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Use of international wheelchair symbol

This topic has been discussed in a number of places, notably here, but I'd like to get broad community input on this issue.

The issue concerns the use of the International Symbol of Access (ISA) outside its article. The ISA may be freely used to illustrate handicapped accessibility. However, the symbol is copyrighted and so derivative works are not permitted.

UPDATE: Some derivative works are permitted, see the last bullet point on Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#Why we ought to use the ISA —Remember the dot ^(talk) 05:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Until recently, the ISA was used in places such as Template:Infobox Disney ride to illustrate handicapped accessibility. It has been replaced with a crudely drawn (but freely licensed) alternative,

So, here is the question: Should we permit use of the ISA to illustrate handicapped accessibility in articles and templates? Please continue the discussion in this section, and then indicate your position in the poll below. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 05:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused as to why it is in debate. Yes, it isn't a free image, but any concievable adaptation of the encyclopedia by any entity could use it the way we do, because it may be freely used to illustrate handicapped accessibility. Last I checked, it's pretty unambiguous that "This image may be freely used in situations X, Y, and Z" copyrights are allowed. -Amarkov moo! 05:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Poll: Should we permit use of the ISA to illustrate handicapped accessibility in articles and templates?

Yes, permit use in articles and templates to illustrate handicapped accessibility

1. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 05:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
2. Badagnani. This is such a non-issue that it shouldn't even have to be up for discussion. Let's return to creating great content. Badagnani 05:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
3. [1] gives permission to use the symbol "to promote and publicize accessibility of places, programs and other activities for people with various disabilities" and encourages visitors "to place these symbols next to the relevant information in all publications and media". The fact that the image is copyrighted is irrelevant: there is no such thing in Europe as a copyright-free image, except for those on which copyright has expired. The license granted isn't entirely free, but it's about as close as you get. JulesH 07:19, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
4. Yes. Here we have a prime example of image-license wikilawyering being bad for the encyclopedia. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 07:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
5. Of course yes. Ridiculous copyright hysteria run amok. Jenolen ^{speak it!} 08:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
6. Yes. I have worked with people with disabilities in the past, and have found that badly thought-out or stereotyped signs, no matter how well intentioned, can often cause offence, and therefore the most prudent option is to stick to official symbols. – Tivedshambo (talk) 17:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
7. The symbol's copyright is only to protect improper usage. As long as it is being used to denote a handicapped accessible facility or service, we are using it within its guidelines and not violating its copyright. –Crashintome4196 17:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
8. I believe that it makes sense to slightly modify or clarify our fair use criteria to indicate that a limited number of "official symbols" like the International Symbol of Access are not replaceable and do not require specific rationales for each use. This appears to be in line with what Jimbo implied (see below). --NE2 19:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
9. It's the symbol for handicapped accessibility, and is freely usable within that context. (You can even profit from it. Look at those handicapped accessible restroom and parking signs companies sell.) The arguments against using it sound like the sort of thing I might say if I was trying to make a WP:POINT against overly strict interpretation of the image use criteria. If this requires a one sentence addition to the fair use policy saying that we can use universal standard symbols for their intended purpose without fear of repercussion, which should be obvious anyway, then so be it. --tjstrf talk 00:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
10. This is very much like Crown Copyright, which provides explicit permission provided the material is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading depiction. The ISA is universally recognised as the symbol for accessibility. Some random vector someone whipped up in Inkscape is not. This is very much a case where we need to interpret our rules in spirit, and not in letter. There is no violation of copyright law here, as any use to designate accessibility is not only fair, but expressly permitted. Chris cheese whine 00:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
11. It appears from the discussion below that this is a technical violation of Wikipedia policy. However, I believe that the policy is intended as a way to ensure that we don't run afoul of copyright law, not as an end in itself. Given our confidence that we are not in fact violating the copyright, and given that there is no reasonable alternative to use of this image, this is an ideal time to ignore skirt the policy and do the right thing. Matchups 01:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
12. Seems like this is a good time to make one of our rare exceptions to the fair-use policy. --Carnildo 07:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
13. An exception should be made in this case. We need to be as disability friendly as we possibly can. This is easily within our abilities to do, so we should do it. The reasons against seem to be that it's against the rules, nothing more. That means the rules are wrong or incomplete. Using a poor alternative is doing a poor job of being disability friendly. - Peregrine Fisher 05:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
14. Although voting is, of course, evil, I think it's important to point out that the Foundation resolution on the subject of nonfree content allows for exceptions "to include identifying protected works such as logos". This is a prime example of the sort of use which should be allowed. Even if the image is technically "unfree", the intent of the copyright holder is clear. If we need to add a sentence to WP:FU to cover this sort of thing, so be it.—Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
15. See my comment below. Yes this image can be used, as long as it's usage is properly documented and discussed. We don't need to change WP:FU for just one exception, as long as the rationale of it's usage is properly noted, the image properly categorized, this discussion is referenced, and enough users sign off on it. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 18:13, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
    1. I would like to point out that the scope of the usage of the image should be clearly defined. We cannot use it everywhere, but to say we can't use it ANYWHERE is just stupid --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 09:07, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
16. This discussion is fully involved at this point. There's clearly the ability to change policy when needed and rational, and people are arguing that we can't change it because... it's not been changed? get over yourselves. -- nae'blis 18:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
17. Yes. The image is free (as a speech) to use for the purpose we want to use it. It is forbidden to use for the other purposes for the damn good reason. It is morally wrong and probably illegal to use something else for the purpose we intend to use it. What elase can I say? Alex Bakharev 03:36, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
18. Yes. I think some people (below) are being way too anal in insisting on policy for policy's sake. Using this image for this purpose is perfectly legal and moral, and doesn't violate either the letter or the spirit of its license or result in anybody being under any risk of being sued. It's technically "unfree" because there are conditions attached to the image, but they are conditions that no reasonable reuse of Wikipedia content would violate. *Dan T.* 03:05, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
19. What a fine showcase of ridiculous copyright paranoia.  Grue  10:35, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
20. Create the appropraite exception document and/or modify the policy to celarly permit this any any simialr logos to be used even though copyrighted, provifed that the license or other legal basis for sue is spelled on on the relevant image page (or its talk page), and provided that any such license is complied with, and provided that the rights granted are broad enough that any plausible non-valdalism use on Wikipedia will be legal. DES ^(talk) 06:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
21. Since any potential redistributor can use this symbol to illustrate handicapped accessibility, it's really pointless to say that we can't because it has a non-free license. -Amarkov moo! 06:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
22. Yes, allow its use. A minority of Wikipedians are pushing their zeal for libre images to a ridiculous extreme. This is a great example of a good use of non-free image content. Johntex\^talk 06:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
23. Yes. AQu01rius (User • Talk) 21:58, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
24. Yes, obviously. But more importantly, Image:Wheelchair.svg should be deleted as an unauthorized derivative work, unless User:NE2 is willing to argue that Wheelchair.svg is a protected work, such as a work of parody. The current situation is akin to replacing all our images of Mickey Mouse with a user's hand-drawn "Ricky Rat", and then claiming that "Ricky Rat" is in the public domain. That's simply untrue, and the action violates the original work's copyright. --Quuxplusone 09:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
25. Yes, as it is an international standard, which should preempt our copyright concerns, given the fact that we only intend to use the image in an approved context. —Scott5114↗ 16:32, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
26. Yes, we use a similar symbol to denote Wikipedians in wheelchairs. Why not other areas of Wikipedia?--Ispy1981 07:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
27. Yes, I think it should be alright to use in the template, no I am not going to debate about it, this is just my thought. Next up maybe I'll spark up another huge debate whether or not image:International Symbol for Deafness.svg can be used in the template as well ;) --blm07 22:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
28. Yes. I also think it is ironic that we allegedly cannot use this, as it is a symbol if accessibility, meaning anyone can access. -Indolences 05:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
29. Yes, per everyone but especially TenOfTrades's Q&A, and TSP's argument about the Euro symbol. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 18:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
30. Absolutely. The Foundation has recently clarified that we can decide, as a project, whether we want to allow certain types of non-free content in our Exemption Doctrine Policy, as long as such use is legal where the project content is predominantly accessed.[2][3] This is a perfect example of a case where this is a good idea. We should not allow a minority agenda to derail our project's fundamental educational mission. — Omegatron 17:41, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
31. Yes. I hope we can ammend the image use policies to allow for this and any other similar cases when the copyright holder allows for the free commerical use of the image. Biomedeng 03:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
32. Looks like a good time to apply IAR to me. --Gwern (contribs) 06:47 6 May 2007 (GMT)
33. Yes, it's the international standard. I wouldn't worry about the copyright for now. Tim.bounceback^{(review me! | talk | contribs | ubxen)} 16:11, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
34. Yes, allow it and it is ironic that we cannot use this image, as it is a symbol of wheelchair accessibility... - BWCNY 17:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

No, display the symbol only to illustrate the symbol, do not use it to illustrate handicapped accessibility

1. Since it appears we are not allowed to use other licences which allow free use of images but do not allow modification, at least on articles of living people (and I'm thinking of Template:NZCrownCopyright here), I can't see why we should use this. I don't agree with the policy, but we should enforce it equally.-gadfium 08:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

No, do not have the poll

First, we do not vote over policy proposals. Second, this is an issue of copyright law, which is obviously not trumped by consensus. Third, we have rather stringent "fair use and free images" rules for reasons imposed by the board, which means we're not going to use a copyrighted image on templates. I suggest you ask Jimbo to make an exception but he likely won't. By the way there is too "something in Europe as a copyright-free image", for instance those in the public domain or those licensed under the GFDL or somesuch. >Radiant< 08:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Totally agree with Radiant here. Garion96 (talk) 08:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Fully agree with Radiant. —xyzzy_n 09:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree - Discuss, don't vote. anthony^[review] 17:48, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Small correction: GFDL content is copyrighted, GFDL is a license for distributing copyrighted information. --Kim Bruning 11:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

This is not an issue of copyright law, it is an issue of Wikipedia policy. We may legally use the image to indicate handicapped-accessible railway stations, Disney rides, etc. The copyright holder explicitly allows the symbol to be used in this way. The question is do we want to do that.

This poll is to give us a general idea of what members of the community think. No, we don't vote on policy, but a vote can help us get a general idea of where the community stands. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 16:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not asking for free reign to use this as though it were licensed under a free as in freedom license — I am not asking for permission to use this on userboxes or in talk pages. I'm asking whether the community feels that limited use to illustrate handicapped accessibility is (or should be) acceptable. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 16:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo has been asked: User talk:Jimbo Wales#International Symbol of Access and licensing. His comments seem to imply that if our fair use policy is changed, we can use it under fair use; but right now, our fair use policy prevents us from using it because it's replaceable and needs a rationale for every use. --NE2 17:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

This discussion may result in a slight change to the fair use policy, whether it be the letter of the policy or the interpretation. Again, I don't want us to go wild over the use of the wheelchair symbol, but limited use where appropriate would be nice. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 17:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

In the event of the "fair use" policy being changed, it would be good to see that change applied to similar cases - as Gadfium pointed out, Crown Copyright (UK, NZ and other Commonwealth nations), is an analagous situation of reproduction allowed with no modification , and 500 plus images are threatened by recent spate of deletions of crown copyrighted material by free use ideological purists.

The present Fair Use policy is based on US copyright law with some additional restrictions. Unfortunately this

1. tends to exclude images from other jurisdictions so increasing the present US content imbalance and

2. provides a false sense of security that users of Wikipedia images are not breaking copyright or other laws, (some of the crown copyright images have been allowed because they fit within "fair use", when their use could break other nations laws).

There appears to be no reason to consider US law superior to that of most other OECD nations, nor for a policy to be based on anyones law at all.

The reason/retrospective excuse for a policy based only upon US intellectual property law is that wikipedia servers are based in the US, and "fair use" provides protection for the Wikipedia Foudnation against breaches of other nations copyright laws. This reasoning has two flaws - firstly, it does not protect users, as against the foundation, secondly, it does not protect either against laws other than copyright (e.g. defamation).

Ultimately I think we need international lawyers involved in a rethink of the whole policy from the ground up. In the mean time, for the little it is worth, my opinion is a common sense solution might be a relaxation the ideological purity of complete "Free use" position. Reuse without modification is hardly the most onerous requirement, and simply tagging this on the image should warn users of the danger and protect Wikipedia from liability.

If policy in this area is changed a change I would like to see is the abandonment of the Orwellianly loaded terms "Fair Use" and "Free Use", - it appears to me that discussion of change has been chilled because the policy contains the warm and fuzzy but not particularly accurate words "Fair" and "Free". I suspect if a newbie had renamed these policies they would promptly have been deemed POV and reverted :-) Seriously, attempting to discuss the policies seems to provoke at least some readers into irrational knee jerk assumption any one questioning Fair and Free use must be against fairness and freedom. Winstonwolfe 03:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

This poll is funny, and it won't change anything. We can't use the symbol, and people would rather argue to use it than make a better looking free version. Holy crap, people, it's not that freaking hard. I mean, just freaking look at it! We can't use the international one, it's painfully clear, deal with it. This isn't even close to being one of those grey areas we usually discuss here, not by a long shot. This is one of the most obvious situations of when to not use fair use that I've ever seen. -- Ned Scott 05:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The question is not "can we?" It's "should we?" We may legally use the image. This poll, so far, has shown great support in favor of using the image, no matter whether the policy currently allows this or not. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 05:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Any free alternative is inherently going to not be an internationally recognized symbol. Thus, any free replacement will be inferior to the International Symbol of Access. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 06:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Legal issues don't matter, our policy, our non optional policy, says no. Being "inferior" is an absurd thing to say. How is it inferior? It might not look as pretty, but that's not significant. It doesn't matter how many people disagree with the policy, it's our policy, and it's been set by the Wikimedia Foundation itself. It's out of your hands, and the poll completely lacks the authority to do anything about the matter. Sorry, but that's the way things are. -- Ned Scott 07:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

We're talking about adjusting our policy. Again, the only argument against is that our rules say so. If there's no other reasoning, we should change our rules. The poll will be a good thing to take to the foundation, if they're the ones who have to decide. Finally, the free image is inferior because it isn't a recognized symbol. - Peregrine Fisher 07:14, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I doubt anyone won't understand what the free image is implying, and because of that we don't need an internationally recognized symbol. We're not actually helping handicapped people by using this image, and we shouldn't be. Wikipedia is not a directory, or a guide for the handicapped. People don't need to use Wikipedia to see if handicapped parking is available at some train station. Even if they do use it, which we can't really stop people from doing, it's plain as day what the free image means. -- Ned Scott 07:32, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

But hey, whatever, if you guys want to give the Foundation your poll results, ok. But until they change our policy (which is not limited to just Wikipedia, but to all Wikimedia projects), we can't use the image. -- Ned Scott 07:35, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

A passionate defense of nonsense, Ned; appropriate for April 1st... Side note: Is this not the classic case of WP:IAR? Aren't we supposed to use independent thought to judge and balance these issues? Shouldn't, in this one case, WP:IAR trump WP:FU? Jenolen ^{speak it!} 07:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

No, IAR is not a loop hole that anyone can just use when they don't get what they want. Free content is the very reason Wikipedia (and it's predecessor, Nupedia) was started. Asking to be exempt for such minor situation in face of that is just absurd. Continue to discuss if you want, but those who violate our policies will be dealt with accordingly. -- Ned Scott 08:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Dealt with accordingly??? Accordingly to what? And by who? You? Oh, dear god, PLEASE sign me up for an accordingly dealing. (Does it involve Jimbo reading me the anti-creator screed from "Freedom Defined" over and over again until my ears bleed? (Its hysterical (in every sense) reference to "God-like creators" seems to indicate WP:NPOV is certainly not in effect there...)

I love that WP:IAR is a policy... which, apparently, is only a joke, and is NEVER supposed to be actually used. "Heh, heh, you don't really believe all that stuff about ignoring stupid rules to help make Wikipedia better, do ya?" Uh, yeah, I do. That's why WP:IAR is a policy -- and asking you to have an original thought about this matter has apparently scared you so much, you can only fall back on another policy, which you must believe is somehow "immune" from the reach of WP:IAR. I'm not talking about using WP:IAR to turn Wikipedia in to the world's number one fan site; I'm talking about a one-time use of a sensible "check" on the insane dedication to a contradictory and messy set of unencyclopedic fair use standards. A dedication which is, in this case, emperically HURTING Wikipedia, by making it non-standard, non-International, and disabled unfriendly. But how can you process any of that? I mean, you have a very simple "program" - "Copyright = bad. No use on Wikipedia." Which is fine, and all, but both common sense and the law would permit the ISA's use on Wikipedia. I urge you to stand with common sense and the law, and perhaps, just maybe, realize that the answers to all of life's problems can't be found in WP:FU. Jenolen ^{speak it!} 08:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It means you'll get banned for breaking the policy. If you use the copyrighted image, get reverted, and keep trying to use it, you will be blocked. You obviously don't understand a fundamental point here on Wikipedia, that our fair use restrictions are actually more restrictive than the law requires, not because of legal issues, but because our goal is to have all of our content under the GFDL. There's no major benefit to using the copyrighted image. Now you're resorting to inappropriate personal attacks on me because I'm simply telling you the facts of the situation. It's laughable to think that we would bend our fair use policy over something so trivial. You've completely missed the point. You're all hung up on something that isn't even an issue. No significant improvement will come from using the "official image" at all. Your argument is weak and lacks logic. Wikipedia will not be better for using another fair use image, it will be worse for using another fair use image. We are about promoting free content and using free content whenever possible, and only using copyrighted content when we have no other options. You are disagreeing with a fundamental value of Wikipedia. -- Ned Scott 08:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

And really, who cares if it's blue or not, or exactly the same image. It doesn't matter, EVERYONE will know exactly what it means. Are you really going to fight this tooth and nail, over something so absurdly unimportant and insignificant? You want us to bend the rules for this?? Are you batshit insane? -- Ned Scott 09:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Ned, it's not batshit insane to say that it's appropriate to use a nonfree image that has been released by the copyright holder for exactly this sort of use — especially in light of the Foundation resolution on unfree content, which allows exceptions "to include identifying protected works such as logos". It is reasonable to say that a crudely drawn substitute is not an acceptable alternative, because the ISA is internationally recognized, and the crudely drawn susbtitute is not. The Foundation's resolution says that nonfree content "must be replaced with a freely licensed work whenever one is available which will serve the same educational purpose." A reasonable argument can be made that the crude substitute does not serve the same educational purpose as the ISA. So please, refrain from calling people making reasonable arguments "batshit insane". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

But this is specifically about incidental use of the symbol without any educational purpose. The issue is not to remove the symbol from International Symbol of Access, but not to use it in an infobox of e. g. metro stations. There, the non-free symbol serves no educational purpose, which can be done just as well by a free symbol; therefore, it must be replaced. The symbol is also not an ‘identifying protected work’ in that context. —xyzzy_n 10:11, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Josiah, they're talking about using the image in templates and stuff, like for train stations. I have no problem with using the image in articles that discuss the image. -- Ned Scott 10:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand that. I maintain that the use of the ISA in templates to identify handicap-accessible locations and facilities is an educational use, because it establishes in a clear, unambiguous, internationally recognized manner that the facility in question is handicap-accessible. The substitute image does not perform that function; nor would a text message, which would not be accessible to non-English speakers. Yes, we are the English Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean that we should refuse to use internationally recognized symbols which we're legally entitled to use. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:53, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

A text message in English would perform this function perfectly, since we are the English Wikipedia. That there are other means to express the same thing shouldn’t bother us especially if those means are in contempt of very basic policy. —xyzzy_n 19:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm dumbfounded at your response, Josiah. Our content is supposed to be free of copyright red tape, so that you can use it for anything, educational, commercial, whatever. We don't allow educational-use only images (unless under WP:FU) or even images that people specifically for Wikipedia-only use (such images can even be speedy deleted). Wikipedia is specifically stricter than the law requires, because we're about free content. WP:FU isn't how it is because of the law, it's that way to prevent needless copyrighted images in a free-use project. This is so fundamental that it hurts my head. -- Ned Scott 20:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

My point is that this is not needless — it is offensive to substitute something that looks a bit like an internationally recognized symbol but isn't it, when there is no good reason not to use the internationally recognized symbol. It's like representing a country with an image that looks a bit like its flag, but isn't. If Image:Flag of the United Nations.svg were copyrighted and Image:United Federation of Planets flag.png were free, would it be acceptable to use the latter in UN-related articles? After all, it looks a bit like the UN flag. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure I've covered this already, but unless you know something I don't, using an alternative image in place of the ISA will not be offensive (why the hell would you think it would be?) to people who are disabled. Disabled people don't have an attachment to that image, it's just an informational icon. It's not a flag, it's not a symbol of hope, it's just a damn icon to tell you if there's a ramp somewhere or if there's closer parking spaces. Other people and places commonly use alternative symbols to note disabled access all the time, and do so without incident. -- Ned Scott 00:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It's clear that it's legal to use the ISA. It is not clear to me that it is legal to use a similar "free" image, as that might be considered a derivative work which is not allowed by the copyright holder's release. Matchups 15:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

A derivative work is just that. A work which is similar to another work but was created independently isn’t derivative. —xyzzy_n 19:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems like this is a gray area where it's hard to tell if we have a derivative work or not. - Peregrine Fisher 19:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a legal expert, but the concept of a stick figure in a wheel chair is one of those things.. OfficeMax used to have a mascot that was a little stick figure, noted by a unique marking on his head. Other stick figures are very similar, but obviously OfficeMax can't make the claim that those stick figures infringe on their copyright. I'd think that same logic would apply here. -- Ned Scott 20:49, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Does fair use even apply? If the image isn't used on a page that discusses the image, then it seems like it doesn't. We wouldn't be using the image under fair use, we'd be using it accordin to what its copyright grants. It isn't going to be released since it's copyright allows anyone to use it, as long as they're designating something that's handicapped accesible. If it were made free, it could be misused to lable something that isn't handicapped accessible, so it isn't going to be released. I wouldn't even want it released. The only change would be that people could misuse it. We should just explain its status on the image page, and then use it for anything that is handicapped accessible. There doesn't seem to be a tag for this sort of thing, so not sure what to do there. - Peregrine Fisher 17:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Content on Wikipedia is supposed to be used for anything, educational or commercial. This is why we can't use images that allow for education use only without a fair use rational. Fair use is the only way we could use this image. -- Ned Scott 20:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Ned, we're suggesting that this image might be in a third category: unfree, but not fair use. The Foundation's resolution allows us to create an Exemption Doctrine Policy (EDP) for unfree content. These exemptions must be limited according to item #3 of the resolution:

3. Such EDPs must be minimal. Their use, with limited exception, should be to illustrate historically significant events, to include identifying protected works such as logos, or to complement (within narrow limits) articles about copyrighted contemporary works. An EDP may not allow material where we can reasonably expect someone to upload a freely licensed file for the same purpose, such as is the case for almost all portraits of living notable individuals. Any content used under an EDP must be replaced with a freely licensed work whenever one is available which will serve the same educational purpose.

