Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new, use the proposals section.

Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.

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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.

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)

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)
    • Again, DreamGuy's advice is bad advice, as experience with what happens over the months and years shows. No, copying and pasting bad content elsewhere is not a "great first step". It is simply attempting to sweep the problem under the rug. Wikipedia:"In popular culture" articles explains what the problems are, and the cycle of split-AFD-merge-split-AFD-merge that occurs. These problems occur frequently.

      If "there are a lot of bad editors", the solution is to make them into good editors, not to attempt to corral them and their bad content into separate articles. The way to deal with things is to address the bad content in the primary article. DreamGuy's idea has been repeatedly tried over the years, and has repeatedly failed. Uncle G 08:44, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

    • Here's a current example, out of the many examples over the months and years of where this cycle has happened, and of how following DreamGuy's bad advice gets one nowhere: Green Eggs and Ham in popular culture (AfD discussion). Don't follow the advice of editors who say that sweeping bad content under the rug, so that it stays out of their good articles, is the way to proceed. It isn't. Uncle G 10:11, 17 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 US 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)

I strongly disagree with Dhaluza :) There IS a difference between a public domain source and an edit by you or me. The former carries some authority, so does not need its facts cited. The latter is unverifiable (and hence essentially worthless) without a citation. Take a look at one of the (many) uncited statements Duquesne Spy Ring. How do you know its source is the FBI, and not some teenaged Wikipedia editor? You don't. Similar for the many articles with text cut-and-pasted from 1911 Britannica. In other words, treating a public domain source as a Wikipedia editor is doing a great disservice to the public domain source - you're reducing it's authority to the level of an anonymous WP editor. Besides, the place for public domain sources is Wikisource, not Wikipedia. I stand by my suggestion that dropping public domain source into Wikipedia, without marking it as quotation, should be officially discouraged. Not for reasons of plagiarism, but for reasons of Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Citing sources. Peter Ballard 02:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

With a long article like the one cited, attributing edits can get sticky. Generally any changes need to be footnoted to the additional sources. The wiki does provide an edit history, so if someone wanted to untie the Gordian knot, it is theoretically possible. I disagree that this makes the material unverifable--you just have to look up the source and compare. This is true for any WP article of substantial length, and is only made more difficult by a synthesis of multiple refrences. So I think your point completely misses the mark.

What I mean, of course, is it's impossible to work out from the article itself. Of course you can go through the history and work out which parts come from the public domain source (or find the source itself and compare) - I've done it myself and it's a right royal pain in the ****. Everything should be cited to begin with, then there is no problem. The technical articles you give are a little different because they are mainly explanations of concepts, rather than facts that need citations. Even then, they could be cited better, because the sources for some of the statements are not clear, and the problem will only get worse if/when it gets substantially edited by multiple editors. Also, I fail to see how verification is "made more difficult by a synthesis of multiple references." An article from multiple sources must have multiple references. It's the lack of multiple references which causes verifiability problems. Peter Ballard 12:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you may be assuming an article must only have extensive inline citations, but this is not required. Vetting an article with one public domain source is trivial compared to one synthesized from multiple sources listed together at the bottom (you could just open them both in a two-pane text editor and do a side-by-side comparison with the one public domain source). If you want to require inline citations, that is a separate issue from using public domain works, and I think it has been proposed often, without ever achieving consensus. Dhaluza 09:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I use a lot of public domain sources in articles. For articles of reasonable length of a few paragraphs, there really is no problem in practice as far as I can see (for example see: Machmeter). Often I do add additional sourcing to fill in the gaps or give context with inline citation footnotes (for example see: Radio acoustic sounding system). Dhaluza 10:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I completely support Peter. When I came to WP, this was the thing i found the strangest, and it should never have been accepted from the start. At present, sorting out the old EB text can be approximated from the style, and the old Catholic Encyclopedia very much so. (But some modern sources from the US Dept Agriculture much less so). Not that knowing its the old EB necessarily makes it better than a recent edit--it some cases it makes it very likely to need replacing or updating, and that's what one wants to identify. Unfortunately, going back and doing this now is an enormous job. But we can certainly ask that from here on in all quotations and text from any source must be indicated and exactly sourced--and there's an excellent precedent, because we do that with illustrations--you can always tell where they came from. In cooperative editing, the individual eds. take responsibility for what they do, and this applies to putting in a quotation as much as for original composition, and it is plain not honest to avoid specifying. It may be legal, but that's only the first step. DGG 05:50, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that blanket dumps of public domain material without using editorial judgment is problematic. But quoting and freezing large blocks of text is not the solution. The public domain text usually needs to be edited for inclusion (that is the essence of your complaint with the existin EB articles). For example the terminology many need to be changed to reflect a worldview, and some concepts previously explained outside the block may need to be explained inside the block. But beyond this type of normal editing, rewriting technical material by a non-expert can be problematic, and should be avoided. My understanding of the technical subject is probably less complete than the authors of the public domain work, so I defer to their preferred form of explanation. This is analogous to a non-native speaker not fully understanding the nuance of a language and making gaffs in usage. So don't let past problems create new problems going forward. Dhaluza 10:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

