference to 911 conspiracy theories and a link to a separate article on these; these by definition have no mainstream adherents.

-82.19.5.150 09:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

An end to vandalbots?

Here is an idea that may eliminate vandalbots/automated spam. I know that when creating an account, it is nessecary to answer a math question to protect agianst vandalbots. What if a math question had to be answered before an edit can be saved, at least for IP's? Yes, this would decrease productivity and be annoying, but it would protect agianst vandalbots very well. Or is this too big a change in Wikipedia's policy, and would not even be used because of policy problems? Seldon1 19:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

It would be a complete pain, but it might be less of a pain than vandalism. perfectblue 20:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

It would possibly limit accessibility for some people. There are some methods of allowing those with disabilities to access it, but some people still struggle with them. :: Colin Keigher (Talk) 20:14, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Realistically, vandalbots are the least of our problems. Most of our vandalism comes from living, breathing human beings. Fan-1967 20:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Only a tiny, tiny percentage of the vandalism I've seen comes from bots. Most is from anonymous, but still human (unfortunately), editors. -- Necrothesp 19:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

A few bots will be stopped, but think of the millions of annoyed people. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Username blocks need to be re-evaluated

I feel that username blocks are spiraling out of control. New users are being blocked for poorly defined "username policy violations", a move that will hurt the future of the project. From recent block logs, here are some examples:

Revertinging (talk • contribs)
Wippippippipp (talk • contribs)
Godpreist54 (talk • contribs)
Thabo Mkbeki (talk • contribs)
Kiddybandit (talk • contribs)
Cheap couilles (talk • contribs)
Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus (talk • contribs)
WikiWarrior1 (talk • contribs)
Loser12345 (talk • contribs)
Sexybot12 (talk • contribs)
Joeyjimbob (talk • contribs)
Wowwoweeewow (talk • contribs)
WikipediaFun (talk • contribs)
Blabber mouth katie (talk • contribs)
Youratowel (talk • contribs)
Wheeeee! (talk • contribs)
Wknight91 (talk • contribs)

For the record, I did not "cherry pick" from X-weeks of block logs on purpose. I chose a half day period so I could draw attention to how widespread the problem is. Each of these had "username" listed as the block rationale.

I viewed a roughly 11 hour period to gather the names above, and does not represent a thorough examination. There are probably more questionable username blocks in that time period. There are hundreds each week, each one potentially a future valuable editor who decides to just walk away from the project. Perhaps some of them are legit (Is couilles something obscene in another language, for instance?) but I argue that most of them do not appear to properly violate WP:USERNAME. I'm not certain that the problem is to blame on anyone specifically, but the policy regarding username blocks appears to be flawed.

As I mentioned in my RfA many months ago, Wikipedia faces a growing crisis. We are constantly raising new barriers against contributors when we should be looking to cultivate new editors. If the policy of username blocking is not adjusted, the long term health of the project is at additional risk.

I'm not looking to specifically criticize the above username blocks, else I'd post this on AN or AN/I. Instead, I'd like to discuss the policy that tacitly allows this to happen. Does the community agree that protecting our eyes from the wicked text "Sexybot12" or "Godpreist54" is worth the trade off in curious new users who decide to go elsewhere because it's "just not worth it"? Let's focus on the long term health implications of this policy and determine a method for fixing this problem. Thoughts? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

This discussion would be better suited for the WP:U talk page. For the two examples you call specific attention to: "bot" is restricted to actual Wikipedia bots so "wicked text" has nothing to do with it & "Godpreist54" was blocked based upon discussion at Wikipedia:Username so it did have community consensus. "Wknight91" is also marked as a sockpuppet and is an obvious conflict with Wknight94. "Youratowel" (and other like usernames with "you" & "your") can defineitly cause troubles in heated discussions where the person being replied to may take it as personally directed. If someone wants to belittle themselves in their username, I don't have a problem with that, but anything that belittles others should not be allowed. -- JLaTondre 18:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't buy your claim that blocking "Wippippippipp" is losing a valuable member of Wikipedia. If someone is unable to handle and/or overcome the blocking of their username, are they going to be able to function productively in Wikipedia, there conflict is a given? I also don't buy that Wikipedia's long term health is in jeopardy. We have over 3 million user accounts. There are 250+ million Americans (which most speak English, I don't know the number of English speaking people in the world which would be a better number to give here). That's an untapped resource of over 247+ million people. Also figure how many accounts that are duplicates or whatnot and losing "Wippippippipp" isn't a big deal. There are 247+ million other people to take "Wippippippipp"'s place and probably give the same contributions that "Wippippippipp" would have. --MECU≈talk 18:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Mecu - if they balk at our username policy, that doesn't bode well for being able to cope with the other requirements of writing an encyclopaedia. It's stricter that most of the rest of the Internet, but this is an encyclopaedia and not a social community after all. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Chairboy here. What on earth is wrong with "Wheeeee!", "Blabber mouth katie" or "Joeyjimbob"? Do these names "belittle" anyone in any way? And if so, shouldn't these people rather grow a thicker skin than us blocking any username that, potentially, could be in some theoretical way be insulting to someone? I think it's a very wrong attitude to say that there are enough people that could easily replace all those blocked users. It's true, yes, but it still sounds incredibly arrogant to me. We shouldn't say that no real harm is done in blocking these users, we should ask ourselves, what do we gain from this? I just don't see anything that we've gained from blocking the usernames I mentioned above, and I do see up to three newbies that we (probably) successfully scared away. --Conti|✉ 19:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with Mecu and Sam. Most of those ARE bad names. "Revertinging" clearly sends the wrong signal (even if inadvertantly) about what the user is here to accomplish. In a less obvious way, "WikipediaFun" does as well. "Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus" is overly long and our software should be changed so that so many characters cannot even be attempted, let alone accepted. "Kiddybandit" suggests illegal intentions. The list goes on... For the few that maybe should be allowed, I again agree with Mecu and Sam. If they are too thinned-skinned to think of a new username, they should find a different hobby as they are not likely to be successful contributors. We need to get past the utopian idealogy that we would have an improved project if we could somehow get every single person on the planet to contribute. Some people just aren't cut out for it. Johntex\^talk 19:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Oh the hypocrisy.

Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington blocked
Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus 

Is that 10 character difference really blockworthy? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• Another irony is that -- with all the fuss about so-called "non-Latin usernames" -- "Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus" is one of the few actual Latin usernames here (in English, "Hruodland, Prefect of the Marches of Brittany"): it refers to a historical person who died in AD 778 and is remembered today as the legendary hero Roland. (His title, rather than a family name, distinguishes him from any other Hruodlandi who might have been around; titles and professions often developed into family names later, like Smith, Miller, or Butler.)
• Count your blessings that he didn't adopt the Latin name of Tolkien's "Farmer Giles of Ham": "In full his name was Ægidius Ahenobarbus Julius Agricola de Hammo, for people were richly endowed with names in those days".
• There's no rule against using the name of historical persons, as long as they're neither living nor recently deceased. WP:U does say "avoid impersonating any well-known persons or fictional characters" -- but if that doesn't get Sir Nicholas blocked for using a well-known "Harry Potter" character's name, why be more severe about the less well-known name "Hruodlandus"?
• Having a long username doesn't necessarily take up space on talk pages. I shorten my talk-page sig to "Ben" as a space-saver; Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington does likewise ("Nearly Headless Nick"); possibly this user might sign comments as "Hruodland" or "Roland". So what does it matter if the actual username is long? Who's hurt by it?
• I can think of longer real names of living people, if they're given in full (including baptismal names) -- and especially if transliterated from a language like Russian, where one original letter may be transcribed as two-to-four English letters (щ → shch). Should such people be username blocked for using their own full names?
• I agree with other comments here that such a username block's reason should be explained: pointing to WP:U says nothing about what was wrong with this name, or whether there was some way to fix it, since it didn't fit any of the prohibited types. When asked, Nick explained: "the username seems inappropriately wrong and difficult to spell" -- which seems inappropriately subjective and difficult to find in WP:U's reasons for a block-on-sight -- but Nick also unblocked this user and apologized for the inconvenience. So this is resolved, though it would have been less BITING to discuss the matter first, rather than immediately blocking. -- Ben 00:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• I think some of the above are harmless and others should be blocked. But what disturbs me is that the blocking admin does not specifically outline what is wrong with the name. All that is said is "Please read our username policy". If someone is being blocked for a name they; should be explicty told why it is inapproprriate. If the blocking admin has difficulty decribing exactly what the problem is they should list it at WP:RFC/NAME instead of blocking instantly.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 19:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I think it should be like CSD -- people can't just say "DELETED", they have to be able to point to one of the criteria. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
    • That sounds like a good idea. I would also like to point out that is not just the block summary being generic, but also no definative reason is given on the user talk page where there is plenty of room.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 20:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
      • I've made a proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Username#Number_the_criteria_for_quick_reference. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• Would it be useful for a summary of "WP:RFCN" to be used in place of "username" where a name has been blocked as a result of WP:RFCN? At least that way a reason can be looked up. There's only so much you can say in a summary, and, wrong as it may be, I suspect most people are prone to filling in short summaries where possible - it's just human nature. Crimsone 19:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

A summary of WP:RFCN wouldn't really be more helpful than WP:USERNAME. The idea of having blocking admins specifying which element of the username policy they felt was being violated is a good idea, I'd support that. One concept here and in the WP:U talk page related to this that I can't agree with is the assertion that to do anything with Wikipedia, users need thick skins. To be clear, the folks we're talking about are brand new users. Their _very first_ interaction on Wikipedia is dealing with a block. That's pretty harsh medicine. I'm also troubled with the idea that 'we have so many users, we can afford to scare folks off'. If the person isn't doing something wrong, we shouldn't be "throwing then away", which was the implication I read. If that's not an accurate read, please correct me. The root issue, of course, is that I feel there are lots of 'bad blocks' happening here. The answer isn't more policy, the answer needs to be better community involvement in validating the quality of the username blocks. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 04:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Amen to that. Most of these blocks are quite opaque to me, and presumably to the editor who was blocked as well. I am troubled by the idea, expressed here and on the policy talk page, that it's OK to block usernames created in good faith. -- Visviva 04:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

That was very eloquently said I must say Chairboy, even though I may not entirely agree that that there are a particularly large number of bad blocks happening. I'm not sure how many username blocks are really that illegitimate, and of course, illegitimacy is often a matter of opinion. Clearly though, not every block will have the concensus of the community, as nobody is right 100% of the time. An admin that feels that a username "obviously" should be blocked is probably going to be right 99% of the time, but it's that 1% that may not seem quite so "obvious" to everybody else. This is also true of WP:RFCN - after all, it can only guage concensus according to who happens to visit the page. If a username is blocked per RFCN concensus, that doesn't exclude it from the possibility of that 1% error rate - though it does mean that there's less reason to consider the blocking admin as having acted inappropriately.

