Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 

• Table of contents
• First discussion
• End of page
• New post

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

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

« Archives, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194

Talk:Suicide

There is a discussion on the Talk:Suicide page about the possibility of placing a banner at the top of the page with a short message and a link to suitable suicide support organisations. Full details of the motivation and the discussion that followed are on Talk:Suicide. There was some consensus that this is something that should be done, however, concerns have been raised that this would contravene WP:NOT and WP:5P which is the motivation for raising the topic here. I personally would like to see this happen. Internet related suicides are becoming more common and while wikipedia is clearly not among the motivating sites it's position at the top of a google search on "suicide" does give it the opportunity to guide people to the kind of advice and help that they might require. --Jackocleebrown (talk) 21:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Not needed, but I suppose you could if you want. But those links could be on the article's own page anyway, a lot of browsing users don't even look at or know about talk pages, IMHO. The special, the random, the lovely Merkinsmum 21:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

What not create a mainspace list of suicide support organizations or perhaps an article about suicide support organizations? Then the notice can direct them there. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 21:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry it was not clearer above, the suggestion is the add a banner to the top of the main suicide page. I think that Obuibo's suggestion is good - to have another page listing organisations. My main query here was whether we can add such a banner or if this will contravene Wikipedia policy or if we can do this in this instance because of exceptional circumstances. --Jackocleebrown (talk) 22:14, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I would say so. Be bold and go ahead. We'll do the WP:BRD thing if it proves problematic. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 22:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Strongly disagree as discussed on Talk:Suicide. This user has already been bold and been reverted. It is a bad idea as it endorses one point of view, not a good thing on such a controversial topic. But I suggest keeping the discussion on the article talk page. I'm not sure of the purpose of bringing it up here. Fritter (talk) 07:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

This discussion has been largely resolved on Talk:Suicide. Please use the Talk:Suicide page to add to the conversation so that we don't have two parallel topics on different pages. Thanks Jackocleebrown (talk) 11:19, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Tor nodes

An ongoing discussion is in progress regarding adjusting the blocking policy in reference to TOR nodes. The discussion is here. Regards, M-ercury at 13:18, January 8, 2008

WP:RFC/U - time to get rid of it?

Moved from archive as it's premature to close this - future datestamp applied to make sure it isn't archived again - Will ^(talk) 17:51, 26 January 2009 (UTC) Moving from WT:RFC...

About two months ago, I listed Requests for user comment for deletion under the premise that it did not work, and it's basically a quagmire of personal attacks and a stepping stone to ArbCom. The consensus in the MFD, including the creator of the process and the MfD's closer, is that it doesn't really work 99.9% of the time, and only exists because there is no other process existent. Just get rid of it and reinstate the Community Sanction Noticeboard, as that actually did do some good. Will ^(talk) 17:51, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. I personally preferred CSN better than RFC/U. D.M.N. (talk) 18:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I would support CSN provided there was a minimum time for comments (about 7 days). There should also be a maximum time for banning (1 year, same as ArbCom). R. Baley (talk) 18:14, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

CSN had teeth, RFC/U hardly any. CSN saw discussion and nuance, RFC/U sees ganging up and party-lines half the time. With the same provisos as R. Baley, except I'd prefer six months, it would be good to have it back. Relata refero (talk) 18:20, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you could merge the two... CSN to me always seemed to arbitrary. Consensus could be declared in an hour or never... that kind of gives power to people who can generate a mob of "me too"s on demand. RFC is very structured but seldom goes anywhere. Is there any realistic way to have CSN but with a more normalized process, to give the accused a change to reply, slow down the mob mentality, and reasonably assess consensus? --W.marsh 18:28, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Would it need a new name possibly? Also please note than CSN only closed three and a half months ago and consensus might not of changed much since then. Also, a lot of things that "could" of gone there are instead now sent to WP:AN or WP:ANI, meaning they get a lot more traffic and stress put on them. D.M.N. (talk) 18:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

W.marsh, don't you think a minimum one-week period for each sanction discussion would help with the mob of "me-too"s? (Too much evidence has emerged lately of off-wiki co-ordination for us to discount that as a factor.) Relata refero (talk) 18:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

A week sounds reasonable. If it's truly an emergency WP:BLOCK should apply, and if someone's transgressions don't seem blockworthy a week after the fact, then a ban was a bad idea to begin with. I'd also like to look at a waiting period before people start bolding words (ban, don't ban, etc.) maybe 48 hours of pure discussion without people taking definitive stands like in a vote. I think that would lead to better discussion, people tend to feel psychologically committed to a stance once they're locked in to it. --W.marsh 18:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