The ISA is clearly an example of "identifying protected works such as logos", and we would be within our Foundation-delimited rights to include it in our EDP. At the moment, en.wikipedia's EDP is WP:FU, and obviously the vast majority of nonfree content on Wikipedia would be determined by our "fair use" policy — but "fair use" is immaterial to the use of this image, whose copyright explicitly allows the uses for which we, and downstream users, would use it. I, and others, are proposing that en.wikipedia's EDP explicitly allow the use of the ISA and other copyrighted international symbols whose use is uncontroversial in any other context.

Ned, you say that you're flabbergasted by my response. I'm somewhat puzzled that you apparently don't see how using a different image in place of the ISA is problematic. If it's sufficiently unlike the ISA not to be a copyright violation, it's potentially confusing and/or offensive to disabled people, who know, use and rely on the ISA. If it's close enough not to be confusing and/or offensive, it's a derivative image. Either way, we're better off using the image itself, and adjusting our EDP accordingly. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I've explained in private to Josiah just how close I do know about disabled people. There's no risk of confusion, and the offensive concern is not an issue. I'm really not sure why one would come to the conclusion that using a different image would be offensive. I've even seen different images be used to indicate disabled parking, ramps, etc, and they're purely informational, nothing emotional or significant about them. These are not flags, and disabled people do not have an attachment to the ISA image. I don't know why anyone would come to such a conclusion, and I know you don't mean anything bad by that, but if I were disabled I'd be a little offended at your view. Why would you think that this image would be.. "holy" (or whatever) simply because it's used on maps and parking spaces? You've got it all wrong, offensiveness isn't a factor in this at all. No one's feelings will be hurt, no one will be offended. -- Ned Scott 04:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Q & A

Is this image 'free' (in the libre sense)? Nope. There are restrictions on its use.

Is this a bad thing, or a reason not to use it on Wikipedia? Nope. In fact, it's what makes it worthwhile as a symbol—its meaning is clear because of its licensing terms.

Is there any reason why we would want or need to use the symbol in a way that is prohibited by its license? Nope.

Is this a 'fair use' issue? Nope. We would only be using the image in a way explicitly permitted by its license. 'Fair use' is a defence to a charge of copyright infringement; it would only be an issue if we were violating the license terms.

Wait—it's selfish to only think about our own use. What about people who redistribute Wikipedia materials for a profit? They're covered. The image can be redistributed in commercial materials as long as the terms of its license are followed.

Ah, but they can't freely modify the image, create derivative works, or use it without restriction. What about those people? Sucks to be them. If they want to abuse the International Symbol of Access to fuck with the mobility challenged, screw 'em. Wikipedia tolerates hundreds (thousands? more?) of Crown Copyright images which are free for use in educational materials, but require permission for commercial redistribution. Wikipedia tolerates thousands of non-free, copyrighted images under very tenuous 'fair use' claims. We expect that when people make copies or derivatives of articles incorporating these images, those people will take appropriate care to check the licensing of all the images on the page. Here, with the ISA, we have an image being used appropriately and which will likely propagate without harm into reasonable derivative works and commercial copies. Why are we choosing to get stuck on this particular point? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know what tag should go on the image page? - Peregrine Fisher 20:12, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Images with ‘tenuous’ fair use claims should be tagged accordingly or sent to WP:IFD. Other crap exists, but that’s not a reason to add to it. What about people who find themselves hindered by the third pillar? Well, sucks to be them. —xyzzy_n 20:14, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Please explain how this is fair use. - Peregrine Fisher 21:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Images on Wikipedia are either free on unfree. There is no inbetween. This is en policy and was recently clarified in the foundation's licensing resolution, which states that images must be free (as in libre, which the ISA is not), or covered by an EDP, which is for the limited discussion of copyrighted works.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed g2s (talk • contribs) 21:57, April 1, 2007 (UTC)

Please read the Foundation resolution about what EDPs can and can't cover. As I noted above, the Foundation allows us to use nonfree content for "identifying protected works such as logos". There is no reason not to adjust our EDP to allow use of this image, in accordance with the limits the Foundation has set. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

That EDP page is interesting. Has anything besides Free and FU been discussed before? - Peregrine Fisher 22:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Our policy already allows for "identifying protected works". Its use on the ISA article is not being debated. Using it as a replacement for the text "disabled access available" is not "identifying [a] protected work". ed g2s • talk 01:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

We wouldn't be using it under fair use protection. We'd be using it under the rights granted to us by its copyright. - Peregrine Fisher 02:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I have an idea. Let's ban the use of the Wikipedia logo and the Wikimedia logo. After all, they're subject to the Wikimedia visual identity guidelines and not licensed under the GFDL, so they must be worthless and a detriment to our cause of creating free content. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 03:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Wikipedia logos have been removed and taken down from many pages, banners, and such for those very reasons. Image:Example.jpg used to be the Wikipedia logo, but because it wasn't a free image we took it off. Most people don't realize that Wikipedia's logo is not free use, which is pretty much the only reason we haven't taken it down from non-official uses, or uses unrelated to guidelines, policy, etc. -- Ned Scott 04:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

So what's the best way to take this to the foundation? It looks like if it was up to us, we would have a consensus to use it to identify handicapped access. At the least, we have a consensus to ask. Jimbo's page doesn't seem like the best place. The last time we tried that, it devolved into snarky comments, and he seemed to tune out. We should probably include the International Symbol for Deafness, and other ICTA symbols in our request. - Peregrine Fisher 03:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

foundation-l --Kim Bruning 03:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

If you choose to e-mail them, please emphasize that the ICTA is not going to release this under a free license because they surely only want it used to identify handicapped accessibility. They would not be happy if people abused the image to mark non-handicapped-accessible things with this symbol. That would undermine the value of the symbol as an international identifier of handicapped accessibility. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, let's use the mailing list. Since this is where we're talking about it, let's discuss what points need to be made. I'll try and list the pros and cons so far. Copying some of the words used in the discussion so far.

Pro:

Using it to designate handicapped accessible objects does not violate its copyright.

The ISA may be freely used to illustrate handicapped accessibility.[4] The symbol's copyright is only to protect improper usage. As long as it is being used to denote a handicapped accessible facility or service, we are using it within its guidelines and not violating its copyright. It's copyright explicitly allows the uses for which we, and downstream users, would use it.

Its meaning is clear precisely because of its licensing terms.

Stereotyped signs, no matter how well intentioned, can often cause offense.

It is non-replaceable, except by Image:Wheelchair.svg or words such as "wheelchair accessible." These are not internationally recognized symbols.

You can profit from it. Look at those handicapped accessible restroom and parking signs companies sell.

It is universally recognised by design and common usage over many years.

It's use would be disability friendly.

The wikimediafoundation does sometimes allow exceptions with an EDP, which currently is WP:FU. FU doesn't speak to this issue.

It would not be used in userspace.

It is easily recognised by non-english speakers.

Using Image:Wheelchair.svg may not be legal, as it may be a derivative work of the ISA.

It is unlikely to be made free because it's copyright's only restriction prohibits its use to designate objects that are not handicapped accessible. Making it free would remove this restriction. They would not be happy if people abused the image to mark non-handicapped-accessible things with this symbol.

Con:

It's not free, and it wouldn't be used under fair use, unlike all images on wikipedia.

The symbol is copyrighted and so derivative works are not permitted.

We have a substitute image Image:Wheelchair.svg, or can use text such as "wheelchair accessible."

It's use would be a violation of Wikipedia policy.

Since we don't allow other free uses of images which which allow modification, we shouldn't do it in this case.

While it wouldn't be used in user space, it could be used in a template, and wouldn't have a (free use?) rational for each page.

They're may be international issues that are not raised in US law.

Wikipedia is not a guide for the handicapped.

It's use is not important.

It serves not educational purpose.

Our goal is to have all of our content under the GFDL, which this image would not be.

Images on Wikipedia are either free on unfree. There is no inbetween.

Did I miss anything important? - Peregrine Fisher 04:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm still baffled by this idea that not using the ISA image would be offensive. I'm not being rude here, I honestly am baffled. Have any of you known or lived with a disabled person? Also, while the ISA owns the blue wheel chair image with a stick figure, they can't make claim to every stick figure wheel chair image. Do you think that anyone was offended/confused, or even gave 2 seconds of thought, to images like these: [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]? No disabled person is going to be angry or confused when seeing these other images in real life, on streets, maps, restrooms, rides, or ramps, why would they be? You guys need a touch of reality here, and you're making an issue out of nothing. Your over anticipating and trying to preemptively be PC for someone that most people, disabled or not, never even thought was an issue. -- Ned Scott 04:45, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

First, I've never lived with a disabled person. I'm not going to say I'm offended, but the fact that our policies prevent us from using these easily understood symbols is troubling to me. My guess is that when someone sees our version of the wheelchair, they'll think that it probably means disabled access, but they won't be sure. People who don't know they can click on the image and gain additional information will remain slightly unsure.

Those image links you provide seem to be standard uses of the ISA. If using a red version like your first example is legal, but not restricted by the ISA copyright, I would be cool with that. We can just use red versions of all the disabled access symbols. I think they're all just legal uses of the ISA, though.

Will disabled people be pissed if we don't use the standard symbols? Some yes, some no. As we know, WP is mostly edited by able bodied white mails aged 15-45, or something close to that. We're not going to be good judges of what's best for the disabled. Because of this, I think that if we go out of our way to help the disabled more than seems necessary to us, then we'll be getting closer to what's right. We discuss FU vs. Free Use all day, and that makes it seem very important. If you were disabled all day, that would seem important. - Peregrine Fisher 05:23, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd go farther than that and say most disabled wouldn't even give which image used significant thought. We have no evidence to show otherwise, and only wild and unproven speculation. I'm not willing to "prove" my own experiences with such situations, for privacy reasons, but this is the first I've ever heard someone even suggest that a person might be offended because the disabled icon isn't exactly the same. It's really nice that you guys want to go out of your way to help people, but doing this.. thinking that it is helping disabled people, that's not what's happening. You're not hurting them.. but it's just kind of.. null. That's like me blowing at a house that's on fire, with my mouth, thinking I'm helping. Good intent, but at the end of the day it honestly makes no difference. Really, I'm not making this up. You guys have nothing but unfounded speculation to come to these conclusions. -- Ned Scott 05:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll give to you that this discussion is opinion, same as all talk page discussions. I don't know what you mean about proving your own experiences, but even if you yourself are disabled, that doesn't mean you speak for a whole segment of society. I just think we should err on the side of helping disabled people. This is something that some of us think will help disabled people, which isn't silly. Maybe this doesn't make that big of a difference in the lives of disabled people. I don't think that means we shouldn't try. Some things help the disabled a little, and some thing a lot. I say do both, if they don't hurt us. We should do everything we can, and this is easily within the power of the foundation, so we should do it. - Peregrine Fisher 06:06, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

While it's true that even if I was disabled (I'm not) that I wouldn't be able to speak for all disabled people (calling them a segment of society is a very inaccurate way to profile disabled people, who are individuals and have their own views), having some experience with disabled people would seem to trump no experience whatsoever. I don't mean to try to speak with authority, I just mean to point out that there's no evidence to support that there would be any confusion or cause of any offense. Your heart is in the right place, but using the ISA image on things like templates for Disneyland is painfully insignificant to a disabled person's life. We don't bend the rules just because you mean well, because in the end you're still wrong. -- Ned Scott 00:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I would call all of those examples derivative works of the ISA, except this one and possibly this one. The legality of derivative works is questionable, but it doesn't look like the ICTA is concerned about them because they are only being used in the context of illustrating handicapped accessibility. Thus, the restrictions the ICTA imposes on creation of derivative works of the ISA appear to be fairly relaxed. This is another thing to mention in the case for permitting use on Wikipedia.

I doubt that any free replacement would be used outside Wikipedia, even if the two symbols are of comparable artistic quality. It may seem counterintuitive to readers to use a symbol completely different from the one actually used in the real world. Thus, there is value in using the internationally recognized symbol in order to maintain consistency with the rest of the world.

The symbol is copyrighted for a very good reason. Do you deny this? If you do not deny that it's copyrighted for a good reason, then why should we refuse to use it in our project? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 06:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

My point in showing the other images was to show that people often use images that are similar but not the exact same as the standard ISA image, and do so without any incident whatsoever. We do not need a white on blue stick figure that is exactly like the ISA one. It won't seem counterintuitive to readers, there won't be confusion, because it's so minor no one will give it any thought. You have no evidence at all to support your speculations, and are blindly ignoring common sense. -- Ned Scott 00:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, lengthy debate here. The point is that the Foundation tells us to use free images whenever possible. We can use a free image here rather than a copyrighted one. That's the wiki philosophy. >Radiant< 09:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Lol, this discussion is just stupid and pointless beyond belief !!! And Jimbo saying that we can't use the image without changing the FU policy is even more STUPID (Sorry Jimbo, i really do feel so). We don't have a tag for it  ? MAKE a tag !! We don't have policy that says we can use it? MAKE it a policy that we can use this specific image!!! To say that we need to explicitly have an exception to the policy is just stupid for a single image. We could have 20 respectable editors sign of on it on the Image page and say: "It's ok to use this copyrighted image, in relation to disability topic within wikipedia etc etc etc." Categorize it as copyrighted image, Categorize it as "free to use, not to edit" and get it done with. This is Wikipedia bureaucracy that is pointless and disrupting even. Get over yourselves and over Jimbe (Jimbo is not WikiGod) --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 14:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

By the way, if you haven't yet signed the poll, I would like it if you would do so so that we can get an idea of the number of people agreeing and disagreeing. Another way to phrase the question would be "do the benefits of using this image outweigh the copyright restrictions?" Many of us say yes, and many say no. By all means, continue to discuss the issue. However, without signing the poll, it's hard to tell whether 90% or 50% of users support using this image. This is a question hard to decide by consensus, so it would really be helpful if we could at least identify strong support for one side or the other, see Wikipedia:Resolving disputes#Conduct a survey. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 16:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

You can't force people to use a survey. It's pretty obvious that we have tons of editors that would disagree with the usage you are trying to promote. My guess is a lot of people don't even think this is worth the trouble to talk about. It's that simple. -- Ned Scott 00:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, by my estimate, approximately 75% of the Wikipedians who have took place in this discussion have supported using the ISA to indicate handicapped accessibility. If you are claiming that the silent majority supports your position, then let me reiterate to you that the silent majority is silent, i.e. they haven't told us what they think.

I'm still waiting to hear your position on using the unfree Wikimedia logos in places such as Template:Interwikitmp-grp, Template:Commons, Template:InterWiki, Template:Meta, Template:Wikibooks, and Template:Wikiversity, not to mention every single page on Wikipedia. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

You'll have to ask the Foundation, but my guess would be that the logo can be used for operational tasks of Wikipedia, but not as actual article content without a rationale. But for all we know, we should take them out of those templates too. The logo was Image:example.jpg for years before it was finally taken out. Most people don't even know the logos are not under the GFDL.

As for the sidebar itself, that is not considered to be part of the article document, just a part of the page displaying the content. About.com can display their copyrighted logo along side their mirrored copy of Wikipedia content, because the article is not "the entire window". The entire window is just how the end product is produced, nothing more than a UI, and the article is within the UI.

As for the silent majority, you can't just ignore past discussions about similar issues simply because it's not in -this- discussion. We do not ignore the thoughts and concerns of our fellow Wikipedias just because they can't watch every possible discussion, especially when we know they have strong positions on such matters. Do you honestly think we can't round up an assload of Wikipedians to push that little survey the other way around by simply making this discussion better known? A poll, even if recent, does not just debunk previous discussion or well known arguments of active Wikipedians. Like I said before, no one has probably bothered to get more attention to this discussion, or has seen the discussion but passed it up, because many of us feel this is such a minor and obvious issue. Keep pushing the issue if you really want to be proven wrong so badly, but I'd rather you not, for the sake of using all of our time more wisely. -- Ned Scott 03:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Where are these past discussions? Who participated in them? How similar are they to this instance?

You assume that these other Wikipedians support your position and that is why they are not commenting. However, Wikipedians such as Amarkov and Badagnani indicated the exact opposite, saying that it is very clear that we should be able to use this image. Even if the other Wikipedians are all rolling their eyes at this discussion and staying aloof from it, their disinclination to participate does not indicate support for one side or the other.

You may be surprised to know that I sent out notices to several editors who participated in previous discussions about this exact same issue, and that there is currently an RFC open on this topic. By all means, please inform other editors who you think would like to participate. We could even open a request for mediation, although unless I misunderstand the policy, all 24 (by my count) Wikipedians who have commented would have to sign off on it. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 05:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Guessing what wikipedians who aren't commenting think isn't binding, obviously. But, my experience with these wikipedia name space talk pages is that this is where the strict interpretation crowd hangs out. It would be cool if we could get a watchlist notice like WP:ATT has right now. I think the more diverse the group of people brought in, the higher the proportion of support for these images would be. The proportion of support is actually enormously high considering who traffics these page. - Peregrine Fisher 05:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

A watchlist notice is an interesting idea, but we should wait until the WP:ATT controversy blows over before putting up another notice. That way, we'd be less likely to anger Wikipedians over overuse of that mechanism. And by that time, we may already have this discussion resolved. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 06:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, we don't want to try and do the watchlist thing now. Maybe after this discussion plays out, and if we have a consensus, we should implement the changes in policy that we've been discussing. It seems like Jimbo and rest of WP didn't even notice the whole WP:ATT merge until after it was done. After that, we can discuss the watchlist notification if people have a problem. - Peregrine Fisher 06:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I seriously doubt they'd make a watchlist announcement for something like this. If you guys really want to get down to business then I suggest we make this a little more organized and less poll-ish, maybe using a separate, structured discussion, RFC page (summaries on one side, structured discussion on the talk side). We might also get some good insight by asking for comments from Wikipedians listed in Category:Wikipedians by physiological condition's subcats. Feel free to even keep counts and comments that are already existing, but right now the discussion is all over the place and needs to be a little better formatted. I still think it's a waste of time, but it might be a good lesson for you guys. Remember, you can have good intentions but completely miss the point, especially when you don't have a clue about what you're talking about in the first place.. -- Ned Scott 07:14, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

An RfC might be a good idea. What's the procedure for keeping counts and comments from what's happened before? - Peregrine Fisher 07:29, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

DJ, the issue is when the image isn't being used in articles about disability, instead being used in articles like ones for Disneyland rides (in the infobox, with only the icon being shown). -- Ned Scott 00:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Disneyland rides are just one possible use, and probably a minor one. If we can get the copyright stuff figured out, we could include any of the 13 disability access symbols on appropriate pages. Things like museums, libraries, television programs, and books. - Peregrine Fisher 01:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

For a moment, lets say all of these images are free use images and we have no such problem. The images are being used as if we were some kind of travel guide, rather than helping article content. Just because the guide seems like it's for a good cause doesn't make it any less of a guide. Now, I'm sure we don't need to take out stuff simply for that reason, as long as it doesn't get out of hand then who cares if Wikipedia helps you find a handicapped ramp, but that's a secondary concern that is outside of the article's real content. Don't forget that we are an encyclopedia, not a place to dump every possible tid bit of info. Information for disabled people is abundant and easily accessed for the kind of uses you guys are talking about, and there's no demand for us to fill this extra role. -- Ned Scott 03:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems like encyclopedic information to me, when used within an already encyclopedic article. A list of disability accessible whatevers would seem to be more of a guide. Also, because other sites may have similar info doesn't mean we shouldn't. - Peregrine Fisher 03:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

List of New York City Subway stations is an example of its use; essentially it makes the table smaller than saying "handicapped accessible". --NE2 03:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I could see how having this information for the NYC subway might be helpful to researchers of disability accessibility and as such I think it belongs in wikipedia --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 11:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I can see that point, but that doesn't require the use of the ISA image. There's no reason, other than convenience and appearances, that we can't use text, which would tell everyone what is being noted, not just those who know what the image means (most people know it's something for disabled people, but often they think it's a wheelchair only sign, etc). The ISA image isn't the most informative option simply because it's a graphical symbol. Blind people using text readers won't be helped by the image, but I guess it's ok to ignore those disabled people. -- Ned Scott 20:23, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. It's such an international symbol that it IS better then text. And I think it's a very bad reason to in this specific case not allow usage of such a logo just because of our Fair Use policy. Also for blind people there is the "alt" attribute of the image and the mousehover text. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 23:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Im admittedly jumping in late to the party here, but the goal of wikipedia is a freely reproducible, usable encyclopedia. Sure, all the uses we have for the symbol are legit, but by the GFDL we have to give all downstream users of the 'pedia the right to modify it, and this breaks that. Fair use is a neccesary evil in cases where free alternatives are available. This has a free alternative. Using this is just blatent disrespect to the liscense of our work where there need be none. And the notion that disabled people would be offended would be shocking if it werent so patently absurd. Its hyperbole from an undefensible posistion. Look in the top right corner of the page, you see our logo and the text Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. That doesn't mean no cost, that means freedom. Get off your mock-indignation that we actually intend to support free culture and use the freely liscensed wheelchair image. -M^ask 00:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

This image may or may not indicate disability services.