To have admins specify the appropriate part(s) of the username policy would of course give real and (hopefully!) understandable reason. It would also make it easier to spot when a block has been questionable. It could be trialed by creating a sub-page of WP:U similar to the speedy deletion criterion, designating each element with a code (the code idea having been suggested on the policy talk page). This would also have the benefit of keeping the policy itself intact.

I would like to revise my suggestion above though regarding summary usage. I feel that because this is a subject with the potential for strong views and feelings, the potential for "witchunting" or accusations of bad faith/inappropriate behaviour creeps into the picture as an unintended result. As such, I feel that it would be useful to identify in the summary whether the action was directly the decision of the admin on the basis of poicy or concensus driven (rfcn). To use "username {code}" for an admin decision, or "RFCN {code}" for an RFCN outcome would demonstrate what process has been undertaken, and thus where the cause of any possible failure of process (or responsibility for an inappropriate block) lies. Crimsone 04:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Visviva, please remember that although we assume good faith, that does not prove good faith on the part of the person who has chosen an innapropriate username. You don't know they acted in good faith, and you certainly don't know the blocking admin acted in bad faith. Futhermore, we remove good-faith but unhelpful things all the time. From photos to edits to, yes, usernames. The question of whether a username was created in good faith or bad faith is irrelevant to the question of whehter it is an acceptable username. So, of course it is OK to block usernames created in good faith - if they are inappropriate.If it is an unacceptable username then it must be blocked, regardless of the motives of the creator. Johntex\^talk 04:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

But do we really need to get all prissy about what usernames are "appropriate" anyway? How does it really harm anything if some usernames are a little silly? If we were to be a totally stodgy project and ban all usernames that weren't a complete bore, we'd have to get rid of such users as "Can't sleep, clown will eat me" (or something like that... whatever his username is). I don't really see how the ones that are getting banned are really any "worse". This seems like a repeat of the big userbox debacle, where people on both sides are fighting over something that's really rather peripheral. Everybody should just live and let live. Having weird usernames, or weird userboxes, or deleting both, has no particular importance one way or the other to the encyclopedia. *Dan T.* 05:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

See, the username policy is supposed to keep out offensive things, not silliness. There's no reason to block a user for choosing "Wheee!" or "Joeyjimbob". The policy itself specifically says not to block names that may have been chosen in good faith. Requiring admins to cite the specific policy that prohibits such a name will prohibit blocks for silly, but harmless things, the same way we make sure admins only speedy delete pages that fit CSD, not just what they feel like. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 05:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree the username policy is to keep out offensive things, not silliness. Joeyjimbob - too close to Jimbo. Wheee! - I would have allowed to stand. But let's not lose sight of the fact that several of the ones in the list were clearly innapropriate. Johntex\^talk 05:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Joeyjimbob is too close to "Jimbo"? That really seems like a stretch. (I'm feeling echoes of Chinese dynastic naming taboos here). -- Visviva 08:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The username blocking has gone completely overboard. Why is it our job to make sure no one on Wikipedia is ever offended, or, God-forbid, exposed to something less than completely serious? Why would we consider "Wheeeee!" to be a threat to Wikipedia? Who considers "Godpreist54" offensive to thier religious sensibilities? 90% of the blocks listed above seem completely asinine to me. Do people really believe these blocks are benefitting Wikipedia? This seems to be an example of rules overriding common sense. Kaldari 07:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This does seem pretty overboard. I almost exclusively block usernames when it seems obvious to me they are up to no good. They're easy to spot. :-) Grandmasterka 08:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I know that "Godpreist54" was an RFCN one. Some of the others are obvious. Some of them in the list though may seem not so obvious. One of the WP:U examples of names that will be blocked are those usernames that are similar to those known to have been used by vandals - who of us can remember the name of every vandal there's ever been? Different people will remember different ones. This is the exact sort of reason that the blocking summary needs a mention of the clauses of the policy a name has been blocked under. Crimsone 08:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that there should be standards for user names, particularly when it comes to names that are malicious or offensive, it appears to me that Wikipedia is taking the same path as a lot of the networks are these days and is saying "We can't do that in case in case we offend somebody". Honestly;Loser12345, joeyjimbob, Wowwoweeewow? In a normal civil community, none of these should be considered blockable based on their names and if Wikipedia were a non-US based entity I doubt that they would be blocked. Even Blabber mouth katie should be acceptable as it is/seems pretty that Katie is the user in question.

This appears to be a case of overkill

perfectblue 11:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• I reiterate, though - no unauthorized bots. And "couilles" is "testicles". DS 15:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Wowwoweeewow, Sexybot12 are two that I think that I blocked. Wowwoweeewow because that there have been a recent spat of vandals going by similar names. This was highlighted during the fund raiser when we had vandals using those style names. As for Sexybot12 there was no log of which user created this account (normally there is with bots) and even so they still need to come to WP:BRFA I doubt that would ever have happened as that name of the bot defies bot policy. and when you place a block the block message says contact the blocking admin via e-mail if you have questions. This has happened to me several times the one that is sticking out in my mind is User:BillDay.com I obvious blocked as that is spam. the user contacted me and said that they wanted the username Bill Day but out filter with usernames wouldnt let them because it was too close to bill.day so I found an unused username BillDay and created it for the user, I then e-mail the user with the username and the password telling the user to change the password. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 17:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Betacommand, your message above seems to highlight some of the problems that I'm describing. For instance, you mention that Wowwoweeewow was blocked because you thought it might be a vandal. In that instance, it seems that blocking it as a suspected sockpuppet of the vandal would be far more appropriate than a one size fits all "username" block. Sexybot12 doesn't necessarily mean that it's a robot, there are plenty of users on Wikipedia that have robot-styled names. And if it WAS an unauthorized bot, then it should be blocked for being an unauthorized bot, not because of "username", again. When doing speedy deletes (of which I do many, check my deletion log), the deleting admin must assert what criteria is being used. I can't just say "speedy delete" anymore, I need to be specific. I think that blocks are a much bigger deal than deletions, so consequently blocking admins must be absolutely clear about why they're doing it. The whole Giano mess, btw, was related to an offshoot of this, specifically where I urged you to be very careful about specific policies that folks are being blocked for. As you saw there, a misinterpretation of a block rationale can be pretty emotional, so we owe it to everyone involved to be absolutely clear as to why we're doing what we're doing. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 18:36, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:U, usernames with "bot" are reserved for actual bots. Sexybot12 was not blocked for being an unauthorized bot. It was blocked for using a reserved term. If you want to propose a change to that policy, feel free, but implying it was an inappropriate block is wrong. While I tend to agree with you about indicating why a particular username is blocked (though the WP:U page needs to be revised to make that easier to do), trying to tie this to the Giano debacle is in poor taste. The vast majority of username blocks are clear cut. Also, a good percentage of accounts never make any edits & many of the blocked probably never know they were blocked. I think you are exaggerating the issues. -- JLaTondre 15:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

First, some context: The 17 username blocks that Chairboy found, looking through a half-day of blocks, represents less than one-half of one percent of new user accounts (well over 3,500) that are created in a typical 12 hour period. (See Special:Log/newusers.) Second, the main problem (in my opinion) isn't that admins are too quick to pull the trigger, but rather that the blocked new user isn't being told about Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names, which is an appropriate forum (I think) for an appeal. If there were a badusername template that linked to that RfC page, and this template was routinely put on the talk page of the blocked user, I think that any admin mistakes could be quickly fixed. I think adding a template is much less work than having to categorize blocks. Admins have enough work as is. John Broughton | Talk 14:58, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

How is having to categorize blocks any additional work? Admins should already know what criteria they're blocked under, and typing a few characters to indicate that is a trivial amount of work. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

When an admin sees a new username like User:FUCC-U, he/she doesn't think "aha, that's an A7 or a G12" or whatever; he/she says - "time to pull the trigger". So categories would mean, at minimum, more memorization and/or a cheatsheet. And there is more memorization and changes when categories change. And user arguing over whether the category really applied, when two categories applied and the admin only cited one. In short, this is instruction creep. Any problem with overzealous admins can be solved by making it clear to blocked users how to appeal the block, for which a forum already exists. John Broughton | ♫ 03:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

We already have a cheatsheet: WP:USERNAME. Usernames that don't fit that page shouldn't be blocked on sight. If an admin can't articulate what's wrong with a name, they shouldn't block it. Your statement of block first and let review sort them out is absolutely contradictory with existing policy, that says when in doubt, don't block. If someone walks through the door, their very first experience should not be an assumption of bad faith by them in choosing a username. It's completely against our basic principles. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It's quite trivial if nessecary to pull up a new browser window, point it to WP:U (or a sub-page if appropriate) and look up the code. This isn't instruction creep any more that first introduction of the CSD codes would have been - it's a very simple but effective way of explaining an action so that other people can understand what's happened, it's the creation of accountability in the unlikely case that an admin get's a little "trigger happy" (so to speak) with the effect that it should put an end to the behaviour, and finally it should put an end to bad blocks while making the whole thing that much more transparent to everybody. I fail to see why anybody would see such a trivial proposal as such a problem. Crimsone 09:05, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

NC and wikipedia only images

It's been well over a year now I think it is time to clear out Category:Images used with permission and Category:Non-commercial use only images.Geni 15:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Is there a "sunshine law" that deletes uploaded images that haven't appeared on any page after two years, three years, or whatever?--Wetman 16:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

If they are fair use 7 days. Otherwise not directly.Geni 20:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Debate now at Category_talk:Non-commercial_use_only_images#Time_to_clear_this_lot_out. Inless I hear some valid objections by the next weekend I'm going to remove the remaining images without a fair use claim.Geni 21:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd be careful though and make sure that they wouldn't be legit fair use first. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Articles about fiction

I am certain this has been discussed before, probably here and elsewhere, but I would like to be enlightened. There are a bunch of guidelines that state subjects must be the subject of multiple, non-trivial coverage in sources independant of the subjects themselves. How is it that the literally thousands of articles about obscure villages in Middle Earth, magical powers possessed by characters on Buffy, pieces of armor you can buy for your D&D avatar, and weapons used on Star Trek do not violate this simple directive? Very, very few of these articles have sources beyond the subject itself (Note, for example, this AfD.) Is there policy that can be quoted to support keeping these articles that doesn't violate the prime directive of non-trivial third party sources? --Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 18:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This would probably better be discussed at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction). User:Zoe|(talk) 18:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Good call thanks, I don't yet quite know my way around the labrynthine backstage area of wikipedia.--Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 18:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