At Arbcom they've decided to take the ambitious step of waiting (I believe 48 hours, but I can't remember) before voting on the proposed decision page. We could do something similar, discussion can take place for 2 days, but no proposed "remedies" (ban, topic ban, etc.) could be offered until 48 hours after a new complaint had been certified (maybe not "certified," just following the initial complaint --basically enforce 2 days of discussion before any talk of "banning"). R. Baley (talk) 18:44, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

RFC works when it's used for asking for comments, it does not work when sanctions are sought, but that is not its purpose. The CSN should be brought back and RFC kept and used for its intended purpose. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:09, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The Community Sanction Noticeboard had its own problems, though I'm not sure that it needed to be eliminated. Part of the problem is that dispute resolution mechanisms seem to come and go - Mediation went away, and now it's back under a new name, the CSN came and went, ANI seems to alter its mission every so often. I see three main problems with RFC/U: it is not empowered to sanction, it's intended to keep reduce the burden on ANI, and it's a mandatory step before going to ArbCom, which can sanction. The solution I see is to 1) bounce more stuff, both from RFC/U and ANI, to Mediation (wherever it's living right now), 2) have some level of sanction available at RFC/U, which would probably require administrator patrolling, and 3) allow admins to move complicated cases off ANI to RFC/U. Perhaps a name change would be in order - instead of "Request for Comment/User Conduct", it could become "Administrators' Noticeboard: Ongoing Problems" (to distinguish it from AN:Incidents). Making it part of the Administrators' Noticeboard would mean that sanctions would be available and it would be an appropriate preliminary step to ArbCom. It would also reduce the load at ANI, where probably half the volume of discussion is on complicated, drawn-out issues, even though those are fewer than 10% of the actual incidents reported. Community Sanctions would all get moved to AN/OP, also. As part of the AN cluster, AN/OP would be fairly highly visible. Argyriou (talk) 20:37, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm Opposed to this. Many of our processes suffer from a lynching mentality and RFC is as bad as some of them but it does serve a purpose. I really do not see a return to the votes for lynching that CSN turned into as a viable alternative. If we are replace this process we need some other way to garner community feedback into problematical or disputed editor behaviour and a noticeboard doesn't seem the way forward. Spartaz ^Humbug! 22:22, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Rlevse's and Spartaz's comments. --Iamunknown 00:39, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Both W.marsh and Spartaz voice important concerns. The CSN was split off from ANI, and then was merged back into ANI after only 8 months. I think ANI, with its high visibility and traffic, is the proper place for most such discussions. The deletion discussion is very instructive as to the potential problems that must be kept in mind. I oppose any page dedicated exclusively to "sanctions," as well as any form of voting for a ban.

Getting back to RFC/U, I think its purpose and its place within the DR process should be better defined. The list of DR options here is rather bewildering, and does not indicate (what I see as) RFC/U's status as a second-tier DR forum for problems that have proven intractable in the first-tier forums. The third tier, of course, is Arbcom.

There is a grave problem when people see DR as a list of hoops that must be jumped through before you can ban someone. Emphasis should be placed on restoring relationships and on helping problematic editors to become better ones. Note that I am not talking about obvious trolls, who should be dealt with easily enough in the first-tier DR forums. To me, the purpose of the first-tier forums is to have one or two experienced editors tell a problematic editor that he/she is behaving problematically and should change. At this point, the case may be obvious enough that a block or ban would be appropriate. The purpose of RFC/U is then for the larger community to communicate that same message. If the problematic behavior continues, then an admin can enact a community ban, and the tougher cases can go to Arbcom. If I am out in left field on this, then tell me so or ignore me. If not, then the DR guidelines should be a lot more clear that this is the case. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 05:09, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It would be good if it worked that way, but the practice is less harmonious. The process seems to escalate conflict rather than diminish it. I don't however know how to substitute it. CSN was seen as a kangaroo court, so that too had problems. DGG (talk) 09:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Practice does not need to be harmonious. I'm not so naive as to think that a large fraction of people are actually focused on "restoring relationships" etc. But I'd settle for orderly. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 01:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem I have seen in the few RFC/U's I've seen (as an outsider) is that there is very little in the way of objective evidence. It usually ends up in IDONTLIKEHIM comments, or sometimes people siding with the nominator they like or the defendant they like, or even lining up with the POV they like.