It's the classic free vs. encyclopedia argument. I guess you feel the free part is more important in this case. Other people here feel the free alternative (assuming it isn't just a derivative work) doesn't do the job well enough. The 13 disability access symbols are free, as long as they're used to identify disability services. You can even make derivative works such as this one, as long as it is used to identify disability services. The reason why the real images should be used is because a person can be sure that it isn't identifying something without the correct services, precisely because of its copyright restrictions. - Peregrine Fisher 01:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) Thats frankly not my call to make, it's Jimbo's and he's been quite clear on that. I dont know if you remember way back, but there were fair use images everywhere till the Foundation approved rampage got most of them. It's why 'Wikipedia is Free content' is one of the Wikipedia:Five pillars deemed the core essence of wikipedia. And while you're here, its Jimbos world, you just play in it. Got a problem with it? Because of that wonderful GFDL, you are perfectly welcome to fork the project and start your own. -M^ask 02:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

We're just discussing it and hoping to get the foundation to think about it, and possibly grant us an exception for these symbols. - Peregrine Fisher 02:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought the board's resolution allows each project to set its own Exemption Doctrine Policy, without nailing down firm rules about what will and will not be permitted by these policies. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Just to jump in again. Isn't our own wikipedia logo copyrighted ??? I mean how hypocrytical would that be. You say to use a (forbidden) derivative work of an internationally recognized logo, a logo which is internationally freely usable to identify accessibility issues, whilst not even having your own logo using the same "standard".... Sorry, but this is just laughable. You cannot say that the wikipedia logo not being GFDL is "rightful" and then the ISA logo, which i'm 100% sure is more free then the wikipedia logo is not usable. And I checked, the wikipedialogo is in use ALL OVER the place where it might not be 100% compatible with the current license for downstream usage. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

If it is used inside of the encyclopaedia, where it isn't fair use, it should be deleted - there was discussion on this matter some time ago over banners. Two wrongs don't make a right -Halo 08:26, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Above, someone wrote, in defense of not using the ISA, This has a free alternative... Not really. Just because someone makes their own non-standard, non-Internationally accepted version of the handicapped access symbol doesn't make it an "alternative." It is, however, non-standard, and non-Internationally accepted... not unlike my own Stop Sign design I'm hoping will become the new standard. Jenolen ^{speak it!} 02:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that the wheelchair stick figure we created is a derivative work, although I don't know a ton about copyright law. Imagine if you put that image on a sign, and put the sign in front of a non disability accessible building. That doesn't sound legal to me. You probably can't know for sure without going to court, but people have been sued over stick figures like in the Xiao Xiao case. Or to think of it another way, what if Nike's symbol on their shoes was the ISA. I think they would sue you into the ground if you came out with a shoe that had our wheelchair symbol on it. - Peregrine Fisher 03:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

What exactly do you think downstream are users going to want to do with the ISA that requires a less restrictive license? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Allow me to clarify something: we do not use non-free licenses ... EVER. This is Foundation-level policy. They are simply forbidden, completely. No matter how reasonable you think they are. Any argument that goes along the lines of, "but the license say we can use it for ..." should be completely ignored. It is an unfree license (per the Foundation's definition) and as such of no interest to us whatsoever.

All that is left to consider is whether it is covered by our EDP. For "identifying the protected work" on the ISA page it is. As a replacement for the free and adequate text (WP:FUC#1), "disabled access available" or a footnote, it isn't. ed g2s • talk 13:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

‘In this freedom, it is the user’s purpose that matters, not the [artist]’s purpose’[11]; ‘Especially, [the licence] must not specify any usage restrictions’[12]; ‘All projects are expected to host only content which is under a Free Content License,’ ‘as can be found at http://freedomdefined.org/Definition’[13]. And that’s why we don’t use ‘usable free of charge for limited purposes’ material. —xyzzy_n 15:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Please answer my question: What exactly do you think downstream are users going to want to do with the ISA that requires a less restrictive license?

Also, if that's really what you think, then you should go remove the copyrighted logos from Template:Interwikitmp-grp, Template:Commons, Template:InterWiki, Template:Meta, Template:Wikibooks, and Template:Wikiversity, as they are "of no interest to us whatsoever". —Remember the dot ^(talk) 17:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Trying to predict every possible outcome of creativity and artistic process is pointless; trying to sort such outcomes into legitimate and illegitimate ones is entirely futile. I don’t think about what downstream users are going to do with free material; I let them. I think that’s the spirit of the definition of freedom recently made official by the Foundation.

The Foundation’s logos should be removed where they do not meet the usual criteria for non-free logos, but I’ll leave that to somebody better able to handle the ‘response’ by you-know-who and just post my opinion in the discussion. —xyzzy_n 18:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Why do you think that the foundation refused to license the logos under the GFDL? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 18:30, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been busy in real life and unable to participate in this debate as much as I would like, but after private correspondence with Ned Scott I'd like to retract my earlier claim that the ISA is like a flag and that alterations of it may be offensive to people with disabilities. This was based on a misunderstanding on my part.

However, I still think that Peregrine Fisher's concern that the substitute image may be a derivative of the ISA is an important one. If Image:Wheelchair.svg is a derivative image of the ISA, then if we want to use it we will have to carve out an exemption for it in our EDP — and if we did that, there would be no reason not to use the real, internationally recognized symbol instead of its derivative. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Josiah, Do you agree with me and remember the dot, that if the ISA image needs to be an exemption by the EDP in order to be used, that the wikipedia and wikicommons etc logo's also need an EDP amendment ? --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 19:51, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes — and I think that EDP amendments should be made, both for the various Wikimedia logos and for the ISA and the other ICTA icons. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:35, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

We just need a new image

I think the problem is just that is too closely modeled on the ISA symbol. That's the reason it looks silly. We need a totally different idea. I would suggest a direct icon of a wheelchair wheel, something like , but optimized to be more particular to the context (perhaps an inner guide wheel, a different arrangement of spokes, whatever works).--Pharos 21:25, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we then just use text. There is no point in using a "comparable" image to an internationally recognized symbol, that is so different that it's not a derivative work but also still recognizable as "the international logo". That would just be a "working ourselves around wikipedia policies"-attempt, without having to actually think about why the policies are there. In my eyes, the policies are the problem here, not the use cases. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 21:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

But icons are practically useful to us, and not just when they're "international standards". See all of the different icons at Template:Infobox Disney ride. I feel that a wheelchair wheel icon, easily recognizable as such, would help our readers, without embarrassing us with a silly image, or forcing us to give up our valuable free images policy.--Pharos 22:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we should reinvent the wheel ;-)

Users should be able to tell immediately what the image represents, rather than having to learn a new symbol used only on Wikipedia. It would be much better to use a partially unfree image than to confuse our readers. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Text would be better than a symbol which would be meaningless to readers. The advantage of a symbol is to convey information quickly and efficiently. The ISA does that. does that too, only more awkwardly and in a fashion that may be a derivative use of the ISA. does not — my first thought on seeing that image was of the Ashoka Chakra in the middle of the Flag of India. (Do we want to say that a given railway station or Disneyland ride is accessible to Indians?) I don't see how the icon of a wheelchair wheel, of whatever design, will convey what the ISA does.

Furthermore, I believe that any attempt to create an ISA replacement for Wikipedia's use is doomed to failure, because the ISA is the only widely recognized symbol for accessibility. As I've said before, only an image similar to the ISA will be widely understood, and such an image is probably a derivative work. Any image sufficiently distinct from the ISA will be too unfamiliar to readers to be of any use. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

You know, I'm not really someone who's absolutely dead-set against text. Although it wouldn't exactly be unique to have an icon that only exists on Wikipedia, like for example Image:SingleRiderAvailability.png. I do feel that it would be probably be possible to come up with an icon that in the context of transport articles would be recognizable as a wheelchair wheel symbol; but perhaps I'm wrong, and we should just use text. I don't think we could be "doomed to failure" in any case as the goal is rather modest — just an icon that would be usable at Wikipedia; this shouldn't be interpreted as some sort of grand challenge to the ISA.--Pharos 06:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Why not just ask the ISA itself?

Ask them what they think of the issue. That might help.--Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 05:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure their answer is already clearly demonstrated by the copyright they have given the image: "No, we don't mind you using it for its intended purpose. No, we aren't changing the license." --tjstrf talk 06:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's unlikely that the ICTA (the organization) would release the ISA or the other accessibility icons under a free license, but I suppose there's no harm in asking. If they say "no", then at least we know for certain. It would be good if someone with some experience asking for free licensing did it. The ICTA's contact info is here. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

When we tell them "It would be nice and all if you prefer us to use your logo, but because of the licence you use, we are not willing to use it, what do you suggest we do?", they might come up with a solution for us. Remember, they are the experts in the area, and they might think of things that we haven't thought of yet. Martijn Hoekstra 15:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

• We should use the image as intended by the ISA. A minority of Wikipedians are pushing their zeal for libre images to a ridiculous extreme. This is a great example of a good use of non-free image content. Johntex\^talk 06:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• It is not "a ridiculous extreme." The point here is, no matter how noble a purpose we may think is served by this license, we do not use licenses which restrict use of a work more than the GFDL would. It would be exceptionally easy to simply replace instances of this symbol with text-"wheelchair accessible." (And indeed, if our goal is greater access to the disabled, this would be much easier for the blind using screen readers then an image anyway.) We only use restricted images under very limited circumstances, and when absolutely no alternative is available. In this case, alternatives are. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• It definitely is a ridiculous extreme. A small minority of people are too afraid of non-free content. We need to be less restrictive in our use on non-free content, not more restrictive. Our primary goal should be to build an informative and easy to read encyclopedia. If a different image can help with that fine, but we shouldn't avoid this image just because it is non-free. That is not a good use of our time or resources. Johntex\^talk 07:19, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• Our primary goal, actually, is to create a free encyclopedia. That doesn't just mean "free of charge," nor even just "free for anyone to edit." It means that whenever possible, we use content which is permissible for anyone to use, copy, redistribute, or modify. In some cases, a non-free image is the only possibility for illustrating something, generally when the image itself is being discussed. For example, the article about the ISA would have to use the ISA, because it is discussing the symbol itself. That is a valid use, and no free alternative could serve that purpose. The same would be true, for example, in discussing an iconic, notable photograph or painting. But in most cases, free alternatives can be used or created, and we should not use unfree content in those cases. In this case, the free-content phrase "wheelchair accessible" will serve the same purpose as an unfree image-illustrating that the location in question is accessible. Given the choice between something free ("libre") which will serve the purpose, and something less than that, we always choose the free alternative. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:33, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

About blind users using screen readers, the screen reader should pick up the alt attribute and read that text, making either text or the image equally accessible to a blind reader. There is no reason to prefer the text over the image because of accessibility concerns. The question is, for the majority of users, would we rather present them with the ISA?

I and others who have commented hold that the ISA, as an internationally recognized symbol, is irreplaceable. No free equivalent could be created, as any free equivalent would be used only on Wikipedia and not in the real world. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 15:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not wikipedia policy. The problem is international law. Who the *beep* copyrights a standard symbol, and puts limits on its use!? What next? The letter "A", or the symbol "$" ? %-/ --Kim Bruning 12:33, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Well that is quite common. We live in a world of protectionist laws, and as such you need to have the copyright and what not in order to defend the usage of a verbatim or similarly looking text/image. I would also like to point out that in many countries it's not possible to "give-up" the copyright, you can only licence your work freely (or not of course :D ). Note that the usage license is the problem here, NOT the copyright. Almost all major International standards are copyrighted, luckily most don't define their own images. I still think it's stupid not to allow the use of this logo btw. I still think it falls under current Fair Use law, just not under our Fair Use policy.

It's like saying you are gonna write an encyclopedia in morse code, but you can't use the symbols for morse code, because the international morse code standard says that it would be illlegal to switch the meaning of the dot and the dash. There just isn't a point in that. Sometimes you need to see where your own rules simply exceed the commons sense. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 12:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

PS. note that almost all the fonts are not free for use. Your suggested situation is already a reality and always has been. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 12:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The Latin alphabet was first published prior to 1923. The ISA was not. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 18:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

However, that's not quite such an esoteric point as it sounds. The euro symbol, €, is copyright. "The copyright for the euro symbol belongs to the European Community, which for this purpose is represented by the European Commission."[14] Yet we freely use it to represent the Euro currency, just as organisations and companies all over the world use it, include it in standard fonts, and so on. How are we able to do this? Because "The Commission does not object to the use of the euro symbol, indeed it encourages the symbol’s use as a currency designator" - just as with the ISA, the copyright holder allows the symbol to be freely used to indicate the information it is intended to indicate. The ISA does "object to use of the symbol in commercial logos, particularly where a third party aims to obtain trademark protection for a logo"; but as we are not using it in this case, there seem to have been no copyright objections to it, despite the fact that our users are not totally free to take parts of Wikipedia including Euro symbols and use them in whatever way they like.

I think a lot of people are seeing the use of this image as more outrageous than it is, because people think that there are two basic statuses - "copyright" and "free". This is, of course, wrong - most free works, including Wikipedia, are copyright, with the copyright retained to ensure that they can be distributed freely. Wikipedia isn't released without restriction - you can only use its content IF you give adequate credit to Wikipedia. Template:CopyrightedFreeUseProvided is considered a free licence as long as the provisions do not restrict third party use. But, yes, we do set a line, based on the Definition of Free Cultural Works, which neither the euro symbol nor the ISA meet. However, a new exception, as proposed below - "Internationally accepted symbols that are copyright protected but released for use by anyone to represent a piece of information may be used to represent that information" - wouldn't seem to me to be unreasonable at all. Users can continue to download, use, alter, modify, and so on, all those parts of Wikipedia that use the ISA, euro symbol, and other similarly-licenced symbols. The only thing they can't do is take out those symbols in isolation and use them in entirely different ways to how they are used in Wikipedia. This isn't optimal - we'd like the symbols to be entirely free - but given that using something that is not the internationally-recognised symbol will not be as good as using the internationally-recognised symbol, I'm not sure that we should utterly deplore these nearly-free symbols. TSP 20:08, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Fork

This discussion has forked into Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#Usage of Non-free wikipedia logo not compliant with current EDP?. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Moving on with the consensus

I'd like to point out that, despite the vastly disproportionate amount of text, there is a large consensus so far to use the image. The "no" responses are generally in the section "No, do not have the poll", by a few people claiming that their narrow interpretation of Wikipedia policy trumps 26 supporting editors, These people have talked at great length (especially Ned Scott), making it look like there's more disagreement than there is. To not use the image to illustrate accessibility would be against consensus.

Of course, I recognize that it would not be correct to claim that the image is as freely licensed as, say, a CC-By-SA image. The solution I propose is to simply note the image's (very liberal but not entirely free by our definition) copyright status on its image page, and work out a guideline for when it is okay to use the image (which I propose should be the same as the ISA's guideline: when it indicates handicap accessibility). It would be kind of like fair use, but most of the restrictions of fair use don't apply: we don't need to use a reduced resolution version, it doesn't just have to be for critical review, and we're encouraged by the ISA to use it when an alternative is available.

rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

This is rational, reasonable, and entirely appropriate. I fully agree that there is a large consensus to use the image. Let's work on figuring out a way to satisfy both the desire of the community, while protecting (as best as can be done) the wishes of the vocal minority who would prefer we didn't use this standard International symbol. Would this require a change to our current EDP? Or is this a good time to actually use the oft-invoked, seldom acted upon WP:IAR? Jenolen ^{speak it!} 08:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

If you have to ignore the rule, that's a sign something probably needs fixing. However, this is a very narrow exception, so it could be as simple as something like "Internationally accepted symbols that are copyright protected but released for use by anyone to represent a piece of information may be used to represent that information" Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:39, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the entire discussion seems to be driven by the use of the image on Template:Infobox_Disney_ride where it is trivially replaceable, and on userpages which wouldn't be in conformance with the license terms for the icon. To me, this seems a bit dishonest... like folks who are trying to advocate a break from our restrictive policies have found some image that they can cry "think of the disabled!" about. But perhaps I'm missing something... In any case, the decision to hold this conversation here is an example of forum shopping.. and as a result the poll tells us nothing. --13:51, 18 April 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gmaxwell (talk • contribs) 13:51, 18 April 2007 (UTC).

I'm pretty sure the license terms would allow us to use the symbol in userboxes if we wanted. However, I'm not making that an issue.

If the village pump is forum shopping, then where would you rather we held this discussion? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 15:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

An excellent point. If the page dedicated to discussing Wikipedia policies is now deemed by a high-level, well connected admin to be an inappropriate venue for discussing a change to Wikipedia policies, we're deep in to 1984 territory. But I'll bite, in hopes the admin responsible isn't just being a jerk ... where are we supposed to discuss this proposed policy change? You wouldn't be trying to stifle debate/discussion of this issue because it's patently ridiculous, and makes Wikipedia look like it's run by a bunch of high school debate club students run amok, would you? Let's again remember what's at stake here - Wikipedia is taking a stand, apparently, AGAINST using an internationally recognized and, in some cases, legally mandated symbol for disabled access because... uh ... because... well... you know, because it's not libre enough. A fine reason to some, no doubt, but I would guess the vast majority of those in the "sensible" community would find it somewhat puzzling that every effort isn't being made to include this simple, simple, harmless standardized icon. Jenolen ^{speak it!} 05:10, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

There are a couple angles from which I feel comfortable calling this forum shopping. VP has a much higher concentration of new/inexperienced users than most other Wikipedia policy forums. There are also several designated places for discussing copyright related policies, while VP is very high traffic with a poor SNR, so our users with the most knowledge and experience in copyright matters will not usually see a discussion here. In any case, I find it hard to respect anyone who is trying to argue that we should permit a restricted use based on completely unsubstantiated claims that we are legally mandated to do so. --Gmaxwell 19:55, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

We don't need a special exemption for just this image; we need to address the underlying problem.

All the "no" votes are actually in the "this poll is invalid" section, claiming either that:

• This is a copyright issue; not a policy issue
• These policies are not subject to community consensus

and therefore the concept of asking the community what they think is fundamentally invalid.

Of course both are false. The image is licensed such that it can be used legally, and our policies are decided by community consensus and popular support. The Foundation has not mandated that we only use free content; they have given us the freedom to decide as a project which kinds of non-free content we want to allow. This is where we decide, and popular opinion is clear. — Omegatron 18:05, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

The foundation has laid out a narrow set of guidelines covering the area which projects may decide to use legal non-free content. Using this image as userpage and template decoration is not within the scope of the foundation's permission. Furthermore, the use of it in this manner may well fall short of the copyright restrictions under which it has been released. --Gmaxwell 19:55, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Well said. Should we ask the Arbitration Committee to put their stamp of approval on this change (see Jimbo's comment)? Or should we just be bold and implement the change? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Uh, no, you're not even close to showing a need for the image, and there's no way in hell that change is going to happen by being bold. -- Ned Scott 02:50, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

And popular opinion is not how we do things here. This is not a vote, not a democracy, and not a place for flawed speculations. Our policy is very strict, what on Earth makes you think this is ok simply because a bunch of misguided users have their hearts in the right place, but not their heads. I've never seen so many people become so blind to logic because they wanted to be "PC". The arguments for using the image are painfully flawed. No other image is acceptable? Says who? Has a single disabled person even been involved in the discussion? Gmaxwell hit the nail on the head in his comment. The ISA image will not be used in Disneyland infoboxes, or other unneeded places, deal with it. -- Ned Scott 02:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Funny you should ask whether a disabled person has participated in the discussion. In fact, Ispy1981 voiced his support for using the ISA (note that Ispy1981's comment was made with the assumption that the ISA (in black and white) was still used on User:Ginkgo100/Userboxes/User Wheelchair).

Essentially what you're saying (unless I misunderstand) is that the policy is not subject to debate, which is not true. And I can't wait for you to go around removing every instance of the character € because it can be replaced by the text "euros". —Remember the dot ^(talk) 03:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Apparently you misunderstand. Our policy is subject to debate, just not subject to weak arguments and flawed logic. And I hate to break this to you, but "€" is considered text.. Even if it wasn't, why the hell would I do something like that? I love images and symbols, but the ISA image has copyright restrictions and can be easily replaced by another image or by text alone. How does that lead you to think that I would replace the symbol for euros.. You've misunderstood me a whole lot if you can't even tell that. -- Ned Scott 06:54, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The euro symbol has similar restrictions to the ISA. It is copyrighted to protect its usefulness. The main difference with the euro symbol is that it is included in most fonts, while the ISA is not. The ISA does have a Unicode codepoint, U+267F, showing up as ♿. A compatible font such as DejaVu Sans must be installed to view the character. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 15:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Euro sign is copyrighted? -- Ned Scott 02:58, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

While most people probably don't have something like DejaVu Sans installed (I didn't, but it was pretty easy), using unicode for the ISA image would be a great solution to this situation. ♿ -- Ned Scott 03:04, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the Euro sign is copyrighted, but it may be freely used to designate the Euro currency. Please read [15]. Whether we represent the ISA as a character or as an image makes little difference to our goal of using free content. Most Linux readers would probably have no trouble viewing the ISA as a character, but the majority of our readers use Windows and would just see a question mark. It would make more sense to simply represent the ISA as an image, rather than asking all the Windows users to download and install a new font just to see one symbol. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 03:36, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

"The copyright for the euro symbol belongs to the European Community, which for this purpose is represented by the European Commission." I'm no lawyer, but that almost sounds like public domain if the European community is considered the copyright holder. -- Ned Scott 03:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Keep reading and it will make more sense. "[The European Commission] does however object to use of the symbol in commercial logos, particularly where a third party aims to obtain trademark protection for a logo." In other words, the European Commission acts as the copyright holder and restricts companies from using the euro sign as a logo. People might confuse the euro sign with the company's logo. If the euro sign is significantly altered to alleviate confusion then it would be OK to use it in a logo.

In any case, it's not something that we need to worry about. The euro sign is free for practically any purpose. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:06, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Granted it's not relevant to our discussion, but that's a trademark issue, not a copyright issue. -- Ned Scott 07:30, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

←Well, if you're OK with representing the ISA as a character in text, then there shouldn't be much problem representing it as an image either. The only difference is how the content gets to the reader's computer, whether through a font from another website or from our website directly. The end result is the same. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 15:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The end result is the same, but the difference is we're not hosting or distributing the image itself.

As crazy as it sounds, I've often wondered if we just created an unofficial FU server, then allowed people to optionally download a plug-in to their browser, and then display the images from the FU server in-line to articles on Wikipedia that had meta-data markers for where the image would go. Right now I'm thinking about how to make such a meta-data market for {{Episode list}}, and then make a Wikia Wiki that would host LOEs but in a locked form and updated from Wikipedia by bot. Users would use the Wikia site only for uploading the images and image captions (via templates it would be easy). To update the list all users would still update the same copy, the Wikipedia copy, but would allow for an screen-shot version to exist. (Not to say that I'm totally against screen-shots in LOEs.. I'm still a bit undecided about that).

The GFDL allows us to have our cake and eat it too. There's no reason we can't take our content and put non-free images all over it, but there's also no reason why it has to technically be hosted by Wikipedia (provided we have reasonable navigation back and forth).