"Labyrinthine" is a good description.  :) User:Zoe|(talk) 18:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This is why. Because people read them, and care about them, and write them. Hundreds of thousands of pageviews for the category of articles on a bunch of made up ninja. A brief scan reveals something like 50 Naruto articles in the top 1000 most visited articles. (And I might add that those people aren't coming here because they want to read out of universe info either, but I digress...) Until/unless we get an official wikifiction project, we might as well just deal with it. --tjstrf talk 18:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This is almost exactly what my thoughts were - it's something we put up with, a sort of parallel set of wikipedias on these topics that apparently don't meet guidelines but are ubiquitous.--Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 18:53, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't exist yet. If a fictional article is informative, understandable to those who aren't avid fans of the series, and written in comprehensible English, it's not a high priority to get rid of even if the page is totally in-universe. My opinion is that if we are intending to serve our readers, our guidelines for inclusion of fictional universe articles is that the universe in question is notable and sufficiently detailed to allow the authorship of a non-speculative article. --tjstrf talk 19:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The guidelines are ambiguous (I feel) on this issue and don't always agree. You should be able to write an out-of-universe article on the whole universe (per WP:FICT); this will include providing a précis of plots/characters/places. If a précis becomes overly long, it should be split into its own article (per WP:SS). However, then the article on the plot/character/place may become entirely in-universe which conflicts with guidelines again. So decisions on whether a particular article like this belongs are quite subjective. Personally, I would tend towards including for many of these pages, but others disagree. Trebor 18:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:ILIKEIT is not a valid reason for having an article. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:57, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:ITSINCREDIBLYPOPULARWITHTHEREADERSANDWORLDASAWHOLE is. --tjstrf talk 05:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's not a valid reason for keeping the article, which is different. I've lost the count of articles we have because people don't care enough about them either way to have them deleted.Circeus 22:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

No personal attacks

If I say of an editor that "his major problem is that he is a bean-counter, not a researcher", is that a personal attack, or could that reflect an accurate position of their edits, and be exempt? --Iantresman 06:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Talk about the edits, not the person. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:52, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

The quoted statement would be a criticism of his research skills, and hence would be an attack, yes.--Anthony.bradbury 12:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Does this mean that somebody could say "Edit X has a hidden agenda" but not that "Editor X has a hidden agenda", or would this be classed as trying to weasel in personal attack? -- perfectblue 13:51, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

This is still a personal attack. "Edits" don't have agendas, people do. Compare that to "Rv - added word is racist" - which doesn't call the editor a racist, but simply says that you think he/she made a mistake. You can then (if necessary) have a (hopefully polite) discussion on the article's talk page as to whether the word really is racist, if that editor, upon reflection, disagrees and thinks the matter is important enough to discuss. John Broughton | Talk 14:40, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

What would be an acceptable way of saying that an edit was done in order to push a hidden agenda? For example, how would you word it if you suspected that another editor was adding the religion/nationality/etc that famous murderers/pedophiles were born into specifically to defame that religion/nationality/etc, but you were not able to challenge the edits themselves as they were WP:V/WP:RS and totally factual?

perfectblue 14:56, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't confront the editor personally... If you suspect that a given editor is pushing an agenda, his edits might be considered a form of vandalism. Complile examples of his agenda pushing edits and his edit history. Then bring it to the attention of admins and let them deal with it. Blueboar 15:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

If you only suspect the user was trying to defame something, then assume good faith and just ask why s/he feels the information should be included, and why you do not. If the editor couldn't give any valid reasons for inclusion, you could remove it, and if this persisted, bring it to the attention of an admin. Just be careful not to jump to conclusions. Trebor 18:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

"reverting, edit implies XXX" Something like that? You're not making assumptions about why they wrote it, that way. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I would have said know but I probably wouldn't have gotten away with such direct language because of AFG. Unless you have a signed affidavit from them you can not say that you know.

The problem here is that sometimes people conduct legitimate edits for illegitimate reasons and there isn't much that you can do about it. If somebody tags 1,000 murderers and rapists up as being from a particular religious/ethnic background, and it's true and they are from that faith/ethnic background, what can you do? It would be different if you went around deleting things that are true to discredit a race/religion by denying its member recognition, or adding things that weren't true. It's a tricky problem with no simple answer.

perfectblue 19:29, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

It depends on the presentation of the information, but the fact that something is true doesn't mean it has to be in the article. If you don't feel it is relevant or important reverting may be a good choice as long as you are willing to discuss it. Though you might want to discuss before reverting all 1,000. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:22, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

For example, how would you word it if you suspected that another editor was adding the religion/nationality/etc that famous murderers/pedophiles were born into specifically to defame that religion/nationality/etc? Well, you might start by posting a question on his/her user talk page: "It looks to me like you're being selective - doing Germans but not French (or whatever). Is this the case, or have I missed something?" You may learn something. If the editor refuses to answer, or is hostile, then you've got something to point to.

In general, even though much public discourse and debate is about motives ("George W. Bush is a stubborn person, so his unwillingness to change the course in Iraq is understandable"), and this is fully acceptable in public life, Wikipedia policy is based on not attacking edits by attacking editors. And the success of the project shows, I think, that this policy is a good one here. John Broughton | Talk 02:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Hm, interesting - different people have different views on what is actually "racist" (for example, some Americans think "oriental" is racist and most English do not), and there's quite a few people that take personal offense to being implied racist. I wonder if that means that it would be considered a personal attack. ColourBurst 17:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Lists

I have raised this before, and been jumped on, but being fairly resilient I am going to raise it again.

As we all know, there are a vast number of "List of......" articles in the encyclopedia, with varying degrees of usefulness. And we also know that new "list" articles are generated daily, most of which get deleted either via {{AfD}} or occasionally via {{speedy}}. And a few survive as useful contributions.

Given that there are about 30,000 articles of this type already contained in our pages, a review of all of them would be a challenging project. But as about 99% of new "list" articles do not survive, but take up a significant amount of editorial time in AfD, would it not be possible for any newly submitted edit with the title "List of........" to be submitted to immediate peer review? And would it not save time? We could build in an appeal process for the author if s/he was not willing to accept the review decision.--Anthony.bradbury 15:22, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

One problem that I see with this idea is that it take a bit of time to determine if the list in question is cruft or useful. If we put it to peer review as soon as it is created, it will be in it's infant state (probably with only a few entries on the list). That is too soon to see if it is useful or not. I agree that most "list of" articles are useless and should be deleted, but we don't want to eliminate the few that might be useful before they have time to be built. Blueboar 15:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Do list articles really have a worse survival rate than any other kind of article? It seems like the normal new pages mechanism can handle this fine. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you're proposing an entirely new "peer review" and appeals process for a relatively small percentage of new articles. So editors would need to thrash out how that would work - which would require, what, new policy? And there would then be two parallel processes, one for all new articles but lists, and one for lists, meaning yet another increase in the things that Wikipedia editors might need to know?

In short (if it's not already clear where I'm going), if you feel really strongly that a closer review of new articles that are lists is merited, you might consider just starting a wikiproject. John Broughton | Talk 01:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that 99% figure? -- Visviva 17:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The best term to wrap up cities, towns, villages, etc.

I won't get into what's been happening with top-level U.S. state categories lately (as I don't want to treat this like a dispute), but I'd like to know what fellow Wikipedians think. Should we wrap up subcategories for cities, towns, villages, etc. into a top-level category for "settlements" or should we use something like "political subdivisions" or "administrative divisions". All of these connote certain things, but I just wanted to get others' opinions on this. Thanks! Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 17:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Settlements seems to be the best word to wrap up cities, towns, villages, etc. into one category, in my opinion. Political subdivisions and administrative divisions would seem to include only those locations that are politically recognized and would include things like counties, states, provinces, etc. On the other hand, Settlements limits the subcategories to concentrations of people and excludes counties, states, provinces, etc.--Bobblehead 18:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

How about "populated areas"? User:Zoe|(talk) 23:58, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and say what I think is optimal, although I don't want to stop others' ideas from flowing. I'm thinking "community" or perhaps even "polity" (although, that's kind of a flighty word). A city and a county can both be communities. What sounds less absurd, the Louisville community, or the Louisville settlement? With counties: the Jefferson County community, or the Jefferson County settlement? I'm going by connotations here, and community has a more authentic ring to it. Even "populated area" sounds more authentic than settlement when looking at it this way. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 00:33, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

• For information existing use of 'settlements' in WP, see Settlement (first meaning), Category:Settlements, Category:Settlements by region, Category:Settlements in the United States. This is not a discussion about what to call a particular city, town, village--they are still cities, towns, villages etc. This is a discussion regarding the collective name for human habitations, which include city, town, village, etc, but not state, county, province, etc which are land areas. Hmains 17:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Counties are effectively communities, like cities are communities. Not all space in any of these entities are full of residential space ("human habitations"), but also include commercial and industrial zoning, as well as farmland and even much unused land in many cases. "Community" would apply to everything beneath a region level. I think that normally in the Wikipedia we go with more inclusive categories. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 18:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, not according to Community, which specifically excludes cities, let along anything higher from the definition of community. WP reflects the commonly understood meaning and use of the term. Also see Category:Community and Category:Communities Hmains 21:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, we need to find a better word than 'settlement'. That's the bottom line. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 16:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

How about "localities"? Admittedly, that could include other local administrative units such as counties, or unpopulated areas, but it might be better than "settlements" (which does have a whiff of the frontier about it, to my ears at least). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I like "localities." It's also used by DMOZ, where categories are the be-all and end-all of the project and therefore category naming issues get a great deal more attention. -- Visviva 04:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

"[T]he term 'locality' is used by the United States Board on Geographic Names to refer to the name of a place that is neither a legally incorporated or defined entity (like a township or city), nor a specific geographical feature such as a river or mountain." So there's that to contend with. Postdlf 05:09, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't seem like a problem to me: I assume that the USBGN uses "locality" for that because there isn't any other, more specific name for such places. All places are localities, so if you have a place that isn't a town, city, river, mountain or whatever, you can just call it a "locality". Merriam-Webster defines "locality" as:

1. the fact or condition of having a location in space or time
2. a particular place, situation, or location

and the Compact OED gives:

1. an area or neighbourhood
2. the position or site of something

Does that satisfy our purposes? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I like 'localities' a lot. It's much more contemporary in usage than 'settlements' and it can include cities, towns, counties, neighborhoods, etc. Also, while the USBGN point is well-taken, I also accept the broader definition, and we shouldn't be US-centric anyway. As far as 'settlements' is concerned, that should apply to settlements in the vain of non-permanent locations where humans settled; in other words, it would largely have a historical bent. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 01:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Naming conventions

I want to challenge Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). It's a bad idea; we should name things what they're called, not what they're known as or what will show up best in search engines. If it's sufficiently popular usage, then that will show up in the nebulous "what they're called" and no special allowance needs to be made for it. I realize that this is a nuiance but it seems almost like the difference between WP:SPOV and WP:NPOV. Since science is the right answer then it will show up in a neutral answer and no special provision needs to be made for it. As for what people will type into the search box: that's what redirects are for, to place users at the correct article name from the common name. Maybe not the whole guideline is totally flawed, but it definately comes off way too strong and I think that it should go in an entirely different direction. --froth^T 13:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Whatsoever...