Any complaint, whether it is in an RFC/U or an AN/I or a proposed AN/OP, should have specific charges based on policy or guidelines and specific diffs to support the charge, and diffs to demonstrate attempts to resolve the problem. A user who behaves badly should be warned every time the problem is noticed. Just as we warn against vandalism, we should warn about NPA, incivility, etc. (If we had more warning templates, users might issue warnings more often.) If we warned users more often we might see fewer problems. If problems persist, then the warnings will provide the evidence to justify blocks.

AIV is not contentious because there is a visible history of escalating warnings to demonstrate the problem, to demonstrate attempts to resolve the problem, and to justify the length of a block. 3RR is not contentious because diffs provide objective evidence of bad behavior. RFC/U, AN/I, CSN almost always are (were) contentious because there is usually no objective evidence to demonstrate the problem and attempts to resolve the problem. I think that RFC/U would be more effective if it required specific charges of violated guidelines, specific diffs to support the charges, and specific diffs to demonstrate attempts to resolve the problem.

I was just about to make these suggestions about specificity over at WT:RFC when I saw the link to this discussion. I might still suggest it over there to try to improve the process while waiting to see if a consensus develops over here to eliminate or replace the process. I'm also thinking of starting a new section over here to suggest that we should issue warnings for bad behavior much more often. I have seen a lot of incivility go unwarned. If we had escalating templates for warnings, editors might use them more often. Sbowers3 (talk) 02:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

IMHO, RfC on User Conduct should be used to elicit a wider community involvement in the background of the situation instead of the superficial cat-calling that we stumble acrost in article-talk and user-space. I frequently accidentally wander into a vicious debate, simply because I visit a lot of pages. The RfC/U posted to the article-talk, and user-talk of both the RfC presenter and the subject would allow for impartial input. Which should continue for a minimum of three days there. Then, as above mentioned, the subject can be given some breathing room in which to evaluate improvement or at least detachment. After sufficient time, if an editor feels that anti-project editing still exists, then it would be appropriate to escalate to CSN and allow at least 3 further days for responses to be gathered. So my nutshell, RfC/U as a precursor to CSN and a necessary part of DR.Wjhonson (talk) 02:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem with ANY system of open community comment on another editors actions, regardless of which Wiki-acronym you attach to it, is that it is always open to sniping and abuse (once someones name shows up there, everyone they ever have pissed off gangs up on them). The question is whether such abuse is willing to be tolerated in order to have a system whereby the community can comment on user behavior. You can't have a system in place that is immune to this kind of abuse, but neither should you throw out the baby with the bathwater... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 06:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I am strongly in favor of the WP:RFC/U system. It isn't good at seeking punishments for past bad behavior, but that's partly because sanctions are preventive, not punitive -- the point is, sanctions should be applied when bad behavior continues, rather than because it existed. RFCs are good for that -- if a user pushes POV, for instance, and it becomes well-established that this is the case in an RFC, and they continue to do it, sanctions can be safely applied. RFCs sometimes get out of control, but that's actually a good thing -- think of it as water in the mountains, it needs to come downhill somewhere. WP:RFC/U is a good way of handling that release of tensions because of the way its rules keep editors from commenting back and forth, which tends to build tension. Plus, they have a good way of adding lots of uninvolved editors to the mix, which distributes the energy. Mangojuice^talk 15:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't really know what to think. The Wikipedia community hasn't shown itself to be anymore trustworthy than the Wikipedia admins. Both increasing and decreasing admin accountability or things like RFC/U seem counterintuitive. Making it more strict allows people to witch-hunt users and admins they don't like. Making it more lax allows trolls and corrupt admins to do whatever they want. The problem is that so many Wikipedia editors have zero regard for reason. That needs to be addressed first, I think. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 11:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

RFC works (as stated above) when it's used for asking for comments on behavioral issues of a user or users, it does not work when used for witch-hunts, lynchings, Public floggings, personal attacks, bitterness, and character assassinations. Since this process does seem to escalate some conflicts rather than diminish them, perhaps modifying the guidelines within the process is needed as opposed to removal. Without RfC/U, the only formal steps in dispute resolution that focuses on editors are AN/I and ArbCom. Conversly AN/I could serve as an appropriate venue and does provide wide community involvement on issues (Apropriatly a modified format would be needed on AN/I to replace RfC/U). Processes exist to have a purpose, I belive this does, but some reform may be needed to improve it.--Hu12 (talk) 13:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