The font is an extra-easy way to do something similar, allowing us to embed an image without hosting the image file ourselves. -- Ned Scott 23:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I think a separate wiki for non-free images would be of questionable legality since the people hosting the content would not be the ones using it for critical commentary. If we're going to use an image, we ought to have the guts to host it ourselves.

As far as a version of Wikipedia without unfree images, I'm sure a proxy server could be created that would filter out unfree images. But I doubt there would be much demand for it. Most people don't look at at an article and feel offended that we included an unfree image in it. Rather, I would imagine that most people are happy that we are able to use unfree images to create a better encyclopedia. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:03, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The second Wiki would be hosting an active copy of the content, so there would be no such legal concern. This has nothing to do with "guts" because we wouldn't be doing this out of "fear"...

I'm not talking about making Wikipedia free from all non-free images. I believe such images do have a place when they are vital to the article. My idea is for non-vital, but still legally fair use, situations. -- Ned Scott 00:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't that undermine our goal of creating free content because people would just visit the more relaxed version of Wikipedia? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:27, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Nope, I thought of that too. That's why the split version is locked and is only used for the image uploads and article viewing. The articles would be copied over from Wikipedia automatically, so if you want an edit to show up there you would have to contribute to the Wikipedia copy. -- Ned Scott 00:29, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, in that case people would only visit the regular copy if they were going to edit it. The ordinary user would just browse through the relaxed version. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:32, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

And? -- Ned Scott 00:36, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

There would be little motivation to create free content. People might think "Why should I bother taking a picture and releasing it under a free license? Anyone can already look at the promotional photo on Wikipedia Relaxed if they want to see a picture." —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:57, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

So you're saying it's better to do this on Wikipedia itself? We have thousands and thousands of web sites with non-free content that doesn't really help make people motivated either. When I come to an article without a picture for an actor, I just do a Google image search. If Wikipedia itself isn't hosting these files then people will be motivated to upload free versions to Wikipedia, since these FU forks will not be apart of Wikipedia's normal redistribution or apart of printed or CD/DVD versions of Wikipedia. If anything happens to the FU fork, then that will be lost, unlike Wikipedia which will hopefully have continued support from the community in later years. -- Ned Scott 04:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As crazy as it sounds, I've often wondered if we just created an unofficial FU server, then allowed people to optionally download a plug-in to their browser, and then display the images from the FU server in-line to articles on Wikipedia that had meta-data markers for where the image would go.

Other way around. The people who are so vehemently opposed to all non-free content need to create a fork that strips it out. Wikipedia has always allowed non-free content when it helps us write a high-quality encyclopedia, and we shouldn't give this up because of a loud minority of agenda-pushers. — Omegatron 15:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's as about ass-backwards as you can get about Wikipedia, Omega. -- Ned Scott 04:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The logo isn't going to be used on Wikipedia in any way that violates the ISA's restrictions. It is worthwhile to have due to universal recognition. It is the responsibility of end user (readers who print it out, forkists, etc.) to insure that they do not violate the ISA's use requirements. This is true of all fair use images, and cannot be refuted as incompatible with the GFDL unless one would suggest abolishing fair use images entirely. Wikipedia needs to adapt to "semi free" images and cast aside the binary free/unfree method of thinking. If Wikipedia is to encourage openness it must not impose any restrictions not already attached to the image. It is a sad day when an organization is willing to allow us to use their logo in purposes beneficial to the encyclopedia and it is Wikipedia's own red tape that prevents is from doing so.--HereToHelp 21:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow! A long and interesting debate on free use/fair use - amazing. OK, seems there is a consensus on a proposal to ArbCom, but here's just a thought. If I want to use the ISA image in the UK, it has to comply with certain regulations - for instance, if I want to apply it to a building, then I have to have it applied at certain heights/locations/sizes; and my building needs to comply with certain building regulations first before it can be applied. My thought would be that's why its copyrighted. Effectively its out there and could be argued to be fair use - but its in its implementation in use that the need for copyright is the simplest legal format for controlling application. Lets say for instance ArbCom agree it can be used - the next questions would be where and how? I found this page on the UK's Royal National Institute of the Blind website which tackles the implementation of the UK's Discrimination Act, and what is "accessible", quoting a case where a disabled person sued the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and won Aus$20,000 in judgement (interesting that the RNIB, a leading UK disability organisation don't use the ISA on their website). So, much as though debates can be had on whether its fair use of not, the key question for me still revolves around the HOW? We could open up more of a legal can of worms than just free use or not/change of policy. Rgds, --Trident13 11:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Interesting thought -- I would presume that we would display the ISA only if the metro station, Disney ride, etc. being discussed also uses the ISA. That way, we are merely reflecting what is already there, instead of making judgments about what does and does not qualify as handicapped accessible. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 17:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course, in any case we'd be clarifying the meaning of the symbol by using the HTML title attribute or by putting text alongside the ISA. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 18:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Moving on (again)

Thanks to all who have expressed their views. I think that the consensus is even more clear now that this change in policy is supported by the community. I think that we should ask the Arbitration Committee to place their stamp of approval on this change (a specific exception for the ISA) in order to avoid an edit war. Jimbo has made a comment suggesting this as a possible option for approving changes in policy. Any thoughts on this? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, this is not how it works, and this is not what's going to happen. Popular demand is not consensus, flawed arguments do not make consensus, and you don't even have anything to show you have widespread community support (again, the poll ignores a lot of input, and is hardly valid). -- Ned Scott 04:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately the image is not per the new foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy and, seeing as how we already have our EDP, unless you design to write a specific exception in that document to allow you to use this image in an infobox, the image should not be used. BTW, how is Jimbo's comment relevant? --Iamunknown 19:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I've requested arbitration for this issue at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Request for policy change certification authorizing use of the ISA. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 19:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Arbcom is the wrong body for deciding this. They're there to apply policy to cases, not write it. I'm going to suggest the narrow exception at WT:NONFREE. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:34, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

the Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#A_proposed_exception from Night Gyr. Discussion extends to the euro symbol now. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 11:48, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Template:LocateMe

There is discussion in a number of places (e.g. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#LocateMe bot WikiProject Geographical coordinates and here) as to whether Template:LocateMe should be placed on the article page or the talk page. 540 articles have been tagged with this template to date (e.g. User:SatyrBot/Project log 31). If you're interested in whether & when nagging templates can be placed in the article space, please consider adding your thoughts at Template talk:LocateMe. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Suggest CSD U4 for chat pages

I have proposed to add a new rule for speedy deletion, which will cover all user and user talk pages which are devoted exclusively to communicating with other people about topics nothing to do with Wikipedia. It's hard to quantify that, but for something like "Hey Pikeyboy, Where R U? OMG WTF BBQ SOS" (which I tagged for deletion just now), I know it when I see it. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Suggest new criterion for chat pages.

Requirements for sourcing?

Is there a policy on articles which are really unsourcable, but "everyone knows" already. Here is an example to show what I am talking about.

I have run Evil laugh through AfD and it came through with no consensus. It had also been nominated for deletion as the page Mwahahahaha in a prior AfD but it was decided to keep and rename to evil laugh. I could not see where anyone could provide a citation specific to why it needed to be kept other than it is a common cliche or that it is a "Well-known concept" and the only external links are to a .wav file on a webcomic and to a site for "a proposal for an evil-laugh-activated hand dryer". In addition to this, the Evil lair article seems to meet the same walls, but I have not bothered with the AfD for it since evil laugh seems to bring out some protectiveness.

Evil genius is another article with so many unsourced or unsourcable items, I don't know what could be done with it. My understanding is that, when someone adds something to Wikipedia, if they cannot source it, it should not be added. I could add an article today with tons of made up data that sounds somewhat reliable, but leave it unsourced. Unless we enforce adding sources for content additions, we really are creating a Wikiality or consensus reality. I can't see how requiring sources lessens the quality of Wikipedia. Slavlin 18:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Your question is based upon a false premise. If you actually read the AFD discussion, you'll see that I cited several sources that deal with the subject of evil laughs and evil laughter. Your mission Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to perform some collaborative editing, building upon the work of other editors, and add appropriate citations to the actual article.

  The problem here is not that the articles are unsourcable. Clearly, there are sources for the one that you nominated for deletion. The problem here is that you are employing deletion as if it were the only tool in the toolbox. Deletion is not the only tool in the toolbox. Per our Wikipedia:Deletion policy, before nominating an article for deletion as unverifiable it is incumbent upon you, the nominator, to look for sources. I strongly recommend that you look for sources for evil genius (Hint: Don't stop until you hit Descartes.) and attempt to fix the article working from sources. Deletion is not the tool that gets you, a Wikipedia editor, actually writing a good sourced encyclopaedia article. Actually looking for sources yourself and then hitting the "edit" button and writing is what does that. Uncle G 10:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Uncle G- I disagree with you completely here. I know that deletion is not the editor's only tool, but I do not think that the original creator and future editors should get out of their responsability for sourcing the article. Also, for all the sources you listed, which I can't really see how they constitute reliable sources anyway, you did not add any of them to the page. Instead you just listed them on the deletion discussion. With evil genius, I would love to see what you can quote from Descartes to support the description of an evil genius in that article.

    What I am trying to get at here is that the onus should be on the shoulders of people wanting to add information to Wikipedia, not on people wanting to remove it. It would be different if people were revising it or trying to upgrade the article. I think that getting rid of unsourced opinions, original research and some of the various pieces of fluff that exist in Wikipedia would make it much better. As it gets larger, I think cleaning out the attic will likely have more of a quality impact than writing a page. In the case of Evil Laugh and Evil Genius, it seems the only things that anyone is ever willing to do is throw a "Keep it" on an AfD. I have tried to improve them some. For example, I removed the HUGE example list from evil genius.

    Simply put, I want to improve Wikipedia, or else I would not ask the questions. I could just ignore it and just not look at the pages, but I feel that not holding people to some level of sourcing is ultimately harmful to the project. Slavlin 18:11, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

    • WP requirements for articles include; verifiable. Note, not verified but verifiable. WP is a community and does not require the originators to provide sources for articles, if the article has a good source then it will likely be found. Eventually. LessHeard vanU 21:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
      • The other thing to keep in mind is that some of these articles are pretty old, when the requirements for citations and references were less zealously enforced. Rather than saying, "This article is not up to current standards, let's get rid of it," the goal should be trying to get it up to current standards. howcheng {chat} 02:08, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
        • LessHeard vanU, please look at that little link for verifiable under your edit box. Link it and see where it says "Burden of Proof" Let me quote from there for a sec.

          The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article. Quotations should also be attributed. If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.

          From this official policy, it is NOT the responsibility of the nominator of an AfD to look for sources. Looking at the "in a nutshell portion, you can see that The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not with those seeking to remove it. Comments? (BTW- Sorry if this comes off a bit snippy, but I get the same thing in corporate meetings all the time at work.) Slavlin 07:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
          • There's burden of proof, and then there's just argument from laziness. "I couldn't be bothered to find any sources, so sourcing must not be possible." is not an argument for deletion in itself. Now, people shouldn't be creating articles without sources, but just because an article isn't up to standards at the moment doesn't mean you can't just clean it up and rewrite it yourself. Find some sources, as Uncle G did, work from them, borrow anything useful from the old article, and replace it with a decent one. Invoking AfD for valid topics is just laziness. Now, I'm a supporter of prodding new articles with zero sources to light a fire under their creators to source them, but AfD is a very inefficient way to add sources to old articles compared to searching yourself. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 08:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
          • yes the "burden of sourcing" is on those who create the article/add content to it. as per night gyr, its nice if you help improve a poor, unsourced article, but there is no obligation on you to do so. 86.31.103.208 12:29, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
            • Invoking AfD for "valid" articles is NOT laziness. First, it is a pain in the butt to do an AfD in the first place. Secondly, an article that is created with no sources listed lowers the quality of Wikipedia. An unsourced article is not a valid article. The who reason for the "Burden of Proof" section appears, to me, to be something to prevent the very argument you are making, that the nominator should fix it rather than ask that it be deleted. If no one cares enough about the article to source it, why SHOULD it be kept? Slavlin 01:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
  • "I do not think that the original creator and future editors should get out of their responsability for sourcing the article." — You are a future editor of the article, and trying to get out of your responsibility, to look for sources where none are cited in order to support a claim that something is unverifiable, is exactly what you are arguing for here. Once again: Per our Wikipedia:Deletion policy, before nominating an article for deletion as unverifiable it is incumbent upon you, the nominator, to look for sources. Unverifiability doesn't mean an absence of citations. It means an absence of sources, which requires looking for sources if the article doesn't cite any, to ensure that the article cannot be fixed by ordinary editors using ordinary editing tools. Deletion isn't the answer for articles that ordinary editors can fix using ordinary editing tools. Ordinary editors actually using those tools is. Those editors not using those tools, but instead arguing "the burden of fixing the article is the other fellow's", doesn't get the article fixed. Uncle G 16:57, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
• Slavlin, the section you quoted says "If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it" not "If an article topic cites no reliable, third-party sources ..." I agree with the other editors here that while citation of sources is the ultimate goal, lack of citations should not call for deletion of the article when it is likely that reliable sources exist. -- DS1953 ^talk 17:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

• DS1953, the verifiable policy does say that the burden of citing and sourcing falls on the person wanting to keep it. However, looking at Deletion policy vs. Verification policy, there is a conflict that I see and I have posted a comment about it on the Deletion policy page. See Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Conflict between Deletion policy and Verifiability policy for details, but I think that resolving the conflict between the 2 would be definately worth the time.

• Note Uncle G has done a LOT of work resolving the concerns that I have had with the Evil Genius page. Look at this comparison [[16]] and see the work. I went ahead and awarded Uncle G The Resilient Barnstar for his work in improving that. If this kind of improvement is the outcome of me being a pain in the behind, I am willing to take one for the team on that. :) Slavlin 19:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

• Additional note: I have been marking several of the category:Clichés articles as unreferenced (rather than mark as AfD or PROD) and came on this excellent example of an article. Thinking outside the box is one that I would not have expected to actually be able to source, yet it is incredibly well sourced, in my opinion. If an article is created like this for some of the other things that "everyone knows" then Wikipedia will get better and better. From the talk page, it was the AfD that prompted the revamp and rewrite of the page, so that does appear to have a value to it. Now if we can just get one for "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey". Slavlin 20:03, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

• Well, one way of proving those laughters is to record a video of that game at the particular moment into a file, upload it on YouTube or something, and then use the cite video template. That should be attributable. Or you can use a reference and mention the game, its level and console and so on so people with a copy can verify the facts.--Kylohk 15:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

SI prefixes

Isn't there some page in the WP:MOS somewhere that indicates we shouldn't have separate pages on e.g. centigram, microgram, nanogram etc? >Radiant< 12:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I've read WP:MOSNUM and they say "Stick with conventional usages", which means use the prefixes that are most commonly used for the unit. Although I feel milligram and microgram are commonly used, I think those articles can fit in the article about magnitude prefixes, since all those prefixes apply to many SI units.--Kylohk 15:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Template contentions

Following reasonable success at resuscitating WP:CHICOTW, I am expanding my efforts into building up the assessment division of the WP:WPChi project. I have recently had a bot tag articles within Category:Chicago, Illinois. Of the first 7000 or so articles identified by the bot two have been contentious. One of them has relented to having a {{ChicagoWikiProject}} tag. This leaves only Jon Corzine as problematic. It is my understanding that a talk page project banner template is for the purpose of assisting a project categorize relevant articles. For example, the aforementioned tag would place articles in appropriate subcategories of Category:WikiProject_Chicago. Thus, it is useful for helping to administer the work of project. 2 or 3 editors of Corzine's page, seem to have a problem with the fact that our bot is adding the template to pages in the subcategory Category:University of Chicago alumni. In a sense, (from my perspective) they are attempting to WP:OWN the page and set policy for a project in which they are not a member by removing the Chicago project's template. I admit at first I said they had the option of removing it, but since the only other party who was given this option chose to accede to our project template I thought they would too. Now, I have asked that they allow the project to use the banner and they have continued to remove the banner. Does a WP Project have a right to place its banner on reasonably associated pages or can non-members of the project insist on its removal when it is somewhat relevant. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 21:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Also note retailatory WP:ANI post as a result of this post. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 22:29, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

In summary, Tony is a single editor, attempting to tag a page against the consensus of three editors. Their opinions may be seen at Talk:Jon Corzine or WP:ANI#Disruptive edits by Tony the Tiger. If someone else sees a point to including Corzine in the Chicago WikiProject, when his only connection with the city is his status as a UC alum, please do explain it - and no, WP:OWN does not mean that the Project (or its <awestruck music>Director</music> can do whatever they like, anywhere on WP. (Corzine does not, and should not, have Category:Chicago, Illinois; so the bot is misdescribed.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:31, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Really, Tony, you make much too much of yourself. I didn't know this post existed when I asked an admin to pay attention to you. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:34, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

(note I have reordered the page in sequence if that is not a problem) It is difficult for me to contest your claim of ignorance if you insist on having a valid claim of ignorance. However on the merits you are changing editing conventions to voting contests. Talk page banners are not majority consensus things. They are the purview of projects. I have repeatedly pointed you to Wikipedia:WikiProject Chicago/Priority Scale. It is not the case that people outside a project can by majority consensus controvert a projects banner policy by changing parameters and destination pages. Suppose a majority of people from Chicago decided they wanted to change the parameters of all WP:BIO banners to be top priority for Chicagoans. We would not have a right to do so. Project banners are the domain of project members. My project members know I am working with bot administrators to get our project tagged so we can pursue our goals. I have pointed you to evidence that I am not a one man project. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 22:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

One page "relented"? Does a project "have a right"? Phrases like this make me wonder if you have internalized the spirit of WP:CON, Tony. -- William Pietri 22:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The answer to your question is: A WikiProject has no rights at all; editors have the right to act for it. That right ends, as always, when other editors object; as they have. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:51, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Tony, I think you should back off on this one. In fact, I question whether WikiProject Chicago should attempt to add people whose only contact was attending school in the area. The stated purpose of the Project is "to coordinate work on articles related to the article Chicago in the English Wikipedia." Are members of the Project advancing its goals by spending time on people whose principal tie is that they spent years here in college? In my opinion, articles on those people are not "related to Chicago" in any meaningful way. I have a somewhat similar issue with editors adding a person as a notable Evanstonian because the person attended Northwestern or because his mother happened to choose Evanston Hospital as the place to give birth, even though the person never lived in Evanston after he was two days old. Let's concentrate on meaningful relationships to Chicago and move on. -- DS1953 ^talk 23:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

WP does in fact work on consensus. However, you must set consensus in the right place. Consensus on use of the {{ChicagoWikiProject}} tag is set by active members of the project. If you would care to join in our efforts to better the project your opinion is welcome in setting our policy. I wonder if William Pietri understands consensus. Consensus is not set by the uninvolved. DS is makes a very good exaggeration by talking about place of birth as if that is the issue here. It is not. He is welcome to contribute to the WP:WPChi efforts. A new WP:CHICOTW will begin momentarily. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 00:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

In terms of consensus, Jon Corzine c/o Septentrionalis is one in 7000 against our efforts. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 00:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Consensus on what goes on any individual page, in terms of project banners, is or should be set on that page. No wikiproject is a walled garden excluding the rest of the project from participation. DES ^(talk) 00:43, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Tony, there is no reasonable way that thousands of editors could know that you were considering planting a flag on the articles they were working on, especially when their articles are so tenuously related to your project, so painting them as uninvolved doesn't wash. Further, the editors on 7000 articles not saying anything isn't proof of agreement; it could be amused indifference or grudging tolerance just as well. And you probably don't mean it this way, but your behavior here comes across as bullying to me. Rather than seriously listening and appreciating the concerns of not one but three different editors at Talk:Jon Corzine or attempting to find consensus with them there, you've dragged the whole community into this, starting off with a one-sided introduction. I'd encourage you all to calm down and submit this to some mutually agreeable option in dispute resolution. William Pietri 00:57, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Dispute resolution would be fine. Thank you all for your Wikipedia:Third opinions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject reform#WikiProject scope. As I've tried to tell Tony in the discussion at that link (including a recommendation to avoid the alumni categories!), indiscriminate tagging using categories is fraught with perils. Categories are often inappropriately applied, and fringe categories can cover tenuous connections. WikiProject banners are not, in fact, meant to provide a listing of all the articles under the scope of a WikiProject. Categories (the ones applied on article pages, not on talk pages) can be used to do that. What WikiProject banners are good for is to tag articles that can 'usefully' be assessed and improved by members of the WikiProject. Note the emphasis on 'usefully'. Articles with only a tenuous link to (in this case) Chicago are just a waste of time for WP:WPChi to look at. You might as well look through the list of articles that link to Chicago and add all those to the WikiProject scope (that is not meant to be taken seriously!). Getting the focus of a tagging effort like this correct is as important as doing the tagging itself. Carcharoth 02:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

• I'm also going to repeat what I said over there: "Article categories allow you to find articles to check the Chicago-related content of articles, but ones tagged for a WikiProject to deal with should be largely to do with Chicago, not just tangentially related. The tagging shouldn't be a way of generating a list for the WikiProject of all articles related to Chicago - the article categories already do that. The tagging should be picking out the articles that the WikiProject can usefully spend time assessing and writing/improving." Carcharoth 02:04, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • This may be nothing more than technical inability to navigate the cats without having the tag to do RelatedChanges. Tony might find a solution to this if he would talk to User:Jitse Niesen, whose bot produces Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:13, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

• • • Let's pursue dispute resolution. I am going to start to write up the disagreement at User:TonyTheTiger/DR_bot. Hopefully we can agree on a neutral description of the problem and then pursue outside opinions. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 14:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Please let me know on my talk when you are done editing this; at present I see no reason to do more than to quote DES's and Carcharoth's comments above. It would be simpler, however, if Tony would listen to the several editors here who disagree with him. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Geez, we're having a brawl over a template at the top of a talk page? Or, to be more, correct, an addition to a template at the top of the talk page, an addition that isn't even visible until the reader clicks "Show"?
        • I could understand if fight were about something in an article, and possibly if it was about something that took up a lot of space at the top of the talk page, but ... really? Removing this tag (addition to a template) is among the most important matters for several editors? Absolutely amazing. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:32, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I wholly agree with John Broughton. The rules are clear - the BOT tags the articles with something with XXX in it (in this case Chicago), and then the project team needs to engage with the article editors. But the decision at the end of the day lyes with the article contributors, not the project creators. Sure, the BOT can place a tag on an article, but having read the article in dispute its clear that the subject attended UC but has little further connection with Chicago, and therefore by default the Chicago project. Why it reached this page is not understandable when the rules are clear, and it could have sorted out quickly at an article level. I can't see how its an issue of policy? Rgds, --Trident13 11:33, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it should be the project participants that decide what articles should be catalogued for their projects. Project templates are no longer disruptive, as recently a {{WikiProjectBanners}} enclosing/hiding template was invented to ameliorate this issue. I think it's clear that Corzine is related to Chicago in a significant manner and it's not beyond reason that WikiProject Chicago would want to catalogue his article. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:07, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Policy on the use of "cleanup" and other templates in articles

This was originally posted on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), which was apparently the wrong place, so I moved it here. See that page for the original edit history. --PeR 21:55, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Recently there's been a trend of tagging large numbers of articles for "cleanup" of various kind. This is done using templates, similar to this one:

There problem with these templates is:

• They are aimed at the editors, yet they are prominently displayed to the readers.
• They are ugly, and add no value to the article itself. (If the article is substandard, the reader will notice anyway.)