If I may add my two cents here: public domain material is free, so we can legally do whatever we want with it. Whatever we include on Wikipedia should be up to Wikipedia standards, though, and that includes sourcing. So, for instance, I think we should either be using the public domain document as a starting point or as a reference, but not both. If what's being copied is a document that isn't thoroughly sourced, we can use it but should make an effort to source all the statements in it. But I do think it would be bad practice to merely source a copy of X by citing X as a source: if we're doing that, we should be quoting from X rather than duplicating it. Mangojuice^talk 13:10, 17 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[1], 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)

How about placing {{essay}} on it, then? That seems appropriate. -- Cielomobile ^{talk / contribs} 23:35, 17 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 ([2]). 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)

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)

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. [3] —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)

Putting the free/non-free debate aside for a moment, the idea of having to download a font just to display a particular symbol is really unexpected for users to do and not a good reason to utilize the font, in my opinion. Now that Template:Access icon has been changed to require the font (although some pages I see that transclude that template still display Image:Wheelchair.svg) and Help:Displaying the international wheelchair symbol has appeared, I had to say something. Unlike the need to download a font for language character support, or a plug-in for popular rich media applications (Flash, Java, QuickTime, etc.), this kind of download should not be required by users in order to experience Wikipedia. If Wikipedia (Wiki software) installs this functionality, then this may be a different story.

I could download a font and install it, but what about users in a public library, educational institution or workplace who have to ask the administrator to install the font and possibly go through bureaucracy to do so? I will not, and do not intend to download a font just to be able to display one symbol within the font. And ironically, although I know very little about Web accessibility, this action has got to make it harder for Wikipedia to be accessible to all users. Tinlinkin 05:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

While it is shooting ourselves in the foot, it's less so than the other alternatives that the more zealous policy editors were willing to consider. --tjstrf talk 05:55, 20 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)

I also think a posting by an identified person can be usable. The authority in this case is the individual, and you cite him. This only works on good places where people are known to do so responsibly. There are such web sites. Notable peop[le accepted as authorities do post of digg, sometimes. But obviously if you're going to do something as exceptional as that you need to be very sure it can stand up. DGG 05:59, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I am sure that there are websites that specialize in reviewing browser based games. If the game is notable, then it may have ended up in their hands, and you can use their review as a third party reference to the article.--Kylohk 17:02, 18 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)

An idea will be to reply on the other member's page, and then on your own user page, add "reply" beneath the original message and use the word "Reply" as an internal link back to your answer on the other person's page.--Kylohk 17:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I used to do that until recently, but I have now moved in favour of centralised discussion; if my only comment needs to be something like "thanks for the message", I prefer to leave it below their comment anyway, and deeper discussion really does benefit from cohesiveness. Adrian M. H. 19:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course, if the discussion is that long (rarely happens for me), it may be an idea to add an user subpage and tell the other person to post there, and it will become an informal chatroom.--Kylohk 17:04, 18 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)

I am amazed by such a section. Wikipedia is not a social network, and it is definitely (chuckles) not a Good Samaritans hotline service!--Kylohk 17:06, 18 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: [[4]] [[5]]

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 [[6]], 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)

We could just use a new image. The only thing I can think of is an arrow with a line through it, like this (though less ugly): File:No arrow.svg -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:30, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm worried that an image with a crossout or red on it will scare new users, and since new users can't move pages anyway, I don't see the benefits of that icon over the risk of alienating users. — The Storm Surfer 04:14, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I think no icon is probably the way to go. — The Storm Surfer 08:06, 17 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)