If you thought RFC is terrible, CSN was horrendous. I don't ever want to see anything like that back on wikipedia ever again. But if I do, I shall certainly crucify the inventor using their own process. ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 15:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

How to guide

I think RFC is a good way to gather evidence and gauge community sentiments. If an RFC/U convinces an editor to cease causing problems, that is a good result. If they continue, a note can be posted at ANI requesting a community remedy, such as an editing restriction or ban, with a link to the RFC/U. If there is no consensus at ANI, the case can go to ArbCom, and again, a link to the RFC/U provides much of the necessary evidence. The processes work when people use them correctly. Jehochman ^Talk 14:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, if we ever want RFCU to ever work, we need more admin intervention - Anittas was indefed a second time in October. The attack he was blocked for was on RFCU for twelve days, but nothing happened until ANI got wind of it. Will ^(talk) 00:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

SPCA, International

Eep! Forgot this was policy. Moving to Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous). superluser_tc 2008 February 20, 20:01 (UTC)

Must newspapers cite their sources to be a reliable source?

Does a newspaper have to cite its sources in order for the article to be a reliable source? Specifically, on the Russian presidential election, 2008, references to a Guardian article criticial of the election's fairness has been removed twice ([1], [2]) on the grounds that no sources were supplied. Could someone please advise on WP policy? Thanks Pgr94 (talk) 12:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

• Regarding reliability of the source, the answer is no. The Guardian is a highly respected publication, and sourcing to that is sufficient. From reliable sources: Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press. When citing opinion pieces in newspapers and magazines, in-text attribution should be used if the material is contentious. When adding contentious biographical material about living persons that relies upon news organizations, only material from high-quality news organizations should be used. The Guardian should fit the bill. Often newspaper editors and journalists protect the identity of sources, and if the reason for this is justified, then that does not make the source unreliable in the Wikipedia sense. The demands for cited source do not cascade down past the source we cite. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

In this case there's absolutely no justification since the excised passage plainly depicts this is an accusation made by the Guardian and does not state it as an absolute fact. Mangoe (talk) 14:56, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

As far as general reliability of sources (no comment on the specific isuse in dispute), one could argue that the newspaper's sources would have to cite their sources. And so on. The buck has to stop somewhere. "Reliable sources" are the places Wikipedia is willing to let it stop. High-quality news organizations are generally considered reliable sources, and especially so for matters of current politics and opinion about political matters. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 20:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Guardian would not need to name its sources 'if it was accusing of those things itself, but it is not. The accusations are not made by Guardian, it is quoting the accusations of "independent sources", which it does not name. It claims those accusations are "according to independent sources", which it does not name. I point out the New York Times John McCain lobbyist controversy, which was furiously criticized because of its use of annonymous sources.--Miyokan (talk) 02:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I don't believe news agencies or news media should be considered reliable sources at all. Their primary function is to create original research, and the number of times even the "Respectable" news sources have been demonstrated to lie, cheat, misunderstand or misrepresent should make us wary of using any assertion from them that is not backed by a reliable source. And, in case you're wondering, I'm not talking about "vast evil conspiracies by the MMS to suppress The Truth", but the combination of sheer incompetence, editorial pressures, and ultimate objective (sell papers) means that accuracy is, at best, a secondary concern.

In particular "science" journalism is often so twisted and deformed that it's not usually possible to even guess at what the actual science was. — Coren ^(talk) 17:41, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

That newspapers publish original research is not a problem. WP:OR bans editors from publishing original research on wikipedia. It does not ban editors from reporting original research done elsewhere. Dsmdgold (talk) 13:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Our job is to find good sources of WP:OR and report that. Our job is not to be a source of WP:OR or a place to publish WP:OR. If there is a doubt about something from a newspaper or magazine, we just state where the information came from, so that it is clear it did not come from us and what authority we are relying on. Newspapers and magazines, particularly the high end like Wall Street Journal and New York Times and Sacramento Bee and the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Times of London and the Washington Post, have a reputation to protect, and legal exposure as well, so this makes them a bit more reliable than the run of the mill blog or other source. This does not mean they do not make mistakes; even peer-reviewed journals make mistakes. However, they do have some standards that they demand for inclusion of material, and will print retractions if they find out they made a mistake. --Filll (talk) 14:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Featured article process reformation / Recall of the Featured Article Director

The featured article process is broken.

And in particular, the selection process for the featured article of the day is even more broken.