These tags are, of course, valuable to editors who want to search for pages to work on, but this would be just as easy if the tags were placed on the talk pages instead.

I'd like to propose the following policy:

Template messages may be placed in articles only if:

• They are aimed at the readers (for example NPOV warnings)
• They convey urgent information to editors (for example AfD or "under construction" messages)

Otherwise the message belongs on the talk page.

An exception should probably be made for "stub" messages, especially categorized ones, as those do provide some useful links to the reader.

Once this policy has become official, I'd like to let a robot move many of the cleanup messages onto talk pages where they belong.

--PeR 06:54, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

This is one of the issues discussed in the essay Wikipedia:Readability. {{Articleissues}} has been developed to condense the size created by these templates. –Pomte 07:00, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The whole point is they're ugly, hence why stuff sometimes gets done (it's sort of like a badge of shame). Matthew 07:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer Wikipedia not to be ugly. That's why I'm proposing this policy. In general, I believe that positive feedback has a better effect on people than negative feedback. I.e. you'd get more cleanup done by saying "good job" to somebody who does cleanup, than by slapping an ugly tag to an otherwise good (but incomplete) article that somebody spent a lot of work writing. --PeR 07:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

But that (positive feedback instead of negative feedback) is not what your proposal advocates. You are just advocating moving the negative feedback around. By accepting its existence, you are implicitly accepting that some form of negative feedback is desirable. So I think that argument is not really to the point here. The second problem is that even without these tags on the main articles, many rough-and-ready articles would still be "ugly". In fact, some of them are designed to prompt people to remove ugliness. The third problem is that these tags perform a valuable service to readers, by pointing out problems that they might not otherwise be aware of (e.g. "this article has not been checked against sources and may not be reliable") - or by pointing out that an obviously badly-written and badly-formatted article is not acceptable to Wikipedians, thus illustrating that Wikipedia is not an anything-goes environment, and we do have standards.—greenrd 09:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

If they had done a lot of work on the article, it probably wouldn't need a tag. If the tag was on the talk page, a lot of editors – me included – way well miss it as we whizz around checking recent changes and things. If you don't have a specific reason to view the talk page, you probably won't do so. Related to that; I often leave notes/advice regarding improvements on the talk pages of new articles, particularly if the creating editor is clearly a novice. Do they read them? I have yet to see any evidence of it. At least the tag is sure to get noticed if it is kept on the article. Some templates go into sections instead, don't forget. Adrian M. H. 17:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

This is why I have previously argued for an indicator on the article page that an article has new talk since the user's last visit to that article, kind of like how we're notified that we have new user talk. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 21:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with greenrd and Adrian M. H above. The best solution is to improve the article so the tag is not needed or appropriate. Many of these tags serve as useful warnings to readers not to take the article's contents uncritically, nor to assume that it is typical of Wikipedia. Even ones addressed to editors or potential editors are far more noticeable on the article itself, and please remember that every reader is a potential editor. A reader who sees a tag may choose to make the needed improvements, or some of them. I favor such tags being sued primarily on the articles themselves, when they are warranted. DES ^(talk) 17:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

That is one of the things that encouraged me to edit anonymously prior to creating an account: namely, seeing articles that were clearly described as having some issues that, to the average reader, may not be obvious. Readers do not necessarily have the eye to spot problems, which only really develops with active editing. Tagging for issues can encourage participation. Adrian M. H. 17:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a wiki, so Readers and Editors are the same people. If some people don't quite understand that they can edit yet, this should be explained, and they should be encouraged to edit. And guess what, these templates do just that! :-) --Kim Bruning 18:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Readers and editors are, technically, not always the same. The content of Wikipedia is freely distributable under the GFDL, and may be copied onto websites that don't allow editing, computers without internet connections, or even printed media. But that's beside the point. In practice, most people who read a given article on Wikipedia will not ever edit it. Even active wikipedians read many more articles than they edit. Making a good and beautiful encyclopedia for the readers should be our foremost priority. There are many ways of communication that don't involve cluttering the articles. --PeR 21:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the current system, perhaps a reader might even be induced to make his/her first edit to remove the tag. Aaron Bowen 22:19, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with the above. The likelihood is that a reader only will already have some knowledge of the subject matter and may be able to contribute, and the same non editor reader will unlikely read the talkpage. Sometimes templates make good fishing nets. LessHeard vanU 12:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I actually made my first edits upon looking at an article, seeing it had a cleanup tag, and saying "Oh! I could do that." Any reader is potentially an editor. There's no divide between the two, all readers are allowed and encouraged to edit if they so desire. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 12:55, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The tag is important for mere readers, as it advises that the content may not be based in references or sources, wich means that there would be an important risk of it being inexact, mistaken, outdated, or even a big lie Perón 13:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

• I would say this tag is important in encouraging readers to become editors. There's quite a lot of users here that started by surfing onto an ugly page and thinking hey, I can fix that. >Radiant< 16:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
• I agree with Perón. Often, when content is considered dubious, editors will, out of courtesy, phrase their criticism in terms of "cleanup" issues. In those cases at least, it is useful for readers to see the templates. Also, even when you're only talking about wikification, etc., it's useful the same way it is when software is called "beta" — the distributor is telling you "this isn't our best work; there may be some kinks." I think it makes sense not to deprive the reader of that information before he encounters the first "bugs". Joeldl 19:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• I dislike these templates. They are big ugly in-your-face blots, and, since they appear on practically every other article you look at, they make the whole of Wikipedia look like it's broken and useless. Not a great impression to give to visitors. It would be a big help if they looked nicer and were more discreet. Matt 02:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea behind this proposal - it wants to make Wiki pretty, and user presentable. But on reflection, I think it misses and potentially detracts from two key issues within Wiki - an encyclopedia that anyone can edit; that the quality of Wiki is both dependent on that input and the self-managing body of editors. The tag may not be pretty, but its a quality tag that says - "this is not up to our standards we would expect of presenting you" and secondly "why not help us improve it?" On reflection, nice idea but misses the ethos of this place for me. Rgds, --Trident13 11:44, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

• I think everyone can agree that templates that say something like "This article needs an infobox" definitely do not belong on the article page. Lack of an infobox is not an article killer but rather a lack of capsulized information. That an article is simply incomplete doesn't need to be represented by any template on the article page unless the article is an outright stub. "This article needs to be cleaned up" also falls into this, as it simply connotes "this article is not finished yet" -- but when is an article finished anyway? I would only alert article readers to things like POV or lack of references, as that will help them decide how seriously to deal with what they're reading. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 21:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • You would be wrong, as i do not agree with that proposition. In particular i do not agree that "This article needs to be cleaned up" means the same as "this article is not finished yet". To me a general cleanup tag normally means that there are multiple significant problems with an article, oftne including formatting, tone, sources, and/or NPOV. In fact I often translate it as "If this article isn't significantly improved soon, it may be deleted; in the mean time don't mistake it for a Wikipedia article of reasonable quality". I always put cleanup tags on the article itself, and i plan to continue. An "infobox needed" tag might be a different matter, but then i can't recall when i last used such a tag. DES ^(talk) 22:08, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
    • DESiegel, nothing personal, but I'm elated that you fell into the trap I set. The truth of the matter is that the Cleanup tag is arbitrary and meaningless. It needs to be broken down into specific tags, some of which belong on the article page and some which do not. A tag that goes on the article page should clearly be about warning the reader that they have reason to question the material due to a specific reason, not the vague "this needs cleanup". Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
      • I disagree. i find the general cleanup tag useful and i often use it on articles, and I plan to continue to do so. In many cases i also note on the talk page in more detail what I see as needed. I don't see any trap here, but if you intended to "set a trap" that is ahrdly polite discussion, IMO. I find the geenral tag useful particularly where there are multiple problems, as there often are. I really have no more to say about this. DES ^(talk) 00:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

OTHER TEMPLATES: This discussion is also pertinent to the Template:infoboxrequested template. A couple months ago, it was decided that this template was a cleanup template that belonged on the article, not the talk page. Recently there has been some (heated) debate about this. I believe this discussion applies to the INFOBOXREQUESTED discussion as well. I think infoboxrequested is the same as the cleanup banner, and it should be treated the same... if it goes on the TALK page that's fine, but as long as we're consistent here... looking forward to this discussion! Timneu22 00:19, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

No, please don't mislead people into thinking we need consistency across cleanup templates. Some are obviously more important than others such as NPOV and "contradicts itself" style over say Template:Infoboxrequested. The infoboxrequested template deserves to stay on the talk page, its a minor issue regarding the arrangement of information, not a glaring error in the article. There was NO prior consensus as you claim, unless you mean the non-discussion at the Village Pump and the no-real-consensus at Template talk:Infoboxrequested. - hahnchen 00:43, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

There was a secondary discussion, hahnchen. The issue was discussed on WP:VP more than once. Timneu22 00:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide any actual links to back up that assertion? All you've done is say "there was discussion" and then link to WP:VP (which is like saying "Ohh, there's a journal article about that" and then linking to Nature (journal). I've tried looking for some evidence of this alleged discussion and I've only dredged up the one non-discussion that Hahnchen found above. My guess is that you're just making this up. There never was a real discussion about this; you're just saying "Oh, but we decided on the village pump ..." without it actually having occurred. Prove me wrong. --Cyde Weys 01:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

First of all, your honor Cyde, the "non-discussion" had a user agree to put the template on the article; there were no "nay" votes. The second discussion was here and archived before I could get to it. I don't have the link. I'm sure you think this is too convenient. Secondly, there is proof that the infoboxrequested tag works far better on the article than on the talk page. Timneu22 10:06, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is very convenient for you. You do know that archived does not mean deleted, right? So thus it's still around somewhere, most likely in the archive? Until you provide a link to this supposed discussion, which I cannot seem to find, we'll have to assume that it doesn't exist. Prove me wrong. --Cyde Weys 14:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Look, man, I'm tired of your attitude. I'm a MediaWiki administrator of two wikis, so I know the processes and I know when things are deleted and when they are not. I don't care one way or the other about the placement of some stupid tag; I just wish you would have respected the discussions that had occurred before you decide to revert, etc. Approved bots and policies? You don't seem to care. Frankly, I know that the tag belongs on the article because 1) it gets results and 2) it is a cleanup tag. This discussion is about cleanup tags and I will agree with the behavior that is discussed here. Timneu22 17:32, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

"I just wish you would have respected the discussions that had occurred before" — pardon the vulgarity, but what fucking discussions?! I've looked up and down for them and asked you for a link to these discussions five times now. You can't keep citing something over and over without any proof that it even exists. Or, if that's allowed now, the Invisible Pink Unicorn says that you're wrong. --Cyde Weys 02:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm wrong based on what? Let's take that VP link that we have found. Two people say "Article." I don't see you weighing in. Where were you then? Later, a bot is approved to make changes in accordance with the policy. Where were you to block the bot approval? How can I be the only one who is wrong here? It seems like things got approved for one method. Sorry you don't like it. And YES, I cannot find the other link because I didn't comment on it. It's difficult to keep track of these pages that get archived so often. And again, I don't care where the tag goes, I'll follow the rules that are established. And hopefully this time you will too. Timneu22 10:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you seriously blaming me not being around? Do you think I'm somehow responsible for keeping track of the over one million (yes, that's one million) discussion pages distributed throughout the various namespaces?! It's a basic fact of life on Wikipedia that you'll never get all of the people who are interested in an issue starting from merely the first discussion. That doesn't mean that you can just ignore everyone else's viewpoints because they differ from the first discussion. There are no binding decisions on Wikipedia. That original "discussion" you had had very limited input, and it produced an incorrect result. Once more people got involved with it, the result changed. Things change; deal with it. You cannot keep referring back to this extremely limited first discussion like it is God's word because we've had a much more extensive discussion since and the consensus has changed. --Cyde Weys 14:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

>>That doesn't mean that you can just ignore everyone else's viewpoints because they differ from the first discussion.

That is exactly what happened though. Those who impulsivly reverted the bot's edits (without regard to losing edits prior to the bot's) and blocked it had no interest in discussion or trying to solicit the opinions of others. --Android Mouse 01:09, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

This is the whole point I've been trying to make to Cyde but he doesn't get it. Timneu22 10:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I thought the article thing was a good idea. It made the pages get attention. Cyde, you should see the results it created. I don't know why you're so upset. I think the policy has been around for two months or so. ClintonKu 21:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Out of all the tags to put on an article I believe general ones like a cleanup tag should be removed. This doesn't really tell the readers what is sepcifically wrong, just that the article is subpar. If we are going to have these suggestion-type templates on the article then tags like infoboxrequested should be the first to be allowed, since they are very specific requests that can be handled relativly quickly compared to some of the others. --Android Mouse 00:40, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I also think that if infoboxrequested is ultimately on the talk page, then we need an automatic bot to search and destroy this tag when the article includes an infobox. The main problem is that the tag exists unneccessarily on most talk pages because no one looks at talk pages. I think Android Mouse's recent bot took care of this issue, however. Timneu22 00:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it did do that. If the consensus is reached to have the infoboxrequired tag stay on the talk page, I'll make a request for approval (and unbanning) for this purpose. --Android Mouse 04:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Letting people know an article is subpar is useful. The alternatives available to me are 1)putting a tag on an article, 2)cleaning up an article for a subject I know nothing about, and that I possibly think shouldn't be on WP 3)some form of deletion. I'll usually tag an article and leave it for a couple of weeks to see if anyone can do anything about the article. Maybe the addition of cites, or more information, can turn a subpar stump into something interesting to read. Then, if no-one makes any contribs I tag for deletion. Dan Beale 11:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Not that I completly disagree with what you are saying, but if we kept to such a standard we wouldn't have a fourth of the articles we do now, which might be a good thing. --Android Mouse 19:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

What constitutes "consensus" on the Manual of Style?

Way back in July 2005, a guideline was inserted into Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) on a 20-6-2 vote (the latter 2 arguing "No more stupid votes"). This was apparently done without consulting the editors of articles which would be affected by this change. As a result, discussions have flared up several times since then, with Manual of Style regulars generally favoring the status quo, and editors of the articles in question generally opposing the guideline. Recent discussion clearly shows that the guideline has no consensus at this point in time. I have stated on the talk page that I will remove it on the grounds of lack of consensus, and have been told in return that I can't do that, that a lack of consensus always defaults to the status quo. This seems wrong to me. A tiny handful of editors can make "consensus" on one corner of Wikipedia, and then enforce it everywhere and demand that others form a consensus against them before it stops? I do not believe the Manual of Style was ever intended for such purposes. Which interpretation of consensus policy is correct? Do MoS guidelines need consensus to remove, or is the lack of any consensus for keeping them enough to deprecate them? *** Crotalus *** 21:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Regardles of anything else, the MoS is not supposed to be enforcable against consensus on a particular article as I understand it. It says "The guidelines here are just that: guidelines are not inflexible rules; one way is often as good as another, but if everyone does it the same way, Wikipedia will be easier to read, write and edit.". In general I do feel that a guideline version having obtained consensus (as this one apparently did back in 2005) a change should normally require consensus, but in an extreme case where there clearly is no consensus one way or another, a change to remove the guideline altogether might be warented, but i would hope for a broad-based discussion, not limited to MOS regulars, to establsih exactly what, if any, consensus now exists on this issue.DES ^(talk) 21:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the only reason this issue ever made it into the MOS in the first place (I was one of the persons who helped put it there) is precisely because leaving it to individual articles to decide wasn't working at all. The exact same debate with the same arguments would pop up quite often, each time requiring a lengthy fight to re-establish the same principles. In this case, the MOS guideline exists largely to centralize discussion on this matter. It's also a matter of consistency within Wikipedia. Is it a good thing for one article to use notation like "64K" to mean 2¹⁰ bytes and another to use "64 KB", another to use "64 kB", and yet another to use "64 KiB" to refer to the same quantity, all because of the collective preference of the authors of those respective pages? I don't think so, but you may disagree. Regardless, perhaps you can see why we wanted to centralize this to a place like the MOS.

I will also note that this sort of thing happens frequently as regards the MOS... Just look at the WP:MOSTM talk page to see how controversial enforcement of the "MOS consensus" on odd name capitalization/punctuation has been. That situation is a good analog to the binary prefixes issue; an editor will find an article like "the pillows" (capitalization intentional), fix it to use "The Pillows" per consensus on the MOSTM page (and correct English grammar), and a minor debate will arise on the MOSTM talk page. Since the regulars to that page endorse the current guideline, the article sticks to the letter of the guideline. The only real difference between the MOSTM issue and the binary prefixes MOSNUM issue is that the latter has finally gained critical mass due to a couple of editors who are willing to go through the weeks of debate required to give a change momentum. (upon further reflection, it's interesting that some of the arguments against using the binary prefixes could equally well be applied to the MOSTM capitalization/punctuation guidelines). -- mattb 21:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

This is an extreme case. The style states that if one contributor wants to use the optional style all of the other contributors must comply. There is one enthusiastic user that is making this optional style change in hundreds of articles. When the regular article editors complain they are directed to the WP:MOSNUM talk page. There they are told this style has the "consensus" and must be followed. The complainants out-number the "consensus" folks by a factor of 4 or more. -- SWTPC6800 01:11, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Consensus is people agreeing to do stuff. If there are people in the field doing one thing, and there are some letters elsewhere saying another thing, then the consensus is with the people and the doing, not so much with the letters and the saying. :-) --Kim Bruning 02:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that people aren't agreeing to do stuff. What has resulted is edit warring. One particular user claims justification under the Manual of Style to go around reverting changes, regardless of what the experienced editors on a particular article think. That guideline clearly lacks consensus. *** Crotalus *** 03:00, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I think I said that. They can just revert the dude back, and if he's really fanatic, he'll just fall afoul of the edit-warring guidelines, (despite the Manual Of Style guideline suggesting elsewise ;) )

Either that, or just alter the text of the guideline. Go on, this is a wiki! be BOLD! :-) --Kim Bruning 03:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, if only such a rosy vision worked. This isn't an issue of article editors clashing with politicians who do no actual editing, but of editors clashing with other editors. As I stated above, this guideline came to be because the issue kept coming up in the course of editing several articles on different topics, not because a couple of us sat down one day and decided to try and make up a rule just for kicks and giggles.

I think the phrase "experienced editors on a particular article" is a rather loaded one. Nobody owns an article, and said "experienced editors" should be willing to talk through this conflict of opinion rather than getting miffed that some new person has changed "their" article to something they disagree with and insisting that consensus must be formed to follow the guidelines on the MOS. If the MOS has no teeth whatsoever, why the heck should we even bother with it? What if someone just doesn't like adding a space between a numerical quantity and a unit ("10m" as opposed to "10 m"). If we can just dispose of the MOS whenever we feel our way is better, what's to prevent me from finding some little nondescript articles that nobody takes an interest in and tailor them to exactly my preferred style of formatting? Sure the MOS should be applied flexibly, but I don't think that it's okay to just ignore it whenever an editor simply disagrees with it. We have fairly strict rules for the formatting of FAs, so at least some folks think that consistency is important. That's not to say the MOS can't and shouldn't change (and this guideline is in the long and arduous process of change), but the issue at hand is whether the current MOS text should be viewed as a consensus. I strongly believe it should. -- mattb 04:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

"This isn't an issue of article editors clashing with politicians who do no actual editing, but of editors clashing with other editors." I disagree. As far as I can tell, Sarenne has done no editing to computing articles (at least computing articles of the 8-bit era) except for changing styles. *** Crotalus *** 06:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

And I also disagree with your claim that "current MOS text should be viewed as a consensus". The alleged consensus was formed in 2005 on a 20-6 vote. That's 77%, which is consensus, but just barely. Since then, well over 14 people have complained that the guideline is stupid, makes no sense, violates WP:RS and WP:NEO, and so forth. Why do the opinions of those 20 people count more than the opinions of the numerous others who have commented afterwards, just because those people formalized it in a poll (which we're not supposed to do, anyway)? *** Crotalus *** 06:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Without naming names, Sarenne isn't the only user involved in this with very few edits outside this prefix war. If you want to get all editcounty on this issue, the coin has two sides, but let's not go down that road. This is bigger than Sarenne since there are several editors who support the principle behind what he is doing.

Once more, if you're interested in numbers, you ought to note that most of the people involved in the current binary prefix debate were not involved in that vote you refer to. I'm not marginalizing any of the new contributors' opinions, but merely asking to continue centralized discussions rather than asking that the decision be farmed out to each article. -- mattb 06:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Sarenne is just doing bot like edits on of hundreds of articles at a rate of 15 to 20 per hour. He has not demonstrated any expertise on these articles. The changes are just KB to KiB and such. You wonder why the "experienced editors on a particular article" get upset. This is not a conflict between editors, it is between editors and a gadfly doing WP:Point -- SWTPC6800 05:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

There's that ownership rearing its head again. Who says that he has to "demonstrate expertise" on an article to edit it? Who says that your expertise is greater than his? Who cares? There are tons of editors who make stylistic changes over a multitude of articles to conform with the MOS, you just disagree with this particular guideline and Sarenne is feeling the heat because he's applying it aggressively. It is unfortunate that this action has moved the cheese of several editors. However, Sarenne's actions have all been in good faith and are not in clear violation of any guideline, so I think it's rather unfair for you to accuse him of making a disruptive point. There are plenty of editors who agree with the principle behind the changes he's made (myself included), so let's not scapegoat the guy. -- mattb 05:38, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not claiming ownership of any articles. But article editing should work on a consensus-based process. If someone is making controversial edits and they keep getting reverted (especially if they are not a regular contributor to the article in question), they should discuss them on the article Talk page, rather than arguing that a policy has already been decided and they don't need to discuss the issue. *** Crotalus *** 06:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. There's almost nothing you can do on Wikipedia that you "don't need to discuss". Civility requires that if somebody asks you to stop and discuss, you indulge them respectfully, and take their opinion into account when deciding what "consensus" is. (Unless you're removing copyvios or reverting blatant vandalism or harassment, but that's clearly not going on here.) What's written in a guideline is just... something someone wrote down, and often fails to reflect consensus. There's no substitute for mindfulness. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

So it is productive to re-hash the exact same arguments over and over? There's no merit in centralizing debate? -- mattb 06:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Um, no. That's not at all what I meant. Perhaps I was unclear. It's profitable (I'd say necessary) to keep one's eyes and ears open, and to be alert to people's reactions. If you find that you're "enforcing" a consensus against frequent opposition, then it's probably time to revisit that consensus. That means precisely what you say: centralizing discussion, and helping to bring those who object to the guideline together with those who support it, at the guideline talk page, to figure out whether consensus has changed.