Straw polls are underway to check if a rough consensus exists over three uses of the spoiler warning tags on the RfC. The three issues are: Should spoiler warnings be placed on articles about historical and classical works of fiction? Should spoiler warnings be placed on articles about fairy tales? And should spoiler warnings be placed in sections titled "Plot", "Plot summery", "Synopses", or any variation thereof? --Farix (Talk) 23:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (national varieties of English)

A user has placed a Template:Rejected tag on this guideline page because "consensus is not present". However, it warns readers that it is "under development", and there has not been serious opposition to it on its talk page, except from one user whose opinion on it now is unclear. The truth is it does not at any point seem to have been submitted to the community for broader approval, and has become only infrequently maintained.

Please express your opinion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (national varieties of English)#Poll on whether Template:Rejected is appropriate. Joeldl 11:54, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The poll is there now, in case you've looked in the last half hour. Sorry. Joeldl 12:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Use of source code and other examples in articles

I have opened a debate on the use of source code and other examples in Wikipedia articles. It seems that many pieces of example source code etc. currently in Wikipedia violate Wikipedia policy, so we need to either clarify or change the situation. Depending on the result of the discussion, this may result in a number of source code examples being summarily removed from computing articles!

Please reply there, not here, if you wish to contribute.—greenrd 10:55, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Resizing Images

This is regarding Category:Non-free image size reduction request (i cant figure out how to internal link a category page, could someone drop the answer at my talk page) I need to know if there is a specific size that the images should be smaller than, or can i just resize according to my ideas... CyberoidX 13:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Answers Anybody?

There is no specific limit, the quality of the image should be consistent to its purpose in the article. Usually Common sense is sufficient. Alex Bakharev 13:02, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:BLP and in-text citations

One specific example: Ric_Byrne. Articles that provide references, but not in-text citations are hard to verify — especially when the references are not available online. How does one verify that these articles meet the requirements of WP:BLP? Sancho 14:46, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Difficult or even impossible, depending on what resources one has available. That is why footnotes and reliable sources are so important for demonstrating that the creating editor has actually done his research. Too many editors leave their work under-referenced, IMO. Adrian M. H. 16:23, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Is there actually a requirement for in-text citations (footnotes, for example)? This would be great. I didn't think that it was required though. I think it should be required for biographies of living persons. Sancho 16:55, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

If only. WP:FN and/or WP:HARV ought to be universally used by all editors, which not only makes Wikipedia look more professional (for want of a better word) but makes it a lot easier for editors and casual readers to verify what they read and decide for themselves whether it is likely to be true and accurate. It's not as if footnotes are difficult, so it's really just laziness. Adrian M. H. 17:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:FN is only a "how-to guideline" and WP:HARV has no status at all. Maybe someone should draft a policy proposal.--Runcorn 21:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

No need, if WP:REF was revised accordingly. I might look into it and raise the issue at WP:REF's talk page, but I don't hold out much hope of instigating any change. A lot of editors disregard it in its current form anyway, such as failing to combine inline URL links with a bulleted list of the sources. Adrian M. H. 22:20, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Album images on discography and artist pages

Moved from WP:AN, as it really isn't an admin issue.

After the whole copyrighted screenshots from lists of... episodes, I wonder where we stand on the idea of galleries of fair use album covers on pages about the artist, or, even worse, on discography pages. Obviously, all but the most die-hard anti-fairuse protestors are going to support album covers on specific album pages, but the covers on these other pages serve no real purpose. I removed them all from Black Tape for a Blue Girl a short while ago, after seeking advice on the admins' IRC channel, but then I realised just how many of these there are. Flicking through our featured articles, I came across (despite the fact it isn't itself a featured article) AC/DC discography, which is just awful, but I noticed that none of the featured articles I checked contained these hideous galleries themselves. So, am I safe to assume that I can nuke such galleries on sight? What about discography articles, which will be SERIOUSLY cut back if the images are removed? Obviously, a few images inline when discussing that era of the band's history (such as they are used on our featured articles) looks great and works well- but these galleries are a violation of our policy, are they not? J Milburn 18:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I was under the impression this was already the case. Album covers should only be on articles that talk about them (or I wouldn't have a problem with them if there is a detailed description of the album on the artist's article - for instance, if an artist has only had one major release, we could have info on that album on the artist's page itself and the image could be there).↔NMajdan•talk 19:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I nuked AC/DC discography of all its pics, apart from the potentially defensible picture left in the article (the only one not in a gallery). Ral315 » 22:38, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I have now also nuked Cradle of Filth discography, everyone is always arguing over everything to do with CoF, so I find myself over there a lot, I just rarely comment. I have also written an essay on subject, to point people to when they come moaning. Please feel free to edit as appropriate. J Milburn 23:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