Note that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) is a guideline. It doesn't supersede the Wikipedia:Naming conventions policy, which is summarized as

Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

It doesn't name "commonness" of a name, nor "popularity", nor "what they are called" (where's the difference with "commonness"?), etc, as the general naming conventions principle, but maximum recognisability by the majority of English speakers. For article names in English Wikipedia, there's few relevance in using 日本/日本国 as a page name because that would be "what it is called", because it is simply not recognised by, well, the overwhelming part of English speakers (and that includes most non-native English speakers). --Francis Schonken 13:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Are you really proposing that our article at Rome be at Roma? Should Florence be at Firenze? Should USSR be at Soyuz Sovietski Sozialistiki Respubliki? In Cyrrilic or in Latin? User:Zoe|(talk) 21:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that things are called by a lot of different names. WP:MILHIST is having a big conflict over naming standards for guns. The official name of the M16 rifle is "United States Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16," but it would be silly to put it under that name. People usually just call it the M16, but M16 is ambiguous, so we specify M16 rifle. Recognizable, unambiguous. Now the big conflict there is over whether rifle should be capitalized. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The short answer is that we use a lot of redirects to make sure all or most possible names for a thing do end up at the thing itself. >Radiant< 13:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

This has been suggested quite a few times. The problem is the proper names tend to be unrecognizable, creating massive amounts of confusion when people type in a name and get redirected to a unfamiliar place. ColourBurst 17:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

On Wikipedia I have seen a small number of users who committed what was called vandalism, and, I feel, it was vandalism. However, the users managed to argue that what they had done was not vandalism, and that the deletion was wrong. Out of curiosity, what is policy when it is not possible to argue that an edit should be deleted due to a very cunning argument? 152.78.254.245 15:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism has a very narrow definition on Wikipedia, and it can be found at Wikipedia:Vandalism. Anything that does not fit that definition is not vandalism. —bbatsell ¿? 21:16, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that some users say "vandalism" a bit too quickly - almost a shorthand for "an edit I didn't like". WP:AGF says that one should assume the best possible explanation for an edit. So, for example, one might say "rv - unexplained deletion" rather than "rv - vandalism", at least the first time something gets deleted. Of course blanking an entire article or adding nonsense or obscenities to a page is obvious vandalism. For the rest, just revert and make it clear that edits need to be explained and, if controversial, defended; continued failure to explain can be taken as a sign of vandalism, particularly once you've posted a note on the user's talk page, if it does continue.

In short, it's more constructive to debate whether (say) text belongs or doesn't belong in an article than whether removal of the text constituted vandalism or not. The latter really requires mind-reading to be fully accurate; the former focuses on improving the article. John Broughton | Talk 01:23, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

See the page history of Lil Chris. This is the vandalism in question. – Chacor 12:33, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I've only just joined, so feel free to ignore me for a while, but while it was obviously vandalism, he did argue his point very well, and no-one appeared to do anything other than just revert edits without much explanation. I'm sure I've read somewhere that that is bad practise. Also, there are a few messages left on your talk page that you just deleted without answering. Looking at the his edit log, it started out, possibly as a controversial, misinformed but quite possibly well intended edit. I would interpret the rest as a juvenile way of proving a point, but frustration none the less. You have some share of blame in this, methinks. 81.26.155.11 00:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Are we still talking about Special:Contributions/Lungwortwitheggs? All but one of his article edits are vandalism, some extremely severe. All his talk space edits are trolling (there is no other way to describe claiming this is legitimate). --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Firstly you have not addressed multiple points made in the post, such as possible motivation by frustration, lack of communication... isn't this what administrators are for? Pointing people in the right direction. And if it was such clear vandalism, how come neither J Di nor Chacor make a single point stand against him? It should be easy, as the vandalism was so clear. The only point that stuck was the last, as by then he was probably blocked from editing. Why were an administrator and a wannabe-administrator made to look like fools when attempting to justify a clear vandalism? Either they're hopeless, the rules aren't clear on the issue, or maybe it wasn't a black and white vandalism. 81.26.155.11 01:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

All the edits except the one to Rock School were obvious vandalism. Read his edits to Lil Chris in particular, I will not be repeating examples as they are libellous and do not deserve further attention, but any halfwit will be able to see that the edit was of the sort that gets you a warning if you're lucky, and a block for certain if you don't stop. I couldn't care less about his or any other vandal's motives. You realise we deal with dozens of vandals a day, right? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 12:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

NPOV = mainstream only?

Not sure if this is the right place to post this... but we have two editors on the Kriss Donald article effectively claiming that NPOV=MPOV (mainstream point of view) and that only a mainstream adherent counts as a "prominent adherent" from the viewpoint of a news article (thus for instance, critical academics and even some mainstream journalists are excluded). The first user claims anything other than MPOV is "tiny minority" while the latter claims anything other than MPOV is "original research". I don't think this is Wikipedia policy, can't find either policy or precedent for it, and frankly the situation is past a joke - I'm well aware my edits required some work on style, removal of inadvertent weasel words etc., but this is different from claiming the kind of material I inserted (in particular, the actual sources I referred to) is inappropriate as such. It was things like: official trial defence reported in mainstream press, racial politics specialist writing in political magazine, BBC investigative journalist in special report, anti-racist group commenting on broader context.

Is there any chance an admin or someone familiar with NPOV disputes could have a look at this? If NPOV=MPOV really is Wikipedia policy then I'll bow out but I'm very concerned about what's going on. Please have a look at my edits, and my comments (on NPOV=MPOV and the summary of arguments), rather than just the latest version of the article.

-82.19.5.150 08:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

They are trying to intimidate you hoping that you don't know the rules. In most cases, mainstream sources should make up the thrust of the main premise, but non-mainstream sources are fully acceptable everywhere else (eg, don't use a non-MPOV for as your primary source, but it can be used either to agree with it or to dispute it)

(user did not sign)

Yes, I figured NPOV=MPOV was a very dodgy reading of policy. I raised it here because third-party contributors have not always been very supportive of me, including one who embraced the NPOV=MPOV position and several others who ignored that dispute and picked up on other flaws in what I'd written. The talk has got bogged down in nit-picking so it's hard for someone coming fresh to it to figure out the exact stakes.

The user who claims NPOV=MPOV is also edit-warring (both vs me and others) and repeatedly reverts to blank the contested section. He's just started doing so again today. I'm not sure what to do because if I revert back he just blanks again, requesting third opinions has so far been unproductive, the user is refusing compromises etc.

-Ldxar1 23:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Interwiki map

Request help in cleaning up this page, in particular removing sites that are (1) defunct or (2) inappropriate external links. >Radiant< 12:23, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Centralised discussion at MoS on flag icons

Please contribute to the centralised discussion on flag icons at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Flag icons - manual of style entry?. Please add comments over there, not here. Thanks. Carcharoth 14:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair use question

I will admit that I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the image policies. I write/de-stub a lot of articles about living composers. As everyone knows, it can be tough to find free images of living people who are not super famous and in every tabloid. If there is a publicity headshot of a composer on the website of s/his publisher, and that same publicity shot is reproduced across the net whenever you do an image search for him/her, is it within the fair use criteria to use that piture in and only in the article about the composer? Always yes, always no? Please advise! Thanks-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 20:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe. Fair use is about as grey a grey area as you can find in copyright law, which is one reason we try to stay away from it. --Carnildo 20:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I think fair use has gone too far. If you can produce an image of a person, then it shouldn't qualify a picture of the person as fair use. I would not doubt that emailing the publisher for a GDFL (CC or whatever) license on a image would get promptly declined. Then why should this "fair-use" be put into effect if it's essentially illegal and not wanted, especially on an encyclopedia that advocates being "free"? Now, eliminating all "fair-use" images may be ridiculous, not being able to include a needed historical picture impossible to be reproduced, but one can still make the argument that Wikipedia is still free and has no grounds to use the picture. There's a huge problem with this in actors and sports-people.

This is an area on Wikipedia I am displeased at. Not that Wikipedia would get sued, it's just that I don't think Wikipedia has correct permission to use many of these "fair use" images. And ignoring it or not reaching a consensus makes the problem even worse.++aviper2k7++ 21:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a cumulative "no" to me. Here is a small dilemma: I am working on an article which I would sure love to improve to FA status (who wouldn't). However, no matter how well-written and comprehensive the article is, it seems nearly impossible, practically speaking, to get it to FA status if it is devoid of images, particularly an image of the subject. You may say "there's no rule saying FAs have to have images", but really, how many of them don't? I'm not really sure what to do.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 04:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Try to solicit permission for one of the few pictures that do exist. You probably won't get permission for the really nice headshots, but perhaps someone has a passable snapshot posted somewhere on the web (maybe on a photo sharing site like flickr). When you find one you like send an email to author asking them to release the picture under the GFDL or CC-by-sa. Explain it will be used in wikipedia, and that without their help wikipedia won't have an illustrated article. I have done this a few times, and I've found many photographers are excited to help out wikipedia without doing any real work. In fact, I've had a few jump at the chance to get their picture on wikipedia. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 08:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

This is an incorrect interpretation of fair use. First of all, valid fair use is never illegal, and doesn't require permission. Second, fair use does not require that it be impossible for you to produce the content on your own. Fair use content is unfree (and invalid fair use claims are illegal), so fair use should be avoided, but not to the extent you advocate. Superm401 - Talk 21:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Medical questions being asked at the Reference Desk

There's been a recent, extensive discussion about how to handle questions at the Reference Desk which seek specific medical advice in response to medical problems.

This is a relatively small problem in terms of volume — perhaps three or four questions per week – but potentially associated with a large downside (harm to readers, risk of bad press for Wikipedia, etc.).

I have proposed a framework/guide to identifying questions and responses to avoid, and how to handle these discussions. The proposed guideline is at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Dealing with medical questions.

Comment and criticism are welcome. Thanks, TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Disclaimer: Take medical advice from Wikipedians at your own risk. No matter how knowledgeable in the field they might be, they're still not being paid and thus their advice may not be clinically sound.

Something to that effect? Simply denying answers to such questions would also be good. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Pay has nothing to do with it. The problem is that you neither know their knowledge level nor do they know you as well as your own doctor. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

There already is Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer, which (my reading) rather seems to discourage giving medical advice. John Broughton | ♫ 03:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see that much probability of wikipedia taking the brunt of any "scandal", as the reference desk is basically nothing more than a message board. If a bunch of people were giving medical advice on some American Idol fan site message board it seems unlikely the Fan site would get in trouble if someone got sick.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 04:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Good point; I created the template Template:Meddisclaimer, feel free to add/clarify to it. Cheers! Yuser31415 05:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the best responce is to simply not offer medical advice. Most people don't realise the kind of liability they incure when they offer that kind of advice. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 00:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The only really responsible advice that we, as an encyclopedia, can offer in case of specific medical questions can only be "consult your own physician". Advice offered in the absence of specific and detailed personal information about the patient can only be speculative, and may well be incorrect and actively harmful. Note that I am medically qualified.--Anthony.bradbury 01:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Essays

So after reviewing many of these "essays" written on wikipedia, I agree with above posters that conclude that these essays are useless, confusing, and sometimes downright stupid. I propose that they be candidates for speedy deletion. The risk of confusion to new users who might think they are official policy (like me) is too great. Plus there is the fact that these essays are more often than not self-referential wiki-cruft, as one might say. Any thoughts? Bookishreader45 06:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• You should probably find some of the worst essays and put them on WP:MFD. Sending them to userspace is a plausible alternative. But please do explain how you could think an essay is official policy, when it says right at the top of the page that it's not. >Radiant< 12:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah I think I'm gonna do that. A lot of them! Thanks for the input baby. Bookishreader45 01:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Why are we free?