It seems like more work perhaps, but it's actually less work than dealing with the static generated by being stubborn. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and for this reason I can't condone all of Sarenne's methods. All I am arguing for is centralized debate and respect of prior consensus until it is changed, that is all. What I see essentially being proposed is license to ignore the result of a lengthy prior discussion simply because a user doesn't think it represents consensus. Is it for one person to decide that a consensus never existed on a matter? The implications of that disturb me. -- mattb 06:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree about the centralized discussion. While there's a discussion that needs to be had, it's a bad idea to be making edits in either direction until that discussion happens. I'm not so much concerned with "respect for prior consensus" as with refraining from making controversial edits without discussing. That's disruptive, no matter who does it. I suggest a freeze on changing these prefixes until there's some agreement; no agreement means everyone should leave them alone, as we do with BC/BCE and "color"/"colour".

As for it being "for one person to decide that a consensus never existed", I don't get the impression we're dealing with just one person - am I wrong? If someone is disagreeing with the guideline, then whoever is "enforcing" the guideline should at least stop for long enough to point them to the appropriate talk page, and they'll either see that there really is broad agreement, or we'll all see that there isn't. I don't see what the hurry is to get the guideline enforced without pausing to talk about it. Communication is work, and it's worth it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

There are multiple users on both sides of the discussion (see WT:MOSNUM). As for the actual revert warring, the only person who has really been aggressive at forcing the disputed prefixes into articles is Sarenne, although this position does have a few other backers on the MOS talk page. These insertions have been variously removed by myself, Fnagaton, SWTPC6800, and Mahjongg. *** Crotalus *** 08:27, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to add that the whole issue of how enforcable the MOS should be is a very important one, but unfortunately it's one of those very difficult questions for Wikipedia that can lead to a perpetual debate and no clear answer (sadly). Oh well, there's the pitfall of direct democracy for you. (please resist the temptation to inform me of the NOT page... I've been around here way too long to subscribe to that rosy idyllic vision of what Wikipedia is and is not) -- mattb 05:55, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that "agressively" is a good way to avoid applying style guidelines. It often generates more heat and disruption than it's worth. A better way to apply a guideline would be mindfully and with an openness to dialogue with other editors about why a particular style has consensus anyway. One always has to "apply" consensus keeping in mind that it might change out from under you; you have to keep tabs on how people react to a "consensus" that may be illusory, out-of-date, or who knows what. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It's my opinion that this particular alleged consensus is way out of date. The advocates of the status quo point to a poll taken way back in June 2005 that supported the guideline by a 20-6 vote. As soon as it actually began to be applied, complaints started pouring in. Whether or not there ever was a genuine consensus for this guideline across Wikipedia (I think there was not; most editors never read MoS pages), there clearly isn't now. *** Crotalus *** 06:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

(Before edit conflict): This is of course, totally true, and is why I don't personally go around changing a multitude of articles to conform with the MOS, only the ones I regularly work on. Still, I strongly feel that the MOS should be respected as consensus, otherwise there's very little point in keeping the useless mass of rhetoric around. Honestly, who cares what style we gently and cautiously suggest might possibly be a potentially good idea to use? In my own opinion, a style guide shouldn't be optional for something that we so boldly call an encyclopedia. Certainly the style guide should reflect the best practices, and therefore should always be subject to change, but accepting that we can just ignore it whenever we please renders it worthless. The question of whether the style guide needs ammending should be centralized, not a decision made on a per-page basis. These are merely my thoughts, take them for what they're worth or call me crazy for deeply believing in internal consistency.

(After edit conflict): The issues haven't changed since 2005, just the people exposed to them. This could very well mean that a new consensus needs to be formed, and that's totally fine. What I don't believe is fine is asking for license to ignore that consensus because we haven't yet clarified what the current one is. In any case, I fear that this huge binary prefixes debate is going to just bleed over into this page if we keep this up. When it comes right down to it, this is an issue of some editors asking to ignore a guideline because they don't think it represents consensus, and other editors asking for it to be respected because they do think it represents consensus. In between we get a ton of rhetoric and a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle finger waving and claims that the other party is "clearly wrong". Myself, I'm feeling rather ill at having written dozens of pages of text over a few little 'i's and would love to see this bloody thing converge to a conclusion, but I think people are happier debating than compromising. At this point I'm thinking that a binding decision is more useful than continuing to chase this elusive, mystical, and perhaps illusionary dream called "compromise". Too much time has been wasted on such minutia. -- mattb 06:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so some editors want to ignore a guideline, and others want to enforce it. Until these people discuss and arrive at a conclusion they should all stop making these edits until the conversation happens. It's not about making a decision between "respecting previous consensus" versus ignoring it. It's about everybody stop editing until the conversation happens. Leave the articles as they are, whether that's right or wrong, and talk about it at MoS. It's that simple. Don't edit war, no matter how right you are. -GTBacchus^(talk) 13:18, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The style he is changing is optional. His disruptive behavior depends on support of a handful of Manual of Style editors who claim the changes are mandatory. This is the only style guideline were a single user can force an optional style on all other editors. -- SWTPC6800 06:00, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

You know a style that is not "optional" ? As the MoS is currently written, all styles are optional.

These are not rigid laws: they are principles that many editors have found to work well in most circumstances, but which should be applied with flexibility. In this vein, editors should strive to have their articles follow these guidelines. While quality of writing may be more important than presentation and formatting, these elements also have their place in clear and unbiased delivery of information. One of the joys of wiki editing is that Wikipedia does not demand perfection. Wikipedia does not require writers to follow all or any of these rules, but their efforts will be more appreciated when they are guided by them.

The way I see the MoS is that they are recommandations. Writers are not required to follow these rules but if a single contributor change an article to fit the MoS, this change should (must) be accepted (except if there's a real strong reason not to do so). That's the only way Wikipedia will be consistent which is, I think, an important thing for an encyclopedia. Sarenne 10:49, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

You are the only person who feels strongly enough about this issue to go through articles changing it against the consensus on those articles. Stop it now. Your edits will continue to be reverted and all you will do is waste everyone else's time. *** Crotalus *** 11:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

There no "consensus" on all of those articles. You reverting all my edits is not a "consensus". Sarenne 11:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not the only user who has reverted your edits. When you're in an edit war with four other people, time to step back and reflect whether you are out of touch with current consensus. *** Crotalus *** 11:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I won't "step back" only because 4, 5 or 10 contributors don't want to wait for a new consensus and are trying to revert all my edits to make a point, against the current guideline. If you think that there's a new consensus about a new guideline then talk about it there : WT:MOSNUM. Sarenne 11:32, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

We have been discussing it, and keep repeatedly running into brick walls of bureaucracy. What you don't understand is that the MoS guideline only has any force if it represents consensus. As of this time, it doesn't. What you are doing is simply disruptive edit warring. *** Crotalus *** 11:38, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Sarenne, hi. I agree that you shouldn't "step back" because 5 contributors don't want to wait for a new consensus. I'd step back because it's the right thing to do. Once a dispute arises, the only correct action is to stop editing and talk to the people. If the consensus really is as you say, then it won't take long to convince people of that, and if not, then we should find that out quickly. Reverting without discussion is never right; because it's never civil. Think about that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't have to think about that, I know that. You (and apparently all of you) think it is the right thing to do, I think the right thing to do is to prevent users from reverting again and again edits that follows a guideline until the guideline is changed. I tried the discussion, again and again (and again (and again))... If you stop editing when there is a dispute about "binary prefixes" then you'll never edit and the guideline is useless. That's why the "encyclopedia" is inconsistent : guidelines are worthless, they have no teeth. Sarenne 17:15, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Being consistent about binary prefixes is not more important than refraining from edit warring. If you want to "prevent users from reverting again and again", then you need to stop reverting; otherwise you're edit warring to stop an edit war, which is always wrong. It's like bombing for peace, or screwing for virginity.

The guideline you're trying to "enforce" must not have a very strong consensus behind it, or you wouldn't be running into so much opposition. Your job, and the job of those opposing you, is to stop editing, talk on the guideline talk page, and determine what the consensus is now. It doesn't matter what it was two years ago; it matters what it is now. Since it's now in dispute, your editing to "enforce" it is inappropriate.

It's this simple: Once you know there's a conflict, stop and talk. We're not in a hurry, but we are under an obligation to be excellent to each other always. That means listening, and trying to respond to current consensus as you detect it. Consensus is not detected by reading a guideline, but by listening to editors. If there's no consensus, then editing binary prefixes in either direction is inappropriate, just like we don't edit "BC" vs "BCE" or "color" vs "colour". -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I totaly disagree with all that you've just said ;). Being consistent about binary prefixes (or an other style) is more important than refraining from edit warring. If you stop whenever there's a conflict about a guideline, you make Wikipedia inconsistent (and sometimes unstable), that's exactly what happened with "BC" vs "BCE" or "color" vs "colour", except that with the current "guideline" about binary prefixes we'll have both ambiguity and inconsistency (and maybe instability). It's weak rules that cause edit wars. What you've said may be the right thing to do for a content dispute (about the meaning) but not for the style, which should be centralized and always binding. For the style, we need strong rules, not "guidelines" that you can suspend whenever there's a dispute, which makes them totally worthless. You are too afraid of binding rules. Of course, these rules can change but until they are changed (with a consensus), a user who follows the guideline should never be blocked, even if he's edit warring. I'm done listening and discussing about this guideline. Four month are enough. All have been said. I know that no one will agree with me but that's what I think :) Sarenne 21:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

(de-indenting) Better than simply disagreeing with you, I can explain to you why you're wrong. :) The "BC" vs "BCE" issue is one with which I'm pretty familiar, having worked on it in the past. Wikipedia is currently (to a first approximation, but a good one) consistent within each article, inconsistent across articles, and stable that way. Thus, Wikipedia reflects a real-world lack of consistency, and remains faithful to WP:NPOV by refraining from taking a side on the issue. We just leave the date formats alone once they're consistent within an article, unless there's a compelling reason to use one or another in that particular article. It's stable because people know not to mess with it, and that works.

As for consistency being more important than not edit warring, that makes no sense - allow me to explain why. We work towards consensus because this is a wiki. It's inherent in the software that we can't just go around enforcing our ideas against significant disagreement. Anyone can edit, and if you go against a lot of people, they'll edit it back anyway. Since you can't control them, you have to discuss. It's not a rule so much as a law of nature: if you don't swim, you're gonna sink. The name of the game here is consensus, and we have no choice about that.

It's not about "fear" of binding rules, it's about how we work together as human beings and get something done. If you think Wikipedia needs more binding rules, then I think you can find other online encyclopedias that work that way. They're not nearly as successful as Wikipedia, which is why I think the "No binding rules" philosophy is actually pretty effective. Edit wars are caused by edit warriors, and they're always wrong.

Edit warring is bad because it makes article histories and "recent changes" less useful, it distracts editors from getting productive work done, and it encourages others to edit war, over style, content, and everything else, leading to a Wikipedia that's bogged down in back-and-forth, "is not!"/"is too!" arguments. The only civilized solution, the only solution that works on a wiki, is for everyone to work for consensus. Yes, that means stopping and talking. Yes, that makes things take longer. No, we're not in a hurry. No, it doens't make guidelines "worthless"; it makes them more responsive to the community and better indicators of consensus. Yes, we all learn more and respect each other more in the process. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

You're IMO describing an utopia. We have binding rules and we don't suspend them if in a talk page it seems there's a lack of consensus about it. After an edit we don't "stop and talk" every time we disagree (maybe you think we should).

Policies and guidelines should reflect the consensus, then we should always assume than they reflect consensus until they are actually changed. We should "stop and talk" only if it doesn't concern a guideline or a policy. We don't "stop and talk" when dealing with vandalism. We shouldn't "stop and talk" when dealing with style, we should talk... and stop only if there's a new strong consensus or if there's no guideline. IMHO that's a pragmatic application of the "consensus spirit". Sarenne 10:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. You'd be surprised how often things work just the way I've described. You'd be surprised just how non-binding our guidelines are. Stick around, and keep your eyes and ears open, and you'll find out a lot. Policies and guidelines should reflect the consensus, true, but when there's some indication that consensus may be changing (as there is in this case), how are you going to know the consensus has changed until that conversation happens? You'd be surprised how much time it doesn't waste.

Your opinion about pragmatic application of the consensus spirit is not borne out by experience, in my view. Of course we don't stop and talk when dealing with vandalism; that's entirely different. However, when good-faith contributors disagree, that's what talk pages are for. We are not in a hurry. It is certainly less than respectful to continue in an action that you know a group of people disagree with, without engaging them in some kind of discourse.

The truth of the matter is that taking the time to be certain of continuing consensus makes one's edits much more sticky, obviates the perceived "need" for edit warring, contributes to a more civil and collegial environment, and most to the point, works. If you don't believe me, try it. I've "won" plenty of disputes, always by refusing to edit war, and pursuing other strategies instead. They're very effective, those other strategies. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:29, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

An afterthought... the edit-warring, enforcement strategy that you want to pursue... it leads here, to long conversations at the Village pump. Not very pragmatic after all, is it? -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:32, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I've been bold and changed WP:MOSNUM#Binary prefixes to reflect what I believe is the current (lack of) consensus. Basically, I copied some of the wording from the "National varieties of English" section of WP:MOS, and suggested that articles should stay with established usage (similar to "Stay with established spelling") and follow whatever prefixes were used by the first contributor (similar to "Follow the dialect of the first contributor"). There is clearly no consensus to mandate binary prefixes, regardless of the outcome of a 2005 vote. Likewise, I doubt there is consensus to get rid of the neologisms entirely. Therefore, all that can be done is to make a guideline that attempts to stem further edit wars of the sort that have been fought over the past several days. *** Crotalus *** 11:18, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

And I see that Sarenne already reverted it. Very well, I won't edit war on the MOS page; but I maintain that there is no consensus whatsoever for the current alleged guideline, and that Sarenne's repeated edit wars in the face of opposition from numerous other editors is highly disruptive to the encyclopedia. *** Crotalus *** 11:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

You don't change guidelines just because someone is using them as justification for an edit war. That's what WP:3RR is for. Take it up with the person being disruptive. — Omegatron 21:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The whole point of a Manual of Style is to suggest a uniform style for the entire project. It doesn't "enforce" anything.

Consensus can always change, and "consensus to change a guideline" or "consensus to demote a guideline" is a bogus idea. Policies and guidelines don't become "stuck" after a small number of people have agreed on them. As soon as editors stop agreeing on something, it is no longer binding. — Omegatron 14:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. Being written down in a guideline doesn't make something set in stone. The guideline reflects what we're thinking, and often lags behind. It certainly holds no authority unless it's supported by continuing consensus. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. This "sticky consensus" concept is absurd, and getting out of hand. When there's no longer agreement for something, there's no longer agreement for something. Simple as that. — Omegatron 21:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

This is not absurd at all. It's always easier to remove something with an apparent consensus than to build something with a consensus. For example, the readers or editors who don't "like" binary prefixes will naturally go to WT:MOSNUM to discuss the guideline whereas the readers who "like" them have no reason to go there. That's why we should always have a consensus to suspend/remove/change a guideline but not to keep it. Sarenne 22:07, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Message to GTBacchus, there are alot more then just five of us as a matter of fact we (user who think MB is more exceptable then MiB) greatly outnumber the ones like Sarenne.--  Planetary Chaos  Talk to me  17:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

You have no idea how many people are one side or another (or another or another). You only know about the few vocal ones on the MOSNUM talk page. How many of the people who participated in the original 2005 discussion are contributing to the current discussion? Why do you think that is?

Even if you did know exact numbers, Wikipedia is not a democracy, and a +1 majority doesn't completely invalidate the minority's opinion. Everyone's positions must be taken in to account. — Omegatron 21:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to claim that there are only five or only fifty of you. My only point was, even if it's only five people opposing, you stop and talk to them, because Wikipedia fails when we start deciding that discussion is somehow unnecessary. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The Simpsons as Pop Culture References

Does every single damn article on Wikipedia really need a section discussing which episodes of "The Simpsons" feature the subject of that article? Does anyone really give a crap that Lisa Simpson doesn't know who Yahoo Serious is? I can understand some pop culture references - that Star Trek III mentions A Tale of Two Cities is marginally interesting since at least the book has parallels to the plot - but most Simpsons references are in passing and are trivial. Does WP:TRIVIA exclude these references in and of themselves? I'm not anti-Simpsons; love the show, but passing mention in a sitcom shouldn't be counted as a significant culture reference, should it?68.146.200.201 22:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

In my humble opinion? absolutely not. But there are many editors - usually just occasional types, SPAs and anons - who see nothing wrong in referencing their favourite TV show or whatever at every opportunity. Such things often end up in edit wars. Adrian M. H. 22:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Most all of those references should be removed on sight. The problem is that Wikipedia is free and open to edit to everyone in the world, and a lot more people want to contribute than have anything worth contributing, so they put stupid trivia like that everywhere. Kill it. Delete. Remove it. If it comes back, tag it with Template:Fictionlist or Template:fictioncruft as appropriate. If it's in a trivia section tag the whole section with template:trivia. If there's too much of it and too many people putting it there, create a new article "[name of article] in popular culture" and cut out all the crap and paste it into the new page (and link to it on the main page) so at least it's quarantined. DreamGuy 09:10, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

• See WP:AVTRIV. >Radiant< 10:44, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
• Please don't follow the last part of DreamGuy's advice. It is bad advice. Copying and pasting bad content into a separate article all to itself is not the way to deal with bad content. Uncle G 01:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

• Please don't listen to Uncle G's advice, as it is bad advice. Copying and pasting bad content elsewhere is a great first step, especially when there are people fighting over its inclusion. Most of the "editors" who put such nonsense in aren't savvy enough users to even find articles that split off, and once it is contained the bad info can be deleted and good info remain. And, if there are a lot of bad editors, moving the bad stuff so at least it's not on the main page is a far better solution than just giving in and letting it take over the main page. Furthermore, some pop culture references are encyclopedic when discussed as part of the pop culture references but not as part of the main topic. Splitting them off is absolutely the best thing to do with any sections that can be argued to be encyclopedic from that perspective. That can work as a compromise. Some people don't really get that these things can be legitimately under dispute. DreamGuy 04:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Or how about Family Guy? I'd love to see all those "popular culture" references go away. Anyway, yeah, echoing the sentiment that this sort of thing should be killed with a vengence. -- mattb 01:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

• We can just delete this stuff without further discussion, because almost all of this stuff is uncited and uncitable. Mangoe 14:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
  • "In popular culture" sections are often trivia sections, which well, should either be removed or integrated in another part of the article. After all, those people are often quoted in the Simpsons or Family Guy because they are "famous". So, it's a cause and effect. If the person is notable but does not relate to the show in anyway, those references should not be there.--Kylohk 13:58, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

When does verbatim copying from a government website become plagiarism?

Is it okay under IAR to create a Wikipedia article which is a verbatim copy of an identical article appearing on a U.S. government website, i.e., a website in the public domain?

A recently added (May 5, 2007) Wikipedia article is a Wikified, word for word copy — both text and photos — of a 14-page article which appears on the FBI’s website at http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/spyring/spyring.htm, titled Federal Bureau of Investigation, Famous Cases: 33 Members of the Duquesne Spy Ring.  The recent Wikipedia article that was copied from that FBI website is Duquesne Spy Ring. The Wikipedia article originally carried the {USGovernment} template, but did not cite the current FBI article as the article’’s source.

The word for word copying of the entire text and photos of a 14-page article in the public domain and inserting that copied article in Wikipedia seems to me (technically and ethically if not in fact) to be plagiarism, even though the work copied is in the public domain.  If it is considered to be plagiarism, what can be done about effectively flagging readers that the copied article is a direct copy from another source?  I think the text of the {USGovernment} template isn't adequate for this situation.  K. Kellogg-Smith 02:45, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not plagarism, so long as it's indicated that the text came from somewhere, and was not just originally written. It's best not to do verbatim copies for NPOV reasons, but so long as the source is given, it's not terrible. -Amarkov moo! 02:50, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the standard text of the {USGovernment} template isn't adequate for this situation. Rather than say "This article incorporates text from ...", it would be much more accurate to state something along the lines of "The original version of this article was copied from ..." so that readers are clearly informed of the extent of the copying. To list the FBI website as a "source" clearly understates the copying. In the context of an article or paper, this would be akin to copying passages without showing them in quotes and merely listing the source in the bibliography. Almost everyone would consider that plagiarism. -- DS1953 ^talk 14:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

This bothers me... even if it is not plagiarism (ie even if we give credit to the cite where it is copied from) wikipedia should not simply copy another site. We should write original articles based on the information obtained in reliable secondary sources. I could understand basing the bulk of this article's information on the FBI site, but we should at least paraphrase it instead of copying it. I would love to flag it for improvement in some way, but I am not sure if there are any tags that apply. Blueboar 15:34, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

To be clear, the article always referenced the FBI as the source of substantial content and no claim to the contrary was ever made -- in the original document a URL was provided and the reference was: "Much of this article comes from FBI documents and photos released in 1985 under the freedom of information act and in the public domain."