This is very widespread; I just hit Queen discography. Check out Discographies if you're interested in the cleanup; in a random sampling of 11 articles, I found six to contain galleries. Also, be prepared to find complex template setups on a few of them; I had to subst numerous templates to fix it completely... Ral315 » 05:52, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I am gonna crack on with removing as many as I can. J Milburn 15:30, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Part of the problem is templates like Template:Infobox Discography used for many such lists (see whatlinkshere for it). It adds a "no cover" placeholder if no cover is specified, giving the impression than the the discography needs a cover. Meanwhile even the Wikiproject music's quality guidelines says to not use cover art in discography lists. --Sherool (talk) 16:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Copyleft violation

I ran across an interesting situation. This image was nominated for deletion as a copyright violation because it appeared with a copyright notice at another web site. But it was uploaded to WP two weeks earlier, apparently by the same person, and licensed under GNU copyleft. The GNU license requires the content to remain free forever, so the copyright notice actually violates copyleft.

If I read the GNU license correctly, it would take precedence whether it was invoked before or after copyright. If before, it must remain free forever, if after, then the copyright is relinquished. I wonder if people patrolling for copyright violations are checking for this? Dhaluza 01:33, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The creator of a work can release it under a variety of licenses. They aren't bound by the GFDL or any other license. Everyone who downloads it from wikipedia is. jbolden1517^Talk 02:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

You don't "invoke" copyright. You have it, absolutely, from the moment the work is created, whether you choose to assert it or not. Licensing something under the GFDL is in and of itself an assertion of copyright - you state you own the copyright, but you are willing to let other people make copies if conditions X, Y and Z are fulfilled, and you promise not to revoke the agreement. At no point under the GFDL do you cease to hold the copyright to the image.

Licensing an image under the GFDL means that if anyone else redistributes the image, they have to do so under the GFDL. However, you can distribute it under any license you so choose (with the minor caveat that the license can't be exclusive, for obvious reasons) - under no license at all, under a restrictive license, under a license that allows it only to be copied by women called Henrietta, whatever. You just can't stop anyone saying "but, wait, this is licensed under the GFDL" and reusing it under those conditions.

The image you saw on airliners.net is in and of itself a licensed image - it is licensed to airliners.net for online display under specific conditions, and you agree to this when you upload it. This license means that they can display it online with a notice stating you own the copyright; it also means they don't need to know or care about any other licenses you might have released it under, which is the normal way licensing works.

It can't "violate copyleft" because the GFDL is irrelevant as far as airliners.net is concerned; they have a license they are happy with, and they are complying with it. Releasing something under the GFDL does not force reusers to comply with the GFDL if they can get a better deal from you directly; it just means that if they can't get a better deal from you, they can comply with the conditions of the GFDL and use the work that way.

Bottom line - a) the author always reserves the right to issue a license to use their image; b) this image appears to be legitimately released as GFDL, if we are indeed happy they're the same person (and I see no reason to doubt it); c) no-one is in breach of any copyright or any license. Shimgray | talk | 02:17, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I wonder how long it will be before someone sees the copyright-marked image at airliners.net and without checking further or noticing the GNU Free Documentation License, tags it for speedy deletion as a copy-vio ... and successfully gets it deleted? :(
Askari Mark (Talk) 03:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Leave a note on the image page. Problem prevented. Shimgray | talk | 15:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Personal attack question