If this is the wrong place to discuss this, forgive me, but I can't seem to find a better place.

This has bugging me for some time, and I can't really seem to understand it. Why do we strive so hard to make Wikipedia so completely free? I'm not talking about free to access, but free to take and use.

Why do we encourage derivative works such as how answers.com uses us when it will always be inferior to the actual article hosted on Wikipedia? Why can't we edit Wikipedia articles for Wikipedia? It seems stupid to not allow copyrighten images that we've obtained permission to use just because we can't let anyone else use them. It doesn't matter if someone mirrors the page, prints it in a book, or puts it on a CD. In the end, the online article will always be better, more up to date, and what people will actually use.

The goal may be to spread knowledge and information, but in reality it ends up stagnating it. How does having the same (but slightly inferior) information repeated accross a thousand other websites do anyone any good? I've actually come accross the problem of doing research on a subject, only to have difficulty finding original information because now everyone is too lazy to write their own summaries of a subject, as they can just use what Wikipedia has to say. Free information is bad, as it becomes the only information. Wikipedia is like the smart kid in class that lets everyone copy off of him, and now nobody else feels like doing their own homework anymore.

except it's not original research, wikipedia is just a compilation of info from other sources. So new work can still be done. Wikipedia just shares what is known.SpookyMulder 13:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

So aside from say, a teacher printing off a Wikipedia page to help teach class, how does being so free actually benefit anyone?--SeizureDog 10:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It's part of an overarching ideal of the founders, the actual benefit is probably minimal. Read Copyleft.--tjstrf talk 10:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an open content project, pure and simple. Many of us would not be here were that not the case. Why would I spend hundreds of hours of my time just to increase someone else's store of intellectual property? Even if that "someone" is a nonprofit foundation.

Re your wider point -- that free information is harmful -- I think the real problem is in accessibility rather than freeness. There are many proprietary sites that have a similar effect in specific fields; FishBase and AlgaeBase come to mind. Nobody wants to put the work into duplicating those sites' herculean efforts, not even on an open-content project such as Wikispecies. This is not really a huge problem, IMO; it's just part of the growth of human knowledge. -- Visviva 10:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree here. Having a free (even if a bit convoluted) license guarantees that the content will never die. If the Wikimedia Foundation does, someone can easily bring the project back to life. Moreover, the internet isn't even an option in some places, like Africa; making the project free lets people distribute it in whatever format they want. Several projects have made interesting uses of Wikipedia content offline. For example, there is a project to put article on iPods, and several CD projects. Also, some online forks of Wikipedia are interesting. Wikipedia can't satisfy everyone, so it's good that others can take our content for our own agenda. If you want to help Wikipedians enforce the GFDL, please see Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. On a related note to this, also see #Copyright below. Superm401 - Talk 21:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Use of International System of Units (SI)

What is the policy/guideline/concensus on the use of units in measurements?

I ask because I came accross an article an editor decided to "Americanize", giving preference to traditional units like pounds and inches instead of kilograms and centimeters. Since nearly all countries in the world, including the US, has adopted the International System of Units (SI), and the English Wikipedia can be regarded as an international comunity, one would expect to use the SI as standard practice. When I suggested this to the editor, (s)he replied "We do not use the International System of Units" and stating that since the English language Wikipedeia is written from an American POV, it should use American standards.

I disagree, and since I cannot find any policy or guideline, i'd like some input from the community. --Edokter (Talk) 13:27, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• the English Wikipedia is most certainly not written from an Americentric point of view. Sure it's an english-speaking wiki, but we don't want to exclude Brits, Austrailians and all the other english-speaking people of the world. As to the units themselves, I'm of a mixed mind. Since I am an American, SI units fequently seem a bit awkward to me (and some of them are more clumsy, frankly, especially when you start talking about having to use miliatmospheres instead of mmHg or inHg or other more esoteric units, and I still think a Roentgen is far more useful as a practical unit than the Sievert which needs a mili/micro prefix to measure anything useful). I'd be loath to support a push to make either the standard, frankly, given the number of editors it might put off. SI is the international standard, especially in the sciences, where even the Americans seem to have given up trying to keep the imperial system. I say for verifibility, use data the way it's native source does barring other considerations: if the source uses SI, copy it faithfully, if it uses imperial units, ditto. Wintermut3 13:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Here's the relevant guideline: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Units_of_measurement Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:Game guide

I would like to get more input into WP:Game guide as it is currently a proposed guideline and I hope that it passes that stage. Greeves ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:01, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

request for further input

I'd like further input into this matter:Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Request_for_comment_.28Blog_as_source_for_Barrington_Hall_graffiti.29 - Thanks, ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 17:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

What is Proper attribution for a remix of Wikipedia work?

Hi I am wishing to become an accomplished professional web designer however and now just an amateur. Consequently I require some source material to work on to make web sites. I was thinking of possibly doing a web site of say a visual browser of some of the most fascinating vintage technology. I would gather pictures from Creative Commons available pictures and then have links of these pictures to stories on Wikipedia. And perhaps other Wiki's. Would the proper way to give Wikipedia it's attribution be to say in a link on the top of the article in distinctive typeface contrasting with the type of the article this "originally from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" and then on the bottom of the page repeat Wikipedia " GNU Free Documentation License" link. I am just not sure what is proper. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.41.219.179 (talk) 23:40, 16 January 2007 (UTC).

You might want to take a look at Wikipedia:Copyrights to start with. John Broughton | ♫ 23:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks#License has some of the awnsers your looking for. Goodluck! ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 01:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Specific notability criteria for current events

There is a serious lack of policy concerning the notability of current events. As far as I can tell, nobody has proposed a specific notability criteria and in this case, WP:N is really not applicable. Any current event, by definition, will be the subject of multiple, non-trivial current events, and there are many, many events that occur every day that are covered by multiple media sources but are not remotely notable enough to include in an encyclopedia. For a silly example, take an incident last week in which a really fat cat ran away and got trapped in a doggy door. A google news search on the cat's owner reveals 143 results[3]. Admittedly, many of these are from the AP wire, but I found two independent sources. If someone created an article about this event, there would be no policy reason to delete it, and thats absurd.

For a more significant example, take Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proposed Israeli Nuclear First Strike on Natanz Facility. This article is problematic because of OR problems, but should we have an article about a newspaper report? The report in question was widely talked about initially, it was the top story in Israel and probably Iran too. However, will it prove significant in the long run? Discussion seems to have died down very quickly and I doubt it will warrant more than a footnote in any history book. The problem is that nobody has sat down and thought about what makes a current event notable, and as a result there are no guidelines for those of us trying to decide whether to delete article's about current events. I don't have a proposal, but I do want to gather some input.

So in order to start the discussion, what makes current events notable? How can we judge their notability without violating WP:NOR when there hasn't been enough time for secondary sources to evaluate an event's importance? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GabrielF (talk • contribs) 01:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

Mostly what is needed is a cluestick. The primary notability criterion states specifically that, "Several newspapers all publishing the same article from a news wire service is not a multiplicity of works." This covers the 143 instances of the same AP story, so there would be a guideline (if not a policy) reason to delete the Fat Cat story. A single speculative newspaper story comes under the same head, IMO. If it developed into a notable speculation in several publications, then Wikipedia:Wiki is not paper may govern. Of course Wikipedia is not a newspaper either, so judgment is available on whether a story is encyclopedic. Notability and encyclopedic nature are not presumed, they must be established using information gleaned from reliable sources. Robert A.West (Talk) 03:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the initial Proposed Israeli Nuclear First Strike on Natanz Facility article wasn't too hot, it was 65% OR. I've rewritten the majority of it now to (a) remove the previous OR aspects, (b) establish notability via multiple independent reports, and (c) balanced it with official reaction and context. Not a great article, but its better than many. --70.48.242.16 04:34, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• We do indeed have a systemic bias towards recentism. A reasonable rule of thumb is "would anyone care a year from now?" Regarding the cat the answer is obviously "no", and I believe AFD usually makes that decision correctly. At any rate, if this is a serious problem, Wikipedia:Avoid recentism could be created to address it. >Radiant< 11:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

  Actually, there is the Wikipedia:Recentism essay. Contains lots of clarifying examples. --Francis Schonken 15:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

  • I think recentism only occurs because the sources are convienent and people are interested enough to write. Wikipedia could have tens of millions of well-referenced articles if we covered every year in the 20th century to the depth we covered the present. I don't think recentism is a problem, because people are writing about things in the news, and hence automatically things with reliable sources available. It'll take later work to update, summarize, and merge prune or delete if necessary, but getting down plenty of detail about the real, newsmaking events in the world is an awesome thing. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 12:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Night Gyr here, Wikipedia's not paper seems to be the most applicable thing: if the article is reliably sourced, then there's no ground for deletion. In regards to Wikipedia not being a newspaper, I think that is primarily there to discourage first-hand journalism; it ducks the issue of inclusion by saying "historical significance", which is subjective. Is it our job to guess what people will care about in the future? Trebor 13:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• The issue isn't that people write about present-day things, the issue is that people tend to consider recent issues more important than old issues. For instance, if you make a survey of who people consider the most important person of the 20th century, a disproportionately large amount of nominees will be people from the 1990s. >Radiant< 14:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not even sure it's that: people write about subjects they know, which have easily accessible sources, and that tends to be more recent stuff. But I don't think that's necessarily a problem, Wikipedia is in no way consistent in the depth it covers subjects in; I'd much rather have detailed articles on more recent events and less-detailed articles on older ones, than start trimming the recent events articles for consistency (well actually I'd rather have detailed info on all events, but unfortunately we live in reality). Is there a problem in having articles on relatively minor recent events, provided they are sourced? Trebor 15:22, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I think well-researched articles on recent news stories are not a problem, they can be used to increase the quality of the articles they'll be merged into once a current hype is over. Kusma (討論) 15:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but that kind of defeats Wikipedia:Notability#Notability is generally permanent (quote: "Thus, if a topic satisfies the primary notability criterion, it continues to satisfy it over time") - which I disagree with. --Francis Schonken 15:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Why do you disagree with it? Or do you disagree with the whole definition of notability as it currently stands? Because if you use the current definition, then notability is definitely permanent - multiple independent sources don't change with time. Trebor 15:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Your original research - never heard about acidic paper? Also not everything ends up in permanent web archives (for the next 100 year?)... --Francis Schonken 16:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Well yes, okay, the record of the sources may (in what I'd estimate to be a very small minority of cases) be destroyed or decay. I thought you meant you disagreed with the idea that notability is permanent even if there are multiple independent source. Trebor 17:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I still object to the crystal ball that appears to be the basis of your reasoning. You estimate "a very small minority of cases". My estimate is considerably larger (for various reasons I need not explain). You don't know, I don't know, and we would need a crystal ball to prove either of us right today. So, this can not be the foundation of frivolous speculations like "if a topic satisfies the primary notability criterion, it continues to satisfy it over time": it might, it might not, no conclusion in that sense can be drawn, and this should not be in a Wikipedia guideline. --Francis Schonken 12:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd be interested to hear your reasons: I'd say the majority of (paper) sources used are newspapers and published books, and they don't suddenly disappear. But if you're think the wording of the guideline is misleading, then change it. It's only meant to mean that notability does not require consistent or ongoing coverage; it's not meant to mean that if the sources are no longer in existence there should still be an article. Trebor 16:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