What does seem to be controversial is the quantity of public information re-used in this Wikipedia article. However, it is not illegal, unethical, and even uncommon for a private entity to re-issue and re-sell public information, sometimes adding value and sometimes not (e.g., National Weather Service reports and forecasts). Adding the FBIs Duquesne Spy Ring content to Wikipedia enhances the visability of an interesting topic (not controversial is that many people find this article interesting) and it is in keeping with the FBI's mission of disemminating non-classified information as a public good. Paraphrasing is the wrong approach for public content that already stands well on its own (e.g., even though a substantial portion of Wikipedia's U.S. Constitution relies on the original source, nobody would suggest that a substantially paraphrased version for Wikipedia would be more appropriate). In my view, it is better to apply an Open Source standard, like Open source governance, to all public content. Ctatkinson 10:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with transcluding public domain content into WP, as long as it is done intelligently. There have been problems with mindless transclusion of out of date sources like the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. But as long as it is done with reasoable editorial judgement, there should not be a problem.

In this case, the FBI is an authoritative source for this type of information, and using the material in it's original form is appropriate. In fact, changing the content would need to be done very carefully, since the original form may have had substantial editorial review from experts in the subject area.

U.S. Government works are not copyrighted for good reason, and are intended to be re-used. Usually the agencies publishing material ask to be credited, and this is good editorial practice, but there is generally no legal requirement to do so. The {{USGovernment}} template gives sufficient credit--further explanation can be given on the talk page (it's probably also a good idea to note the transclusion in the edit summary as well).

I have been transcluding a lot of useful information from U.S. Government sources, including images and text. These are a valuable resource for WP, and should be used to the fullest extent. Sometimes I paraphrase where appropriate, and other times I take large blocks of text nearly verbatim. Usually the text does need some touch up to make it appropriate for an encyclopedia. For example: removing second person statements, and removing or recasting recommendations. You also need to watch for NPOV issues where government policy or interests may be reflected in the content. This is generally not a problem for technical subjects, but may be an issue in other areas.

Using this material is not plagiarism. The material was compiled at public expense, and is intended to benefit the public. The U.S. taxpayers generously share this information with the world. To refuse this gift would be foolish. Dhaluza 14:25, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

In this specific case, I am perfectly happy with transcluding information from the FBI site. Editors considering transcluding other text and images from U.S. government sites need to bear in mind, however, that some material may be false or misleading. Sometimes politicians lie. --Eastmain 19:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a problem with verifiability: other users come in later and edit bits. So the notice at the bottom should more truthfully read, "Parts of this article text are taken from X, but we've no idea which parts". Whether X is the 1911 Britannica, a US government report, or anything else. Far better to either (a) quote part of X, and mark it as a quote, or (b) just include a link to X. IMHO, copying text from another site, even a public domain one, and not explicitly marking it as quoted, should be officially discouraged. Peter Ballard 03:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Strongly disagree with Ballard. It makes no difference whether the text was originally written in the public domain and transcuded to WP, or if it was originally written on WP. This is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" so the problem is the same either way. Your suggestion to quote the material, even if it's the whole article, does not work. Material from the 1911 Britannica needs lots of editing to make it useful, so quoting the original is pointless (and unnecessary since it is available online). This is actually the beauty of the wiki--we can improve the public domain record. Dhaluza 09:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Banning of users who threaten legal action.

Isn't this policy illegal is the US, and UK? I propose changing this policy to only ban them if they actually do something wrong.

No, they are perfectly capable of following the normal legal avenues to make a legal complaint, and can also e-mail the Foundation directly. This policy is solely against legal threats made on the wiki, which are not allowed for the reasons listed in that policy page. —Centrx→talk • 03:33, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

This is something for the lawyers to speak on. Mangoe 03:37, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

You are not going to get an official response from the Wikimedia Foundation on this board, and there is no need anyway. No one has any right to make legal complaints on wiki, just as no one has any right to go into a sandwich shop and threaten the employees and the patrons; a legal threat is conveyed through official channels, which anonymous editing on a wiki is not. —Centrx→talk • 03:44, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean their lawyers; what I meant was that the opinion of someone who isn't a lawyer is worthless in this wise. Are you a lawyer? If you aren't, then you are speaking out of turn. Mangoe 03:49, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

How can you verify that anyone you are speaking with on-wiki is a lawyer? You can't. So asking for strict legal advice is moot. --Iamunknown 03:50, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Which illustrates some of the point quite well: There is not on wiki legally effective evidence that the person making the threat is even the correct person. —Centrx→talk • 04:16, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia community doesn't want people to engage in legal threats, so we block them. Though there may be good legal reasons for doing so, there are also good social reasons, i.e. such activity is disruptive. Dragons flight 04:25, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Under the U.S. Constitution, I believe the answer is probably that the Wikipedia community can continue to abridge free speech in the manner we are currently doing. Although the U.S. Supreme Court in Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins upheld a provision of the California Constitution guaranteeing an individual's right to free speech at privately owned shopping centers, the Court has not mandated free speech in private settings as a matter of Federal constitutional law. In a recent U.S. District Court, Langdon v. Google[17], the judge dismissed the plaintiff's first amendment claims against search engine companies that failed run the plaintiff's ads. The judge noted that the defendants were private companies, not state actors. Wikipedia is not exactly private, particularly with its policy that "anyone can edit", but it seems unlikely to me that at this point in the development of the law the Federal protection of free speech would not apply to Wikipedia. Of course, many state constitutions have more expansive free speech guaranties (as did California in Pruneyard), so it is possible that we may still be crossing the line in some states. -- DS1953 ^talk 05:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC) My posts are not legal advice, are for informational and educational purposes only, and are not a substitute for proper consultation with legal counsel.

I figure it's like, say, I own a restaurant. Someone comes in and notices a bad step, or trips on it. He says, "Hey pal, you should have that checked, someone could get hurt and sue." I thank him and probably fix it. Or, he could come in and say "I'm going to sue you!" Am I still going to serve him dinner? No, I will tell him to leave as long as he has a legal threat hanging over me. There is nothing in the law that requires me to associate with those who have threatened me; in fact, most would probably say it's bad form, like a defendant and plaintiff meeting outside court. --Golbez 08:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I second that. That policy in practice is used by many retail outlets everywhere around the world. If an overly irate customer gets too enraged and threatens legal action and what not, the manager has the right to ask him to leave. Even when you have free speech, it doesn't mean you can't abuse your freedoms. Imagine the world where people threaten legal action against any dissatisfactions, these policies are definitely to prevent it from happenning.--Kylohk 14:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Mango's point that there are other potential analogies besides the store owner analogy, and perhaps there might be unforeseen complications. For this reason, the general community doesn't have the expertise to see all the potential angles, and caution may be appropriate for any given explanation --because it may not be entirely clear exactly what a wiki is legally (is it like a sandwich shop? like a shopping mall? like something else?), any analogy used may not always fit. Presumably the Wikimedia Foundation's lawyers have reviewed the situation and are satisfied with its legality. Best, --Shirahadasha 21:23, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Legal threats are so out of line and over-the-top I can't see why anyone would defend them. Quadzilla99 16:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Removal of Wikinews as references

Why is this happening? Is this a policy? —Zachary ^talk 08:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

• This is a quote from an edit summary: "We should NOT use wikinews as a reference, as otherwise the wiki-community could be accused of producing its own references" —Zachary ^talk 08:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
  • From WP:CITE "Note: other Wikipedia articles cannot be used as sources." and i'm quite sure similar remarks are present in a couple of other guidelines/policies. Just use external reliable sources... --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 12:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Wikinews is not "other Wikipedia articles". Wikinews is a different project, and its articles are useful as sources. News summary pieces on Wikinews are particularly useful. Wikinews has always had a strong sourcing policy, and so a news summary that has reached published status will cite many sources — all of the reports that it is summarizing. Citing a single Wikinews news summary piece effectively cites all of the sources cited by that piece. Uncle G 09:24, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Wikinews is not inherently more reliable than a Wikipedia article. Feel free to link to Wikinews articles as "further reading", but if you need a cite for something you should cite the original source material, not a summary of it. --Sherool (talk) 11:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Wikinews suffers the same reliability problem that Wikipedia does, it can be edited by any Tom, Dick and Harry. Whilst it may summarise existing news sources it may give undue weight to the interpretations or agendas of these publications. It has little stability and no editorial oversight, beyond the popularity contest which is endemic in the various Wiki-projects. ALR 12:42, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
          • Nonetheless, what I said above still stands: Citing the news summary piece effectively cites all of the sources cited by that piece, and Wikinews is useful in that regard. Uncle G 10:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikinews was originally/is still explicitly intended for the generation of reliable documentation of recent events. The whole purpose of wikinews is to provide reliable sources for wikipedia (and -incidentally- it also covers the news ;) ). If people are now removing wikinews links, Something Is Very Wrong. So like, why is that happening? --Kim Bruning 12:38, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

• Given your sometimes opaque sense of humour I'm not sure if this is tongue in cheek or not. Why bother with an intermediary? ALR 12:43, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Wikinews does things that wikipedia doesn't, including synthesis and original research (Sorry, I mean original reporting ;-) ). Suffice to say the community is geared to do those tasks correctly and well. Think of it as a particularly reliable news source. (IIRC the NYT doesn't always link all its sources, for instance). --Kim Bruning 12:54, 13 May 2007 (UTC) That, and actually anything marked with a recent events tag should actually have been on wikinews, (it's duplication of effort)... and we've actually gotten in trouble for covering recent events ourselves... but there you have it.
    • Re the duplication of effort point, would firmly agree. It leads to some p!ss poor writing. I do need to find time to back to the article on the recent Iranian hostage taking incident in the NAG and turn it into something readable, rather than a fragmented timeline. And see what I can do about getting rid of some of the detritus surrounding it. ALR 12:57, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

• I think it's pretty clear that we should provide external links to wikinews, but when it comes to sources, we shouldn't cite wikinews articles but rather use their citations. — The Storm Surfer 01:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Wikinews provides original reporting as well. Taking into account the original reporting guidelines I linked to earlier, does that interfere with your view, in the long run? --Kim Bruning 02:00, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
    • The link you posted isn't working for me. Anyway, I think that any statements originally made on Wikinews will be regarded as unreliable by the Wikipedia community. — The Storm Surfer 05:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I think that extrapolates to a general point about using news media as sources, rather than applying a range of criteria to a source and considering whether it is reliabale or not, regardless of where it comes from. Wikinews lets anyone edit, so the synthesis could quite easily be garbage. Many of the sources used by wikinews editors will not themselves be inherently reliable, or have a clear editorial bias; The Sun or the Daily Mail for example. ALR 09:00, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

  Or the New York Times? How about Encyclopedia Britannica? Meh, I don't think any data source actually possesses the magical fairy dust of reliability. Beyond a certain point, the best you can do is have everyone supply their own sources, and allow people to decide for themselves. When someone does provide sources, I'd say they provide more reliable information than someone who doesn't (at least you have an idea of exactly how bunk it is ;-) ) --Kim Bruning 13:35, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Personally I've given up on contributing to the WP:RS debate. It's just too wearing to fight against the school of thought which says This source is always reliable, and this source isnt. I think I'll just continue to assess sources on a case by case basis, and ignore the guideline.

For me, Wikinews is an intermediary, I'd prefer to go to source.

ALR 08:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• The wikinews:Wikinews:Original_reporting link works for me? Else try http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Original_reporting --Kim Bruning 13:46, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

  • • I'm not sure why this even being discussed Wikinews is unrelaible for obvious reasons. Quadzilla99 16:06, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Making WP:NPOVT policy

Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial is linked from the main neutral point-of-view policy and the page has existed for years now. I think it's about time we add a {{policy}} or {{guideline}} template or something similar. -- tariqabjotu 15:11, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

A tutorial is a suppliment to policy to help you learn to use the policy effectively. It is not and should not be marked as a policy itself. As for guideline - might be appropriate, but I don't see why it needs it. It's a tutorial, and it says so right in the title of the page. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 21:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

How about we add some HTML markup similar to a tag to it that renders "C'est nes pas un tag"?  ;) Seriously, I don't think it needs a template...or, if so, {{essay}} would probably be the best choice. --Iamunknown 01:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Removing or reforming infoboxes

Is it necessary to achieve consensus on every page that uses an infobox before removing sections from said infobox? This has been suggested at the discussion on the ethnic groups infobox at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups#Scrap the infobox. To me, this seems like a recipe for bureaucratic paralysis. Any comments would be welcome.--Nydas^(Talk) 15:37, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

All optional parameters should (never seen it done yet) have an option for "NOT NEEDED", to avoid people adding it back in later. Scrapping theentire infobox is possible, but sometimes a stripping down of the infobox, a redesign, or designing a new infobox, can address the problems. Carcharoth 12:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

In the present case (Template:Infobox ethnic group) I've been bold and implemented a solution that provisionally hides the field but notifies readers of the removal and gives editors an easy way to reinsert the field on an individual basis ([18]). However, this has been criticised because the change will not show up on everybody's watchlists. In this instance, the template in question seems to be used on almost 1000 articles, so that notifying all its users on all the relevant talkpages is practically impossible. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Including wikipedian categories in real categories

Is it really acceptable to include categories for wikipedians in general category? E.g. Category:Global warming skeptics. Isn't this kind of against our no self references policy? Nil Einne 08:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree it's not and I've removed it. --Cherry blossom tree 09:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Title of article versus content of article

The word "Gun fu" is a neologism or protologism (search google to check this, a few slang mentions of it but nothing "formal" or "widespread"). But the article called Gun fu is not about the word as such, its about a certain style of gunplay seen in films. So the article subject is notable, but its title is a neologism.

The article throughout uses the term gun fu just as a quick shorthand to refer to this style, which would otherwise have to be referred to with a long unwieldy name, such as "John Woo-inspired close-quarters gunplay in film" or somesuch.

What should be done in a case like this? Should the word gun fu be enclosed in quote marks throughout the article? Should the article be renamed? Should the words "gun fu" be replaced with something else throughout the article?

Thoughts here please Talk:Gun fu#quotes around gun fu. 86.27.73.208 17:21, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Is the disambiguation suffix necessary?

There is only one thing called Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue, but the article is at Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue (New York City Subway). I've looked for guidance from the naming conventions but have found nothing concrete. --NE2 19:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not aware of a clear guideline that says "only use this when necessary" either. If other New York Subway station articles do not use it, then maybe you could move it back to the redirect. Have you asked at the related New York wiki-projects listed on the talk page? I assume that whoever made the original redirect probably had a good reason. Adrian M. H. 20:47, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

This has been an argument at the relevant project. --NE2 21:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, as someone who is not in a position to be familiar with the NY subway, I suppose I could appreciate the at-a-glance clarification that it would provide if I stumbled across this or a similar article. But since that is not the primary intention of this type of naming convention, I would have to say that it is quite redundant. As you point out, there is no potential for misunderstanding. Adrian M. H. 22:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:DAB says: "When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result? When there is no risk of confusion, do not disambiguate". Also namingconventions imply to use the most recognizable and correct name. We had similar discussions about this on titles of television episodes. The conclusion was; don't disambiguate when not required, but disambiguated redirects are allowed to simplify coding the lists and creating scripts. However in this case... the subway station is most likely itself NAMED after Stillwell Avenue for instance, which could be cause for confusion. So it's a bit of a gray area I think. Something like Heroes (TV series) for instance primarily uses dab, because Heroes is also the plural form of Hero, which could be cause for confusion. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 22:42, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

• Wikiprojects that produce many articles generally want to stick to a single naming convention across all articles, rather than have some titles disambiguated and some not. It makes to-do lists simpler, for starters. The project to produce election results in the U.K. parliament uses "(UK Parliament constituency)" for the parliamentary constituency articles, for example. The simple answer to the conflict between that and editors who want to eliminate disambiguators is "Redirects are cheap.". Have the article at one title and a redirect at the other. Uncle G 09:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Password

Pis pthere pa policy page pon passwords panywhere? Simply south 22:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:PBJAODN pis pthat-a-way... —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 23:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Seriously? See Wikipedia:Passwords and Special:Prefixindex/Password, notably Password, Password policy, and the links in the "See also" sections there. -- Ben ^TALK/_HIST 01:36, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOT a shopping guide

Please see Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Shopping Guide? for a discussion on this topic, including discussion about Category:Software comparisons. Carcharoth 12:48, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

The original comment: In a recent AFD discussion, a user declared that the Wikipedia "is not a shopping guide." I can see arguments for and against that statement, and was wondering what you think. Is the Wikipedia a shopping guide ? If not, there's a lot more to be done than just delete Comparison of time tracking software - What's the next step if the bulk of this category of articles linked to here should be removed? Big if, but I'm curious - Not at all sure where I stand. MrZaius^talk 11:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a copy of my statement at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Shopping Guide?, that I thought I'd go ahead and post here: For me, the issue with comparison charts is one of verifiability and sourcing. The inclusion of entries with no wikipedia articles of their own, or any independent sources, is a general verifiability issue I felt applied to that afd debate. On the issue of what is a shopping guide as opposed to a mere comparison chart, the inclusion of unsourced statements such as "easy to use," "user friendly," etc. Without sourcing, these are, in my opinion, POV or spam statements in light of being so blatantly subjective, and call in to question the purpose for the article to exist. I have no issue with comparing the basic features of various programs in a wikipedia article, but when this involves subjective comparison of the quality of said programs, for me, it has become a shopping guide. You could though, simply bundle my objections into existing policies: WP:V, WP:RS, WP:OR, WP:SPAM, WP:POV. Someguy1221 19:54, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I've had a few edits on such lists, and in general try to remove any redlinked sofware; if something is notable enough to be compared to other notable software, it should also be notable enough to already have it's own article!

Although I'm not sure that this is the best (if any) policy to use, it seems the easiest to apply onto existing articles and lists in order to avoid an excessive number of external links. Also, any comparison of various products in Category:Something should be as neutral and 'clean' as possible, and should in my opinion only compare any aspects where it is possible to provide simple yes/no or other neutral answers (such as licensing, publisher, pricing etc.). A comparison article should not contain comparisons regarding ease-of-use or any similar aspect, as this is by default subjective and depending on whoever is doing the comparison. Bjelleklang - talk Bug Me 21:07, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Items on a list or comparison chart do not have to be notable in themselves. The topic of the list or chart has to be notable. See WP:NOT#DIRECTORY. The topic of the list or chart has to be specific. See again WP:NOT#DIRECTORY. Where people get confused is when the list drifts over into subjective analysis and reviews. Then the list or comparison chart becomes advertising or negative advertising. Then it needs to be cleaned up to remove the advertising language, reviews, and hype. This chart, Comparison of wiki farms, went through 3 deletion attempts until all these issues were discussed and addressed. I urge people to read the last deletion discussion where it was finally decided to keep the chart. Jimbo Wales created Wikia.com, a wiki farm. I found it somewhat amusing that I had to explain to wikipedians that the topics of wiki software and wiki farms are notable. Not every wiki farm on the list is as notable as wikia.com, but lists and charts do not have to have all notable items on them. Otherwise, wikipedia lists and charts would become supporters of only the largest companies with the best advertising budgets. Freeware and open source software would be at a great disadvantage. See again WP:NOT#DIRECTORY. That guideline says "there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic, for example Nixon's Enemies List." Many people probably have not heard of many of the people on Nixon's Enemies List. It is the list topic that is notable, not necessarily all those people listed. Concerning software lists and charts: They are not shopping charts or advertising, because the charts do not discuss the relative merits of one feature versus another, nor do they discuss how well any particular program implements any particular feature. It would be impossible for wikipedia to fairly do such subjective analysis anyway. The feature columns in many charts show the state of the art, and are thus encyclopedic in nature. A link back to the home page of an item on the list or chart is allowed just as any citation/reference link is allowed - to verify and update the info, features, etc.. Wikipedia has the necessary large numbers of WP:NPOV editors necessary to keep such charts and lists up to date, and free from advertising hype. For many of these lists and charts there is nowhere else on the web that one can find such an NPOV list or chart. Few companies would want to maintain lists on their websites where they favorably discuss their competition. Few magazines have enough time or editors for maintaining such lists or charts. --Timeshifter 00:46, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Please see my response here, as I'm going to avoid a triple redundant posting. Someguy1221 01:44, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

mass image cleanup for Digimon

WikiProject Digimon is facing a mass image cleanup task, started by the need to update images from using {{Digimonimage}} to a more appropriate tag. Most of these images contain no source information at all, or fair use rationale. We've let it slide for a long time, and unfortunately there are 1,160 images that likely require updating. To assist in this task I've updated the project's banner, {{WikiProject DIGI}} with a notice, and started an instruction page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Digimon/Images. I've only created a very basic page for now, and would really appreciate any help with improving the instructions page. -- Ned Scott 06:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Is it appropriate to make people download a font to see an "unfree" unicode codepoint?

This is related to Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#ISA resolved.

If you've been living under a rock, the dispute is about the International Symbol of Access. It's copyrighted and only allowed to be used under unfree terms (basically don't use it if the thing isn't accessible), so it has been replaced by a free alternative: .

There is an alternative: one of the recent updates to the unicode standard added it as a codepoint: ♿ To me, that shows up as a question mark, since I don't have a font that includes it. To those that do have such a font, it's the ISA.

I'm no lawyer, but I would assume that describing the ISA in two vector graphics formats - SVG and whatever the font uses - are equivalent. Thus distributing a font with the ISA in it is identical to distributing an SVG of the ISA. (If I'm wrong, I could legally distribute a font in which every character is a frame from a movie.)

Thus using the unicode codepoint is requiring the end user to download something unfree. (This seems similar to our use of OGG rather than MP3; MP3 players are de facto free as in beer, but not free as in freedom.) A distribution of Wikipedia on a DVD or other fixed media would have to include that unfree font to ensure that end users don't see question marks.