A week ago, I removed a one-sentence ad from an article on a small town, New Hampshire, Ohio, and left a no-ads template message on the talk page of the IP that added the ad. This morning, I got a personal attack from the IP on my talk page and on the New Hampshire talk page. My question is this: what level of warning template should be left for the IP? Should it get a first-level, since this is its first personal attack? Or a second-level, since it's already had another warning recently, by me? Or a third-level, since the message was given twice in slightly different versions, both of which are very obviously bad faith ("Get an effing life...")? Regardless of which is correct, I'm not entirely sure what the WP:UTM guidelines want me to do. And by the way, I'd appreciate it if someone else left a warning for the IP. Nyttend 15:31, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Not second-level; that would only apply if there had been a previous warning for personal attacks. I guess this particular issue has already been dealt with, but I would have said third-level, since the attacks are in flagrantly bad faith and do not deserve our usual level of patience. -- Visviva 15:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Quotes and counter-quotes

I have a question about the article Prem Rawat. The problem is that certain statements are so sensitive and controversial that there have been near-endless disputes about mis paraphrasing selective or out-of-context summarizing of scholarly sources. A solution was finally found in adding verbatim short quotes from the scholarly sources. However this has led to counter-quotes. It has been argued that war of opposing scholarly quotes has led to a bad article. But I do not see an alternative. see User_talk:Rumiton#How.3F The number of words per scholar have been counted to assess allegations of undue weight which I think shows how far the dispute has come. Talk:Prem_Rawat#The_point_of_Andries.27_proposal Any comments? Andries 18:48, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

The actual problem is that Andries' is behaving at the Prem Rawat article in the same way that got him banned from editing Sai Baba. To support his POV Andries translates obscure Dutch scholars, picks out the wierdest quote he can find, modifies it to suit his purposes and then stuffs it in. Editors have tried to ensure accuracy by asking that the whole quote be included as a reference. Weeks later, or in this case, months later editors discover that critical sections of the quote have been deleted to change the meaning or individual words mistranslated. Andries then apologises and promises not to do it again. Until the next time. And the next time. Here's an example from today in which I belatedly discover that Andries had deleted "apparently by his mother" from the quote "he tried to remain loyal to the role in which he was forced, apparently by his mother". This is crucial information because no other scholars support this theory and it throws doubt on van der Lans credibility. In the process of discussing this, Andries then writes that his translation of "forced" is probably not a good translation of the Dutch original and he will check it. And so it goes.Momento 20:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I provided full originals and full translations on request, but that takes time. Jan van der Lans is not obscure. Momento dismisses reputable sources if they state things that he does not agree with, including the Washington Post if they happen to make critical comments about Prem Rawat. Andries 20:48, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I cannot predict what other contributors consider crucial information, so that is why I provide extensive citations on request. This enables other editors to see whether I have selectively quoted sources. I certainly did not expect Momento to consider the omission crucial and even now I think that I have not omitted crucial information. Andries 20:52, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

And what do you expect me to do? Quote everything what scholars have written to ensure that I do not quote selectively? Then the article will be extremely lenghty. I have to make a selection without misrepresentation which is what I tried. Andries 20:58, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No personal attacks

Requesting further input as to the addition of language prohibiting links to "attack sites" in NPA. A lengthy debate (punctuated by two periods of page-protection and several loci) centered around whether (or how) the NPA policy should explicitly discuss external links that are not themselves attacks but are made to sites characteristic of such attacks. Loci include: original discussion on WP:BADSITES (currently redirected to NPA), Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MONGO, Serpent's Choice and Bishonen's proposed simplified rewrite of NPA, which has met with approval from several editors, however, not all "involved editors" have been active participants in the discussion in recent weeks, and the recent removal of a link to Kelly Martin's blog added another dimension to the debate.—ACADEMY LEADER ^FOCUS! 18:51, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Userboxes

I tried to stay as far away as possible from userboxes as I can, but what is the current consensus/policy on userboxes like {{User against Bush}}? Leave those in template-space, move to user-space, speedy-delete? —Ruud 19:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Māori names

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board#Māori names about inclusion of Māori language names in infoboxes of New Zealand cities. Further input is welcome.-gadfium 20:02, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

New proposed guideline

I have drafted a new, proposed guideline - Wikipedia:Notability (residences). I have done this because, simply, we don't have an existing notability guideline regulating this, and this is an attempt to help make decisions at WP:AFD and CAT:PROD. Cool Blue^{talk to me} 21:13, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

¿What is the policy about “Killing The Messenger”?

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¿Can someone be blocked for merely reporting something unpopular?

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— — Ŭalabio‽ 22:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

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