It shouldn't matter wheter something is or is not a recent event - this is an encyclopedia - not a newspaper. If something won't be notable in a year or ten years from now then it shouldn't be notable now. However even if you stick with that rule, 'recentism' is inevitable because whilst a lot of people are interested in something like the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning in 2006 and there is a ton of information and references to write that article, it's unlikely that an article will be written about someone getting poisoned in 1906, 1806 or 1706 simply because there is less information out there and less chance of an editor being interested enough to write it. Hence we have a huge article about Litvinenko and a separate (even longer!) article about his death by poisoning - but the more strictly notable poisoning of Aratus of Sicyon (the ruler of an entire Greek city state) in 213BC rates just one sentence. That systemic bias towards recent events is nothing to do with notability criteria - it's just about what people care enough to write about and how much information is available. SteveBaker 15:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you meant notability in terms of significance/importance/fame or the definition given in the guideline? They aren't the same, and to say the poisoning of [[Aratus of Sicyon] is more strictly notable doesn't really mean anything. Individual editors might judge as more significant/important but that's objective. It's almost certainly been covered in fewer sources though, so using the strict Wikipedia definition it is less notable. That's the problem of using a loaded word like notable. Trebor 16:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I sometimes wonder if we ought to have a "2 day hold" on events before they can be put on Wikipedia... the concept being that if a news story is still being discussed after two days of it's initial report, it has a degree of notability... or something like that. There are a lot of news stories that initially may seem important, but turn out to be erroneous or not all that notable. Blueboar 18:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that would ruin Wikipedia's useful coverage of current events - if I want a collated story combining lots of sources, here is the place to go. But in principle, I think the idea has merit. Two days is a (necessarily) arbitrary limit, but it might be along the right lines. Trebor 22:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Here is a VERY early draft of a notability criteria:

In order for an event to be notable, the length, breadth, depth and prominence of the media's coverage of that event must be greater than average.

• Prominence refers to the degree to which the news media itself feels that an event is notable. Events that were covered on the front page or the lead of a news broadcast are far more likely to be notable than events that were covered on page E22 or as the last story on the evening news.
• Breadth refers to the number of media outlets covering a story. An event that has generated only local coverage is probably only of local interest and therefore not notable, but an event that received significant coverage in every news outlet on the planet probably is.
• Depth of coverage refers to the type of coverage the media has given an event. Did news outlets try to answer questions about the event beyond "what happenened" and "where and when and how did it happen"? Did the media analyze the importance of an event and come to the conclusion that it would result in some kind of important change? Did they spend any time discussing what had caused the event to occur? Was there an op-ed piece or a political cartoon? If the media has reported the facts without analyzing the event and what it signifies, than the event was probably not notable enough to be worth analyzing.
• Length of coverage is, among other things, a measure of the degree to which the media believes that an event will be interesting to its audience. If nobody is talking about an event after five days, it most likely wasn't significant enough to warrant a wikipedia article.

Thoughts? GabrielF 19:49, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't like it, because it introduces a lot of room for subjectivity and people to say "Well this wasn't a big story and we're not wikinews... DELETE." We don't only cover the big stories. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I think there's going to be subjectiveness in any guideline put forward for this, but there is obviously a need for wording about it. At present, the article on the fat cat would be included; yet, I don't think anyone would agree that it should be. There is some measure people are subconsciously placing on an event's notability, regardless of sources. There's discussion going on here about it too. GabrielF's wording is a start, but I don't think a good solution will be reached easily with this. Trebor 22:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with most of the guidelines that GabrielF has listed, however, based on the individual nature of every event, this should never become Wikipedia policy. Policies like notability already covers this in the general sense. Also, small stories may not be suitable in articles of their own, but should definitely be included in larger articles (Ex: A school bus accident in Pennsylvania is covered in the high school's article, Pennsbury High School, but certainly would be up for deletion if written on its own). So yes, I would support a guideline, but not a policy.

Another factor we might also want to also consider is how integrated an article on a recent event can be. For instance, the articles on the Somali War that just occured have hundreds of interlinks, as well as other historical, geographic, and biographical links. The more obscure the event, the more likely is that it will have few if any wikilinks. Joshdboz 20:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

All the pages related to notability are guidelines; I don't think there'd ever be a large-enough consensus to make it policy. But I think a specific guideline, something like Notability (recent events), would be a good idea to allow for the fact that we live in a very source-heavy time. Trebor 21:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Images on the main page (user experience)

The description page of images which appear on the main page should always contain a link to the English Wikipedia article the topic of the image so that when someone clicks on an image on the main page, they don't have to go back to click the link to the article about it. e.g. Image:Raccoon_(Procyon_lotor)_2.jpg does have a link, while Image:Playoffs_021_crop.jpg which currently appears on the main page has no link (currently) from the image description page to what it's about. I've been adding these links to wildlife-related images but it's quite frustrating that other sysops don't do it. It makes for a horrible user experience not having anywhere to go after blowing up an image of interest from the main page, and as the images descriptions are always locked, normal users cannot fix it. —Pengo ^{talk · contribs} 09:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Frustrating? A little I suppose. But really, how hard is it to hit backspace? --tjstrf talk 12:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good thing to remind people of, but if they miss it, you can always propose an edit on the talk page of the image with {{editprotected}}. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 12:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Straw poll on WP:MALL

Please take a look at WP:MALL, with respect to proposals to merge it with WP:LOCAL, to continue developing it as a notability guideline for shopping mall articles, or to go ahead and implement it as a guideline. Thanks. Edison 21:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Date formats

On [[4]] (a link page, to link the battles off, so you can easily find which battles occured in a particular time period). This is an ordered chronological list and originally only the years were wikified, but not the month and day, because it is much easier to follow if the format is "Year Month Day". You'll notice that people keep "wikifying" the date format, meaning that dates become "day month year" or "month day year" depending on user prefs. What's worse, the latest modifications only modified SOME of the dates, meaning that (if you can follow this) the first incidence of a year is wikified but not the rest, but ALL months and days are wikified, meaning that in some cases you get "year month day" and in some you get "day month year", as well as some where only the month is known so you get "year month" as well. In addition to THAT, someone has decided to remove more than the first incidence of some years, and list each battle in that year as a sub-indent. They've only done this with some years though, so you get "1884" on one line and then just "month day" or "day month" on the next few lines. This is very difficult to read and I've reverted it twice but they use bots to keep wikifying the dates. Can anyone stop them? I'm not an admin and they just ignore me. The format I prefer is "year month day" on every line (most years don't have more than 1 battle anyway so having the year and then sub-indents just looks silly). It's a page I've contributed a lot to, not that that means much perhaps, but it's already gone through one deletion attempt and formatting it this crazy way is not helping its usefulness. Thanks muchly! SpookyMulder 13:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

• I see no evidence of bots being involved - why do you say that?
• There appears to be one person (User:GraemeLeggett) making the date format changes you don't like. You've exchange comments via edit summary (a start); I note that the user's last edit summary comment was restore wikified dates as per MoS. So what we have is a content dispute.
• You posted a note on the user's talk page twelve minutes before you posted here. That was the only communication you've had with the user other than edit summaries. And the note here (which the user is probably unaware of) is much, much more detailed than the note on his/her page. That's a mistake.
• You haven't posted anything on the talk page of the article. That's where such a discussion should take place, since it preserves the discussion for future editors, rather than here or on a user talk page.
• Your user page posting included I can have it ruled on if you like. I'm not sure what you meant by that - there isn't anyone at Wikipedia who issues "rulings" regarding content disputes - just behavior, and certainly the other user hasn't violated any behavior norms to date. Also, some people might take that sentence as a threat, which isn't a good way to start a discussion.
• If you can't work out the problem between the two of you, please see Wikipedia:Resolving disputes, which includes an escalating set of procedures to deal with differences of opinions on content - for example, asking for a third opinion (and no, that isn't done on this page.) John Broughton | ^(♫♫) 15:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Three strike system for deleting images

While deleting fair use images of living people is valid, far too many users delete without deleting references to the images themselves. This create complete and utterly horrible looking articles, and references to non-existent material. I have noticed this inaccusable act of lazyness in three users over the last month or so, without even trying to look for such descrepencies.

Take for example this electorial district article, which from November 27 to today lasted in such a delapitated state.

I propose that we have a three strike system for sysops deleting images CSD:I7. If they delete images without removing references to that images within the next two hours of the image deletion, they can be issued a warning by any registered user. This warning will be recorded on a special page.

If any user receives three or more warnings, they must stop deleting images for a period of a week, sufficient time for other users to locate all the mess they may have made. If they try to delete images during this time, they will loose admin priviliges. This process repeats itself once the ban on deleting images is over, indefinitely. -- Zanimum 15:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Just as uploaders are not the only ones who can fix missing source info or improve a fair use rationale, deleters are not the only ones who can do peripheral cleanup by removing links. Because this is a collaborative project, no one has to do everything themselves and we can all fix problems we identify, no matter who did the initial work. Yes, it would be best if a deleter removed all the links to the image they deleted, but we're all volunteering here, and not all of us can dedicate continuous, extended periods of time (my losing lottery ticket last night ensured that—damn you, astronomical odds); sometimes all we have time to do is a few minutes of editing here and there which may not allow us to complete a task before the real world intrudes and yanks us away. Postdlf 16:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. If an admin is consistently deleting images, without clearing up links, then try leaving a message on their talk page about it, and see how they respond. While ideally, they would be able to delete all the links, it's easily arguable that deleting fair-use images that are being used wrongly is more important than removing the links. There's no need for a complex bureaucratic system of warnings and desysopping. Trebor 16:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

And if they don't, as is the case with User:Betacommand, the most recent repeat offender? It just seems disgusting that they are so lazy. And this wasn't a proposal for de-sysoping only honour system. -- Zanimum 17:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with red links, especially for images on articles. It's about just as good (if not better) than a reqphoto on the talk page. Someone may see it and go "I have a free image I can upload to fill this void". Lots of them would look ugly. Perhaps a script could be written to aid the deleters, where when they click the delete it then opens up each page/article that the image is used on, searches for the image filename and highlights it and then the user just has to delete the caption text manually. Should be highly doable IMHO, but slightly beyond my skills (and capabilities, since I can't delete images to test this). --MECU≈talk 17:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

(to Zanimum) The message you've left gives the wrong impression; nobody on Wikipedia must do anything (beyond following the core policies), it's a volunteer project. You can't warn someone for doing this, either. And if you leave a message in that manner describing their behaviour as "unacceptable" (again, a fairly meaningless term - is there a list of acceptable behaviour?), you're going to get their backs up. A friendly message asking them civilly to delete links is far more likely to engender a considered response and a change in ways. Trebor 17:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be kind of cool to make a template to go along with the existing talk page {{reqphoto}}, that sits on the side of the article where a photo would go as a placeholder and tell people "replace me!" like an expand tag. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Film Notability, and Notability in general

It seems we need a guideline to define notability for film articles. Currently, the guideline seems stalled out, but a few people are looking for input to get the process going again.