What do others think about this? --NE2 06:41, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Right off the bat I have to say this, even if we don't use the unicode character, we still don't get to make an exception to use the ISA image. The point is that we do not, and will not, host the font. -- Ned Scott 07:23, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Any redistributors on DVD will have to host the font. --NE2 07:38, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

No it wouldn't. That's like saying we would be required to include Japanese character fonts so people can properly see anime articles that use Japanese characters. We don't have to include an OS, computer, keyboard, and power supply with the DVD either. -- Ned Scott 07:45, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Ideally, they should, but they can skimp on that because all modern operating systems have support for those. I don't think this is the crux of the issue though; we shouldn't be forcing someone to download something unfree - or ideally download anything other than the web browser they already have - to see our free encyclopedia properly. --NE2 07:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

It is free for the user, but not for us simply because of our unique policies. -- Ned Scott 20:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

We don't represent Japanese characters as images because it would be extremely inconvenient for those writing the articles. And the latest operating systems all come with Japanese character support anyway, so it won't be an issue at all in a few years. With the ISA, font support is very limited and it would be much more convenient to represent it as an image. The ISA's copyright terms are the same either way, so it makes no difference to our end goal of free content. We are not above using the ISA; we should not be above hosting it. The Wikimedia servers aren't going to explode if we use them to host the ISA instead of directing users to another web site to download a font. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 21:27, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Um, if the font includes the Unicode point, then it is not our problem. The copyright owner of the International Symbol of Access (can such an uncreative creation actually be copyrighted?) may feel free to sue for copyright infringement from the copyright owner of the Deja Vu font package, but we do not need to concern ourselves with that. --Iamunknown 01:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it a leap of faith to assume that the font isn't using a free symbol? I see it having no relevance, and any comparison to using OGGs over MP3 is fairly moot because you're talking patent rather than copyright law. -Halo 02:20, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Tangent, what is the specific font that goes with this symbol? — Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

DejaVu fonts; and not "with this symbol", it's just one of the few, if not the first to have implemented this unicode character (recently assigned). I'm personally not 100% against, if there is some evidence that implementation of this symbol will be in wider use in the future. (I have no idea how often these unicode additions take place, and how well the fontbuilders actually are at making these changes). I do find the DejaVu implementation butt-ugly btw. I would have expected better quality of DejaVu. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 02:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

From watching other additions to Unicode, it's probably going to be at least five years before we can count on the average computer having a font with this code point -- and that's assuming that Windows Vista ships with a font containing it. --Carnildo 03:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Windows Vista does not currently come with any fonts that include support for the ISA. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:14, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

FYI, the wheelchair symbol was added to Unicode starting with version 4.1, dated March 2005. [19] —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:27, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

One wonders if the makers or users of those fonts will get themselves sued at some point. ^^;; --Kim Bruning 08:17, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

That's very, very doubtful. --Cyde Weys 16:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

See also guidelines

I have a question about "see also" policy. Wikipedia:Guide to layout says

The "See also" section provides an additional list of internal links to other articles in the Wikipedia that are related to this one as a navigational aid, and it should ideally not repeat links already present in the article. Mostly, topics related to an article should be included within the text of the article as free links.

.

The issue is about not repeating links already present in the main body of the article. I find it very helpful to have a list of a few of the most important links within an article down at the bottom of the article, in the "see also", for instance. I've been putting some of these "most important links" in the See Also, but the Guide to Layout says that you shouldn't.

What is the best thing to do: duplicate the most important links in See Also (many editors automatically take them back out), or have a "most important links" section? Is there a better title than "most important links", or does something with a better title already exist? Bubba73 (talk), 15:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

In some rare cases, such as when an article is split into multiple articles, I would agree with you about their relevance to /* See also */. Note the see also navbox at United States containing several such articles and Comparison of internet forum software at Internet forum. I can see where the rest of the community's coming from, however. It would create chaos to strike the line quoted above, given the wild variance in folks' definition of "important". MrZaius^talk 15:53, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

The idea is to help the reader. The editors are more in a position to know what links are most important. The reader shouldn't have to go though the entire text and guess which links are most important. Bubba73 (talk), 16:00, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I must admit to having occasionally repeated a link in a See Also section, when it is significant, but I try not to duplicate anything. There should not normally be any need to duplicate links (you wouldn't do it in the text itself) and readers are capable of deciding for themselves which links they will follow. Adrian M. H. 19:22, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is a simple (and typical) example of what I'm talking about, the article Lucena position. If you read that article, it is pretty likely that you will also want to read about Philidor position. That article isn't mentioned in the text, but it is in the See Also (just as it should be). However, the two articles endgame and rook and pawn versus rook endgame are euqally important, but they are mentioned in the text. None of the other articles linked to in the text have the same importance. I put these articles in the See Also too, to show the reader other articles of similar importance. Bubba73 (talk), 19:28, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

PS, there are links to File, Rook, etc, that a reader probably doesn't need to follow (but they can if they want to). I think that having knowledgeable editor reiterate the important links aids the reader. Perhaps a "Recap of major links" section would be better. Bubba73 (talk), 19:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Reverting Edits

When I revert an edit that isn't vandalism, but is still blatantly false, what should I put as the edit summary? Thanks — Juansidious 17:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Just give a short explanation, or write a long explanation on the talk page and say "see talk page". —Remember the dot ^(talk) 18:57, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Blatantly false often means "Removed as Original Research" (with link to OR policy) or "Removed as unsourced claims at odds with other sourced information". DreamGuy 04:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of browser-based games from wikipedia

Please dont regard me as a meatsock, I am a regular viewer of wikipedia but since all my (admitedly small amount of) editing has been deleted it's difficult to keep contributing.

A user (DarkSaber2k) has been consitently deleting browser-based game articles as per the wikipedia Notabiltiy guidline. Their deleting of topics has been pretty much consistent with the Guildines. But should the guildlines endorse this?

The question is this - should wikipedia list games that are represented by thousands of people, because they are so popular?

Many, Darksaber2k included believe that is not what should be done and use that as the argument NOT to have these articles. My belief is that so long as these articles ensure they are not making up information it is perfectly fine to have them. Take my own personal interest in the game www.inselkampf.co.uk, and the german, czech and american version of. A massive amount of people play these games (7,104 on the american world 1 version alone)prizes are awarded by various fan-sites, accounts sell for upwards of £300 on ebay. It is a major site. But there are no newspaper articles, or magazine or stock market or books about it. Does this mean its not noteworthy? According to wikipedia's guidlines yes.

Wikipedia is here for us all to use and add to. I think this issue on where it is going deserves a debate, obviously some people disagree with me and i'd like to know why because i can't think of enough reasons.

EdPethick 19:03, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that, if it isn't reported anywhere, then none of the information about the game is verifiable, which is just as important as notability. If I ran across an article about a browser-based game that had verifiable sources to confirm its notability, I'd definitely be opposed to the article's deletion. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:07, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

If a subject really is sufficiently notable, it will have been the subject (in a non-trivial manner) of reliable and attributable published sources - a book, magazine article, newspaper, journal, editorial-oriented website. The Notability guideline (which should be policy, but that is another discussion) makes that clear. Anything that meets that criterion has ticked one of the major boxes that it needs for inclusion without risk of being questioned. Popularity has nothing to do with it, because Wikipedia is about presenting verifiable information that has been published in a reliable form elsewhere. Adrian M. H. 19:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Based on Category:browser-based games, I'd say we're not in any danger of eliminating coverage of browser-based games on Wikipedia anytime soon. The difference is, we don't have an article on every browser-based game out there. If the ones you are writing about have reviews in neutral, third-party sources, then try rewriting them or collaborating with others to get them rewritten in such a way that they'll stand the test. So many games crop up on a daily basis that it's a little tough sometimes to sift the wheat from the chaff. -- nae'blis 19:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a web directory. Articles enjoyed by thousands of people are obviously being enjoyed without us linking to them, and as they can disappear at any time or be forgotten in months and especially years, only those items that meet standard notability requirements should be listed. See the website notability requirements if you are in doubt. Simple.

And based upon the section heading, if the browser-based game software is ON Wikipedia itself, obviously that should be deleted. DreamGuy 04:14, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

>So would it be considered verification if posted on a site like www.digg.com (which i have noticed being used a source before, just i can see it being classed as fan-based) Or would it need more formal endorsement like a review on www.gamespot.com? EdPethick 22:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Not exactly. I can see a very few places for where digg.com might be a primary source, for something like 'this site was referenced X times on May 15th', but that's perilously close to original research or synthesis. What we'd really want are some reviews or news pieces about the game, that's a better start. Please look over our guideline on reliable sources and our guidelines for websites, which might help you. -- nae'blis 22:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Best practice for ongoing user-talk discussions?

One issue I've wondered about, and have found no guidance for (though that's probably my failure to find it), is what is considered the best way to carry on an ongoing discussion via user talk pages. Should the entire discussion take place on the same page it started? Should it pingpong between pages, so that Alice comments on Bob's talk page, and Bob comments on Alice's? I've been a party to both types. adamrice 22:46, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

If you or any user prefers it to talk place on one page for continuity's sake, just leave a note on top of your talk page statting so like this user did otherwise it's left up to the individual users. Aaron Bowen 22:53, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

If you have been party to both sides, you should need which one works better. To make it more obvious: try reading a ping-pong discussion after a few weeks, possibly with an archival of half the discussion, or a 3-way ping-pong... --Stephan Schulz 04:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Lets see if this helps: WP:MULTI "If you find a fragmented discussion, it may be desirable to move all posts to one of the locations, removing them from the other locations and adding a link.". It mostly applies to Article Talk Pages/Discussion Forums, but you could use it as a rule of thumb for User Talk if you wanted to. SanchiTachi 04:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

That does help. Personally, I like to keep the entire discussion on the user's page where it started and add links right away. It makes things easier. It's a little odd that I can reply on my own page and also make a note on the other user page ("hey, I responded on my user talk page") but that's just how it goes. Timneu22 10:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussions should definitely all take place in one place, with pinging as necessary. I hate trying to decipher conversations where one person was talking on the other person's talk page and vice versa. It's a ridiculous way of trying to hold a conversation. --Cyde Weys 16:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I prefer to ping-pong the discussion - that way when they respond I get the new messages banner and vice-versa. I know it makes it hard for third parties to follow; but for the majority of user-talk discussions I could care less what nosey third-parties are inconvienenced. When it is a situation where I think it important other people be able to follow the discussion I'll copy all posts to both users talk pages, or put a note to the effect that response is on such-and-such page. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

As I suggested, why not just "ping" them to say that they have a message, but keep the message in one place:

1. A user comments on your page
2. You reply on your page
3. You go to that user's page to say, Hey, I've replied.

With this, the other user knows there's a response, but it keeps the discussion all on one place. Timneu22 21:06, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, ping pong is terrible. You have to do a forensic reconstruction of the conversation if you're a third party or if you're going back to read it weeks later. Just reply wherever the first message was left and use pings as necessary. --Cyde Weys 21:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey look, Cyde agreed with me once! Timneu22 15:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Talk page table tennis works better if you're willing to copy the comment from your talk page along with your new comment; essentially it creates two copies of the whole discussion, one on each page. -- nae'blis 22:27, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

...which can then have the problem of the discussion forking, with a different set of ongoing replies showing up in each place, meaning that you then have to follow both pages if you want to be sure to catch all the discussion, and end up reading a lot of repetition along with some different content. Personally, I always continue discussions where they started, unless they're off-topic there and need to be moved somewhere else. Since I put all pages I edit on my watchlist, I usually have no problem catching replies later. *Dan T.* 16:56, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Responding to suicidal individuals

While a laudable goal, there is no evidence that the participants at this proposal have the expertise to determine how to deal with suicidal people. Well intentioned meddling could have devastating consequences. I suggest that this proposal be rejected and further amateur intervention discouraged. If WP wants to deal with suicide counseling the policy should be determined at the highest level with Board approval. --Kevin Murray 11:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Should anything be done for Category:Suicidal Wikipedians? 69.201.182.76 15:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia policies and guidelines are should be descriptive not prescriptive?

A whole lot of policy discussion is predicated on the following phrase - "Wikipedia policies and guidelines are descriptive not prescriptive!". This sound good, egalitarian and wiki-like.

It is however false, and easily demonstrated to be false.

Take edit wars. Edit wars are a common occurrence on Wikipedia, so if our guidelines were descriptive not prescriptive, we'd allow for them right? But oddly we don't. We have strong recommendations against it, and we even have a very prescriptive policy called 3RR. This flies in the face of the "Wikipedia policies and guidelines are descriptive not prescriptive!" soundbite.

Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are consensus driven, and sometimes this means they are descriptive rather than prescriptive. But Not Always! Sometimes the consensus is that the status quo is wrong, and that we shouldn't be doing things they way they have been done. Or that the consensus identifies a common practice that has been self defeating, or a common practice that wasted effort, or a common practice that was just downright silly. And in those cases we come up with consensus driven proscriptive policy and guidelines.

So here's a new soundbite. "Consensus drives Wikipedia policy, not tradition." --Barberio 12:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

(Please discuss this at Help_talk:Modifying_and_Creating_policy#Perscriptive_is_not_automaticaly_bad.)

• It seems that as we evolve into a larger project, we need to establish some ground rules. Evolution is valuable, but not always efficient and productive. We must be practical, even if that means being prescriptive. --Kevin Murray 12:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• Both policies and guidelines need to be clear, establishing what cannot be done and what should not be done in a way that editors will grasp easily, with a practical minimum of room for misinterpretation. Adrian M. H. 13:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

*breaths*, *juggles*, *writes a KLOC, *fixes a yummy sandwich*. *checks hands, feet, face, etc... seems to be working aok*. Evolution seems to have worked just fine for me! :-) --Kim Bruning 14:17, 15 May 2007 (UTC) Watch out for letting natural selection near your prescriptive thoughts, it's vicious!

• By all means propose ground rules. I have no objection whatsoever to discussing ground rules. I do, however, object to people assuming the existence of ground rules that have not in fact been defined anywhere, especially if those people expect others to also follow their made-up ground rules. There is no book until you write it. >Radiant< 13:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
  • The problem is that we can't write a book without being at least moderately presciptive. --Kevin Murray 13:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
    • You are welcome to make a proposal that is prescriptive in nature. It will probably fail, but that shouldn't stop you from trying. Unless it passes, your prescription is invalid. >Radiant< 13:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• At the risk of being compared to a weasel, I would suggest that "descriptive" in the wiki sense can have two meanings: description of practice, and description of experience. Policies and guidelines which discourage edit wars are reflective of the consensus interpretation of our experience, viz. that edit wars do more harm than good. So even to the extent that they are arguably "prescriptive" such policy/guidelines are still a posteriori and built from the bottom up. -- Visviva 06:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
• Our guidelines do allow for edit wars, in fact they make special and particular allowance for them. And in description of our actual practice, they indicate that edit warriors will generally be brought to an end either by protecting the page or blocking problematic users. You are confusing the fact that we have a policy of proscribing edit wars with the idea that the policy itself is proscriptive; in fact the policies simply describe our perspective on edit warring and our standard responses. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
• I think the sound bite may have been twisted a little in the telephone (game). Wikipedia policies and guidelines should be descriptive rather than prescriptive, especially since we have WP:IAR. If we had a policy or guideline that said it that way, it would violate itself! This is why we prefer to use 'should' rather than 'shall' and 'must' as you would use in a specification (standards). So pre- or pro-scriptive policies are few, mostly relating to core principles, and it should be limited to policies, not guidelines.

Non evident risk in articles lacking critical references

Related: Risk disclaimer Manual of Style Biographies of living persons

Terms: Non Evident Risk – a risk that that has an established reality, but which within a given context is not apparent.

Current Position: Wikipedia has well established practice in how it approaches ‘risk’ and this is addressed through the use of the Disclaimer statements.

Need for Change: The matter of risk applies predominantly to articles dealing with some form of human activity and in most of those articles the risk that attaches to the activity discussed is entirely self evident, for example Rock Climbing will be understood by an reasonable person as an inherently risky activity. However there are some articles where the tone of the article and/or the absence of critical references, coupled with a received wisdom regarding the activity which endorses it as risk free, effectively disguising the risk even where medical, scientific or reasoned observational evidence suggests that risk exists.

Scope for Change: Any change would necessarily be limited to matters of established physical and psychological risk, as would be understood by as such by any reasonable person.

It seems unlikely that there would be any appetite amongst editors to change the way that Disclaimers are currently used, although it would not be overly problematic to introduce a more prominent display of the Risk Disclaimer for articles where critical references are lacking.

The obvious response is to say that relevant articles be improved by the inclusion of critical references, however without policy change this may not always be achievable as editors may be reluctant to include references which do not precisely link to the subject of the article. (see example)

A further and unequivocally desirable improvement also depends upon an improvement in reference discipline – that is to ensure references and links to organisations which are active in risk reduction in an appropriate field. Here we can return to the example of Rock Climbing where numerous sport bodies actively promote and discuss the reduction of risk in an inherently risky pursuit.

Example of a number of associated problem articles: [[20]] [[21]]

The core article is a Biography of a Living Person and although a number of critical references are included, none address an activity which is presented in positive terms within the core article and six associated articles – that is the practice of meditation, an activity which the subject of the Biography has a long history of promoting. Neither the core article, nor the associated articles use a wikilink to the Wikipedia article [[22]], which itself does include an Adverse Effects section which clearly demonstrates potential risks in meditational practice. Clearly there are editors who have decided that there is some constraint upon linking to the Meditation article, demonstrating either that there is a need to challenge the thinking behind that execise of constraint, or otherwise if wikipedia rules require such constraint, then to re-examine the how the Risk Disclaimer is displayed within certain articles.

Nik Wright2 14:34, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia will inevitably discuss all sorts of human activities -- safe and risky, legal and illegal, moral and immoral. Is it really necessary that we start acting like the most obnoxious of corporate lawyers and clutter up every single article with huge amounts of disclaimers and warnings like are found on the labels attached to consumer products such as ladders these days? *Dan T.* 16:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a simple warning on the main page should cover it? Wikipedia The Encyclopedia Anyone Can Edit (Warning: May contain nuts) ;~) LessHeard vanU 18:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Dan T. completely. I believe that our current disclaimers are enough. Reywas92^Talk 20:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I think certain users should have certain disclaimers. Such as "Warning: I refuse to abide by any of Wikipedia's content and behavioral policies. Therefore carrying on a polite conversation with me could be a waste of time and might cause you to scream in frustration. For an example of a problem user talk page see: User Talk:Nik Wright2. TheRingess (talk) 23:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Upload file

In the toolbox on the left, Upload file has been changed to Upload file (no wizard). What exactly was this for? I think an admin should change the name back (at least in the toolbox), as is doesn't look as good. Thanks! Reywas92^Talk 20:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The wizard is located at Wikipedia:Upload, which is similar to Commons's. Though it is very misleading and confusing for both of them to be in separate boxes and so far from each other. x42bn6 Talk Mess 23:42, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Dog breed articles and image policy

Recently, myself and few other editors have instigated a cleanup of images and galleries in the Wikiproject Dog articles after reaching consensus that they needed monitoring. We agreed that per WP:NOT, galleries were causing more harm than aid as many articles constantly need policing against anons and users treating them as places to upload images of their pets willy-nilly. So far the cleanup has been successful, but it is still an uphill battle. I would like to propose adding a small sentence to WP:NOT specifically addressing this application of image policy to make dealing with this easier in the future. Maybe an addition toe images or personal web page section of of NOT such as, "Wikipedia is not a gallery for personal images of you, your family, friends, pets or possessions . All images contributed to articles must have clear encyclopedic merit." VanTucky 20:18, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

That is very sensible and only partly covered by the WP:NOT#LINK section. I think that you should copy your proposal to that policy's talk page (if you have not already done so) and then amend the last part of that section if consensus is positive. Which it should be, IMO. Adrian M. H. 21:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks for the input. VanTucky 22:04, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Removal of templates

Something like 10% of articles currently contain prominant templates questioning neutrality, style etc or requesting general clean-up. Most of these templates automatically point to the article talk page for further discussion. However, in my experience very frequently the template has been placed without the editor concerned making any comment on the talk page, at least not at more-or-less at the same time as placing the template. This strikes me as generally unhelpful since it is not obvious what the specific problem was; consequently the template is likely to remain after the original problem was fixed. Frequently, these templates without talk-page justification have been placed by experienced editors, so I imagine that the following proposal will be disputed, but it would be good to see some defence of the current practice.

Proposed Policy: Templates on article pages which refer to the talk page must be accompanied by a justification on the talk page by the editor who placed the template. If no such justification is given, the template should be deleted without discussion.

PaddyLeahy 10:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Some people would say that most templates are self explanatory. I guess that it's only sensible to make a comment on the talk page when adding templates, if only as a way to start the conversation. But a policy to enforce such? That's policy creep, and is not useful. What happens when people ignore the policy? Templates can be removed if they're not useful. Someone reverting to put the template on without engaging in discussion will risk 3RR. This proposed policy adds nothing. Dan Beale 12:09, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

(i) Self-explanatory templates should not refer to the talk page (many don't). However, a template complaining of POV, factual inaccuracy, contradiction etc etc at the top of an article with substantial content is obviously not self-explanatory, moreover blanket "clean-up" templates can be pretty daunting for newbies. (ii) Any newly proposed policy is "policy creep" I suppose... (iii) The main point of the policy is the last sentence, which supports editors who remove unjustified templates. I am proposing a real change of policy, since at present, most editors would consider it bad manners to remove such a template without changing the article. Just removing the template as you suggest would likely lead to a revert war and we know that 3RR is a blunt instrument in such cases. The proposed rule aims to put the onus of justification on the editor applying the template, rather than the one removing it. PaddyLeahy 14:37, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Use of <noinclude>{{pp-move|small=yes}}</noinclude> on move protected pages?

Is this a recent development? Because it seems like seeing this in the corner of a page might suggest to new users and anons that a page is sprotected, when in fact it's just move protected. It seems like this might discourage new users from editing certain pages, would it be possible to remove this from pages such as the Help Desk which is frequented by new users and anons? --VectorPotential^Talk 12:16, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I just looked at the helpdesk page and I see what you mean. I think a lock in the top right corner of such a page is a bad idea. We should either have another picture for move protection, or remove it from this page specifically or something. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:41, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The icon seems to do more harm than good, and most people probably don't worry about moving a page when they visit it. You can tell whether it's move protected by the absence of the move tab. –Pomte 19:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Image size (copied from Project Infoboxes)

It is not currently apparent that there is a consistent policy regarding the use of images within infoboxes. Albums states 200px, Discography none, Taxoboxes 240px / 250px - even the template talk page can't make its mind up. This is inconsistent with policy guidelines, as covered in WP:IUP and WP:MOS. Insamuch as it might be inferred that these policies and guidelines apply to the main article space, the reasoning behind them applies just as much to the infobox space.

I propose that these guidelines are adopted as policy for infoboxes, and any image in an infobox must be thumbnailed. If the policy is already applicable, this must be applied to the infoboxes, and made explicit in their adoption and application.

Thumnailing images allows users to set their own preferences, and reduces (actual and potential) distracting clutter, not to mention issues concerning rendering in different browsers. Instances where the use of thumbnails causes unwanted whitespace requires address at the template design level. - Tiswas^(t) 12:21, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler Discussion

There is a discussion about abandoning or improving the Wikipedia:Spoiler warning guideline, with quite a few editors advocating abandoning it. In an effort to prevent the discussion from spreading to this or that separate island, I think it would be desirable to discuss in one place and reach resolution: that place is Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning. Demi ^T/_C 22:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)