I have my own perspective, but limited experience in these matters. My first basic question is, "are the notability requirements on Wikipedia intentionally loose?" That is, is it preferred to have a largely open door policy that allows vast amounts of articles with little claim to notability, or is it preferred to set a high hurdle for articles to clear?

As it is, films generally get reviewed in multiple publications, which makes "multiple published works" apply to literally tens of thousands of films if we regard reviews as "non-trivial" and "reliable." The current films guideline seems to take this approach.

Other loose standards are permitted, including major studio releases of feature films, which again in itself allows tens of thousands of films, whether or not these can reasonably regarded as "notable." There is a clause allowing films released nationwide in a country (presumably this means commercial releases outside festivals), or on 200 screens worldwide (which is a hard hurdle to clear, but only denotes popularity, not notability).

I may be a lone voice in the wilderness, as many people seem to want a further loosening up of the standards before endorsing the guideline, whereas I think it needs very tough, strict standards, which I commented on here.

What's the general feeling on this? I'm I just being too much of a hard ass? Is simply having one's work flickered in front of the eyes of a few thousand people, a couple of whom hold pens in their hands, enough to ensure eternal notability? Can some kind of consensus be found?zadignose 15:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any examples of film articles that you'd like a tightened notability guideline to exclude? Postdlf 16:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure if very strict criteria can be applied in films, but I am sure that Wikipedia:Notability (films) has to become reactivated. I have posted messages in various directions about it, but no one seems to be willing or able to tackle this problem. I know it would be very very hard to try to limit contributors. If notability for a film is simply that it has been screened or released in Home Video/DVD, we have a long and unsure way to go. Not very long ago, a WP Films member started adding endless lists of films from other countries. It took us quite an effort, including AfD's, to get them out of main namespace and into WP Films space. The result can be seen in the by-country lists here: WP Films/List of films without article, which I had originally started as a sub-project to deal with existing red-linked films (in filmographies and entered in various lists), some of which may be important, but not as critically important as films found in Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/List of notable films. The user has started filtering the "red" lists for notability (not sure by what exacly criteria) and an example of the results in main namespace can be seen here: List of Argentine films:1960s. I write all this to show to Village Pump that it is very hard to work without film notability guidelines. As project, we are nowhere close to defining them soon. We could surely use some expert help. Hoverfish Talk 16:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

As for what should be excluded, I'm not sure. Is it fair to say "most of them?" Well, here are a few semi-randomly selected titles that we can discuss, regarding their notability:

• Vegas_In_Space
• Howling_VI:_The_Freaks
• The_Indian_Runner
• Frog_and_Wombat
• Childstar
• Def_by_Temptation

And, yeah, I know I picked on troma films by including two of theirs.

I also know that one of the listed films was directed by Sean Penn, stars some famous actors, got some positive press, may even have been good, but it slipped between the cracks. There are a lot of such movies, and we have to evaluate how notable such films really are, whether or not we WANT them to be notable. So we have a spectrum of notability to discuss.zadignose 17:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Notability is a low bar to ensure that there's enough material for an article. We're here specifically to catch the things that may have slipped between the cracks. If it's gotten any significant press, positive or negative, that's secondary sources. We want those tens of thousands of articles, since WP:NOT paper, we can fit as many movie articles as you can throw at it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:19, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Night Gyr is right here. WP:N in essence is really only to make sure an article meets WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and WP:NOT. As long as a film has enough secondary material to write an article with, why not have an article? ColourBurst 03:39, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

According to WP:N#Rationale_for_requiring_a_level_of_notability, "In order to have a neutral article, a topic must be notable enough that the information about it will be from unbiased and unaffiliated sources; and that those interested in the article will not be exclusively partisan or fanatic editors." This at least suggests that notability is of value in itself, ensuring at least some degree of general interest. It is also stated that "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate directory of businesses, websites, persons, etc. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia." But if notability was really just a hurdle to ensure verifiability, then so long as a person's name, address, telephone number, and date of birth could be verified, there'd be no reasonable argument for excluding this information. Wikipedia would, indeed, become an indiscriminate collection of information if being true and verifiable were the only standards for inclusion. And to paraphrase the rationale presented above, we might want those tens of thousands of articles, since we can fit as many indiscriminate pieces of information into Wikipedia as you can throw at it. "Why not" have an article about my Uncle Pete?

I maintain that Wikipedia is, and should be interested in limiting it's articles to truly notable material. And I find that the standards for film are conspicuously absent.

Compare with the recently deleted article on the song 2 Much Booty (In Da Pants), which is definitely "verifiable," has been used in the soundrack of a "major motion picture," and has appeared on multiple music charts including Billboard's Top 100, but it was deleted for being insuficiently notable... because WP:NSONGS actually sets reasonably high standards of notability. Film could do this too. I suggest that it should. zadignose 06:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

There's a good reason we wouldn't have the sort of article you refer to, with name, phone number, address: WP:NOT#DIR. The kinds of sources you refer to fall into "trivial coverage," because they don't provide enough information for an encyclopedic article. We're WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information, we are an encyclopedia. Our only limitation is the availability of nontrivial information. Also, WP:NSONGS failed to gather consensus, because there is not that much support for higher standards of popularity. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

But doesn't your designation of "trivial" information depend on some standard of "notability?" I know that it's been said that Wikipedia is NOT an indiscriminate collection of information, but it certainly resembles one. And the question should be raised, "why shouldn't it be an indiscriminate collection of information?" Without basic notability standards, the answer would have to be "it should be." Only if you really believe that non-notable articles should be excluded, for the sake of Wikipedia's overall quality, can you form any rational argument against the indiscriminate collection of information. And dare I say it? I think the main reason that a guideline like WP:NSONGS can't gather consensus is because most editors are too enamoured of their pet projects, favorite bands, and their role as indiscriminate collector of trivia to be willing to embrace a tough standard of notability. By and large, the editors want the bands, and films and songs they LIKE to be recorded here, without concern for the general quality of the encyclopedia. It's time to start making some tough judgments, or else stop the farce of claiming that we have standards.zadignose 06:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Please read WP:NOT#PAPER, and understand that the existence of articles on topics that you don't think matter does you no harm, nor harm to the encyclopedia. Notability for wikipedia is not the same as notability anywhere else; it's not anyone's subjective standard, it's a basic line where we agree enough information is possible for an article, not that we agree the subject particularly matters on any scale. There's no harm in having articles about minor topics, if they're up to the same quality level as everything else. Only when quality is impossible should we delete. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I've read it multiple times now, and apparently don't interpret it the same way that you do. I think that the fact that it says there is no limit on articles "other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page," combined with the initial paragraph's stated interest in "building a high-quality encyclopedia," the concept of "trivial information" that we've discussed above, and the guidelines on notability, all suggest that some verifiable material can be excluded for being non-notable, even if the possibility of writing a thorough article on the subject exists.zadignose 07:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Except that a person's name, telephone number, etc won't be enough to write an article from (see WP:STUB and WP:SD for a definition of what constitutes "enough context"), and if a person tries to pad the information somehow, in almost all cases s/he will pad it from their own knowledge of the subject or from primary sources, which is a violation of WP:NOR. ColourBurst 14:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

So, is it correct to assume that according to Wikipedia policy every film that has been screened (or circulated in VHS/DVD) by a known distributor is eligible for an article? Hoverfish Talk 16:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

According to policy, yes, as long as it's verifiable. All notability standards are just guidelines. Kafziel ^Talk 16:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

merge Wikipedia:Consensus and Wikipedia:Consensus can change

Now that both these elements have acquired the statues of policy (which really shouldn't surprise anybody), it is clear that there is no reason to state these elements on two different pages, but I'd like to gather some more opinions before I initiate discussion on the talk pages.Circeus 16:31, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

So long as WP:CCC redirects to the appropriate section, then I'm all for it. CCC is pretty short anyway (and repeats itself a fair bit) so could be incorporated into Consesus fairly easily. Trebor 16:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

• Good idea. People have recently taken to wikilawyering WP:CCC to mean "ignore any consensus that I don't agree with" (which, rather obviously, is not what it means). Merging may alleviate that. >Radiant< 10:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Dozens of links to a good site

Hello all. This morning I found that external links to the USGS had been posted to the articles of every state and territory of the USA in the course of a few hours by Spydrlink (Talk|contribs). I have witnessed previous cases where an editor posted dozens of links to useful, reputable sites- and they were all deleted as spam. Is there a real consensus on that though? I wanted to ask the user about this on his talk page, but I'm not even sure how to approach it since I'm not sure if he/she actually violated any policies. His last edit was to the USGS page itself, so perhaps it's a case of WP:COI? I don't know. Comments please! --Elipongo ^{(Talk|contribs)} 17:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a useful addition, and it's not as if it's a commercial site. USGS actually has a lot of interesting information. Fan-1967 17:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The manner in which it was done was kind of spammish, but I wouldn't say it's really spam. The template {{{{Geolinks-US-streetscale}} performs a similar function but adds multiple links to commercial sites like Google and Yahoo, and it's perfectly acceptable. It's even expected. Kafziel ^Talk 17:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Citing copyvio web site

Wikipedia:Copyrights says that "If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work". Does the ban against linking to a copyvio site extend to citations based on that site? In particular, can I use a fair use-violating lyrics web site as a citation in the List of backmasked messages when no other citation can be found? Λυδαcιτγ 00:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

You mean a citation, but without a convenience link to the web site? I'd still stay away from it. If it was me writing an article that needed to reference song lyrics, I'd just cite the song itself as a reference. The song is published material just like a book is. Squidfryerchef 02:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Does that website actually talk about the backmasked lyrics? I think that it would be shaky as it probably wouldn't be the most reliable source. It also depends on what the website is - is it a fansite? A music magazine? ColourBurst 03:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

It's a commercial lyric farm. The problem with the backmasking stuff is that the messages are hidden in the songs, and "discovering" them would be original research, so I can't just cite the song. The website is useful in this case because the lyrics on the song page include the backward ones. Λυδαcιτγ 00:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Biographies of Living People question (Souhaila Andrawes as a case study)

I came across the article of Souhaila Andrawes which looked like this. It was correctly tagged as a biography of living person but it did not really meet the strict requirements for such bios, there was not a single source in the article and the article was of a negative tone (the article claimed the person was a terrorist, airline hijacker, sentenced to 12 years, etc.) But then again, it is not exactly difficult to find information about her, and I remember that the case was a big news issue in Norway in 1995. The article was definitely not created as a bad faith attempt to disparage the subject with libellous, slanderous and false accusations.

Question 1: In the form I found it, was the article a WP:CSD#G10 candidate for speedy deletion per the WP:BLP policy?

Question 2: Should unsourced articles about people with the considerable amount of notoriety in media be candidates for speedy deletion, or should we always make a reasonable attempt at sourcing before pulling the trigger?

For this particular article the question is moot, because the brevity of the article made it fairly easy to source it (which I have now done). But I am wondering what our policy is on things like this. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll take the easy question - #2 - yes, in the best of worlds, an editor would always try to source an article before killing it. Some editors don't have the time, of course. It's more complicated if the editor isn't sure at all of the notability of the subject of the article - is it worth looking? - but even then, a quick Google search seems well justified if there is time. The most important thing is to do something, immediately, to fix the problem - source or kill. (And if doing a CSD becuase there isn't time to research or initial research failed to find anything, definitely delete all of the negative info on the page, even if that leaves it with (say) only one sentence. John Broughton | ^(♫♫) 14:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say you should always favor deletion with such problem articles (all negative without sources). Its rare the old content, unsourced, actually has much value. We need to find sources first, and then write based on them. Creators of articles have no incentive to provide sources, if others fix the problems for them. Also, what I've found, is that when you add sources "after the fact", its very easy to lower your standards for sources. A quick Google search may find "hits", but not always authoratitive stuff. If you find the source first, and write based on it, then you can be more confident that the source is good, and the content fully agrees with the source. If you're doing a bio on Mr X, go find everything you can, good and bad, from reliable sources on Mr X, and let the sources guide you. Don't start with a negative sourced articles, and try matching sources to content. Maybe you quickly find one "hit" agreeing with the notable claim, but don't bother finding other sources, contradicting it, or explaining it properly. Finally, we need a rapid approach, to enable a small number of people to monitor a massive growing number of articles. If patrollers are doing research, that the article creator failed to do, there is no way the patrollers can keep up with the article creators. --Rob 15:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo on blanking --Larry laptop 15:27, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Stubify and then notify the article's major author is sometimes useful. WAS 4.250 16:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Policy re: using "year in literature" linking.

I was planning on working through our articles on writers. I was going to use those 'year in literature links', eg 1939 in literature, but with a pipe, so that just the year appears, eg 1939.

I felt that this would be an especially useful thing to do for the year of publication of a writer's works, since clicking then brings up other works released that year. And if you use such links for dates of birth and death, clicking brings up other writers born/deceased in those years.

However, I figured I'd better check I was doing the right thing. I started out by looking at two literature featured articles; Samuel Beckett and Robert A. Heinlein. Neither of those articles seem to favour linking the years at all, let alone specifically.

I checked out the relevant bit of the style guide: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), but that doesn't seem to help on this point.

Any advice? I'm rather keen on my approach, but I'm made uncertain by looking at the Featured Articles. --bodnotbod 20:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Copyright

I have proposed changes to Wikipedia:Copyrights, in order to move it a little closer in line with the GFDL (in my view). Please contribute your thoughts at Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#GFDL_Notice. Superm401 - Talk 21:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Why are celebrity promotional photos no longer allowed for living persons?

Since I run the Christian Music wiki at Wikia.com, I would like some help understanding the reasoning. My policy had been to attempt to obtain one image (or more, if requested by the artist) per artist. I typically e-mail the promoters for each artist asking for offical photos. Several times I have gotten replies providing them -- in one case, at high res!

So, should I now turn those images down? Will (Talk - contribs) 21:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Whether you should turn them down depends on Wikia's overarching policies and that particular wiki's policy. I can't help you with the former, and I hope you know the latter.

We no longer use "fair use" images of living people because we decided that the odds of such use actually being fair is too low, and conflicts with the goal of creating content that others can use freely. If a promoter released into the public domain or under the GFDL, we'd use it. GRBerry 22:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I control the policy other than what Wikia.com declares. (They chose GFDL, but for the most part it is up to me to interpet and apply that policy.) Will (Talk - contribs) 22:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Might I ask what is your position which allows you to do this? I couldn't figure that out from your user page. Thanks, Badagnani 22:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Who cares? Is this Wikia, no... So, to the OP you're asking in the wrong place! Ta/wangi 22:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

High school articles

One argument in favor of fairly broad guidelines for including high schools is that an existing article can be built upon when something newsworthy happens at the school. For example, today there was a fatal stabbing at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. Luckily, there already was an adequate article on the school to which details on the stabbing could be added. --Eastmain 21:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I would answer with a question: are we running a newspaper of an encyclopedia? Clearly many love to add the news as it happens, but is this a primary role for the encyclopedia? Is this stabbing more notable as it happened in a school? David D. (Talk) 21:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Would this be considered a personal attack?

I was deeply offended by what an admin said concerning me. He refuses to apologize on the grounds that I mischaracterized him, when I mistakenly accused him of semi-protecting a talk page in an ongoing debate. Would saying that another user has his "facts" wrong as usual be considered a personal attack? you can find the edit in question here--Acebrock 22:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't really consider it such. It's a comment on your contributions (and you did have your facts wrong in this case; I believe MONGO was referring to past incidents regarding Cplot, a pretty egregious troll, no?), it's not a personal attack on you in my mind. Perhaps slightly incivil, and I don't know your history with MONGO (who, by the way, is not in possession of mop and bucket). —bbatsell ¿? 23:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

• I am not an admin. Acebrock misrepresented my actions by claiming that I had semi-protected an article talkpage here in the form of an accusatory question, and here again, when the talkpage in question was never semi-protected by myself[5]. Acebrock also accuses me of blocking an editor "out of process" namely, the notorious User:Cplot, who was harassing numerous editors and continues to do so via the creation of more sockpuppets than anyone has recently encoutered on wiki. Next, Acebrock then comes to my talkpage and makes demands...and uses edit summaries such as "MONGO seems very paranoid to me" Just wanted all the facts of this matter to be obvious.--MONGO 23:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow, in one case, and that was a simple screw up on my part. That's not really any reason to make a broad generalization about my editing. If you wish to see our history, look at archives 23, 24, and 25 in the September 11, 2001 Attacks talk page. Also Cplot wasn't trolling in my or some other people's opinions, he was trying to reasonably debate but was met with resistance on all sides, also where'd his adminship go?--Acebrock 23:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

MONGO and Seabhcan lost their adminship in an arbcom case.--Bobblehead 23:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

That remark about paranoia was made because I was incredibly angry and offended, I have apologized for the false accusation and am sorry about that, but an attack on someone's character because they made asimple mistake is far worse than accusing someone of a very controversial act. MONGO, all I want is an apology, for that remark, and that you withdraw it, it's that simple. It won't change my feelings about you but it will get me to stop cluttering up your talk page and wasting everyone's time--Acebrock 23:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

You are just being paranoid and oversensitive. Give it up. Gene Nygaard 23:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Could I gently suggest that Acebrock try to develop a slightly thicker skin. He falsely accused MONGO of making an out-of-policy block. MONGO falsely or justly (I don't know) accused him of often making errors. Without having looked into Acebrock's history, I'll assume that MONGO's accusation is false. So we have (first of all) editor A implicitly accusing editor B of a lack of integrity, and editor B implicitly accusing editor A of a lack of sense. Then we have editor A being deeply offended, demanding an apology, and taking the matter further, while editor B seems to be able to move on. Acebrock, is it really worth this fuss? To me, the accusation made by you was worse, and was demostrably false — just look at the logs. It's pretty bad to go to a protection page and accuse a (former) admin of violating policy. And how can saying that you have your facts wrong "as usual" be an attack on your character? It's perfectly possible to be a good person and to get your facts wrong. Why not just drop the whole thing now and move on with dignity? If you keep going, you're going to get more upset, because nobody is going to think that what MONGO said was worth making a complaint to the community about. Musical Linguist 23:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

What is acceptable on talk pages for living persons?

I wish to know if this version of Joanna Lumley's talk page is acceptable: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Joanna_Lumley&oldid=101844308

I have since reverted the offending section - is this a case of vandalism? Pendragon39 22:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject or special interest group?

I'm not sure if this is the right place so if not, point me in the right direction.

I've come to the conclusion (and let talk about it in general terms for the moment), that many wiki projects actually operate as special interest groups and their goal (generally not spelt out in the project aims) is just to generate as much content about their given subject as possible - regardless of the wikipedia guidelines. Those special interest groups turn up on-mass on an AFD attempt and the articles just get longer and more full of crap (and there is no other way to put it).

Is there a way to call a failing wiki-project to task? if not, should there be? --Larry laptop 00:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

In any AfD, it is possible to defeat en masse voting with decent reasoning, as well as pointing out favorable vote-gathering. The WP:COUNCIL might be able to help you, too. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 00:35, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

See I don't really think that's true - many AFD slip pass the radar and if 3 people provide well-reasoned arguments that someone/something should be removed and ten people from the project turn up posting WP:ILIKEIT arguments - as best, you will get "no consensus". --Larry laptop 00:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I noticed this problem a lot when I was editing Islam articles. I proposed this to Moreschi: "I was thinking about setting up a WikiProject Anti-Votestacking, where blatent votestacking could be listed and members could vote to dilute it. Just 50 members regularly voting would demolish most cases of votestacking." Moreschi nixed it because he thought it would be too controversial, but mayeb it's something we need to revisit. Maybe as a working group of the Council? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 00:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The poor participation in AfD's might have came from the same cause that made me virtually stop participating. The change from consensus decision-making to so-called "value of arguments" made me feel violated in that I believe in democracy. So I hardly ever look at AfD's any more, except when something I care about is nominated. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 00:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

An example would help illuminate this problem. Also, after being a Wikipedian for about three years, I think I would have noticed if this was a big problem. Therefore, I can only assume this is happening within a very narrow subject area. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 00:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not convinced that this is at all a significant problem. It's certainly the case that WikiProjects aim to add material regarding their topic to Wikipedia—that's pretty much the point of having them—but I doubt that the vast majority are adding things that are generally regarded as not appropriate, much less conspiring to do so systematically. Kirill Lokshin 01:01, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

see that's not really what I asked - what would I do if I came across a SPECIFIC project that was failing in improving articles? --Larry laptop 01:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Again, I wouldn't know how to answer unless there is an example we can look at. Further, projects fail all the time in fulfilling their purpose, but this is usually because its members have lost interest, or they never had enough members to handle all the requisite project tasks. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 01:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

For context, I believe he's speaking of the WP:CVG project. --tjstrf talk 01:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Em no - so no sherlock holmes award for you - I was actually thinking of a few projects, I now realise this is sure way to get myself on various hitlists. Let's drop this I'm clearly very mistaken, this is all my mistake and I've made an awful error. Nothing to see here. --Larry laptop 01:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Hitlists? Oh come on. Sounds unlikely to me. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 01:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. Hitlists? There's absolutely nothing wrong with this discussion. Kirill Lokshin 01:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

oh fuck it I'm done anyway - gamesguide and cruft are here to stay what's the point in fighting it. --Larry laptop 02:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)