It seems that a poll taken on August 12, 2004, on an obscure talk page, with 14 voters decided to appoint Raul654 as "Featured Article Director," over the concerns of others that this role was insufficiently defined. In fact to this day this position is not even mentioned at Wikipedia:Featured article or Wikipedia:Featured article criteria, much less its roles, duties, or extent! Editors can be excused for being baffled as to why articles such as today's ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion end up being featured on the front page of Wikipedia. In fact, this article was promoted after only three editors voted on promoting it; and the current process heavily biases participation in the discussion of promotion of obscure articles like this to only editors of the article in question.

In any event, it was promoted on the strength of these three editor's recommendation. It is a long step from being a Bold textfeatured article to being featured on the front page of Wikipedia; like promotion itself, this is something that is apparently entirely up to Raul654 or those he delegates. He, on the strength of a poll obscurely conducted and voted for by 14 editors three and a half years ago, decides day in and day out which articles go on the front page of Wikipedia, which is a huge part of Wikipedia's public image. When Wikipedia presents itself to the world featuring this kind of titillating video game obscurata, it is important to realize that this is not a democratic outcome, but the personal whim of this individual.

I contend that our featured article process is broken, that the position of Featured Article Director was not legitimately defined or democratically elected or appointed in the first place, it is hidden from public oversight, and that in any event after three and a half years of Wikipedia history, Raul654's mandate is long since over. It is time for him to step down and for this position to be redefined and filled by a new volunteer.

Your comments please! NTK (talk) 04:50, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. That said, it is reasonable is to ask for a much better process. But you seem to treat FA director as a position of privilege and power -- it is not. Being FA director is quite unlike being an arbcom member. As far as it goes, the general idea is to go through the list of existing main page nominations (generally in chronological order) and create the appropriate subpages. The duties of Director basically include ensuring that featured articles are not repeatedly front-paged unnecessarily and to try to give every FA a chance on being on the main page, as well as preventing certain FAs from reaching the front page, because it would be inappropriate (e.g. Wikipedia, which was a featured article). It also includes things like preventing two game articles from being shown on the main page one after another, or even two country articles. Maybe the process needs to be changed, but do realise that Wikipedia is a community of editors. Though it tries to serve humanity as much as possible and is associated with the democratisation of information, it is not itself a democracy. It is an encyclopedia. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 05:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

If we are determining consensus by discussion there should be a discussion. Other than as noted above, there has been no discussion much less consensus. And it is not fair to say that the position of FA director is a powerless drudge position. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests makes it clear that "the final decision rests with the Featured Article Director (Raul654)," although the basis for his "authority" is unexplained there. NTK (talk) 06:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, there was much discussion few months back which reconfirmed consensus that Raul is doing a good job, see here.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:16, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Long story short, I think everybody, Raul as well, is entitled to a mistake. He is doing a good job 99% of the time, and in any case, I am sure any request to remove him would be quickly WP:SNOWballed with objections (including my own). But putting ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion into the main page featured queue is a major SNAFU, good maybe for April 1. As I have noted here many editors have criticized this; I sincerly hope that we will switch main page article ASAP and Raul and Sandy will pay more attention so that half-notable fringe FAs will not slip into the main page (where so many more notable subjects are awaiting their main page exposure).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Why should it be, and why should you assume that everyone would object to Raul not being the ultimate authority on featured articles just because he's been doing it for a long time? I agree that most featured articles have been high quality. However this is not the first time that such an article has been plastered on the front page of Wikipedia, although definitely the most egregious in recent memory. The more basic point is, why should Raul be doing this indefinitely in the same opaque, review-free manner just because it's been "customary practice" so far? We need a better way that is open, clear to editors, and fair. And importantly one that is grounded in an actual consensus or mandate of editors rather than some straw poll held well over three years ago that didn't clearly establish the ground rules even at that time. Wikipedia is a completely different place now. This process must be reviewed. NTK (talk) 06:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Simply, Raul does as good job as any committee would (and faster). In any case, I belive we should separate the issue of 'get this junk out of main page' (which should get much support) from 'lets recall FAD' (which I don't think would). So for the good of Wikipedia, I highly suggest unbundling those two topics ASAP.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Who said anything about replacing him with a committee? I am only asking that the process be made open, the role and term of the position be made clear and mentioned in the appropriate locations, and that the position be filled through an open participation process. I don't think that Raul can legitimately claim to hold the position on this basis now, if he ever could. There are certainly hundreds of other Wikipedians who would be happy and competent to fulfill this role. And I think that Today's Featured Article is so prominent and so central to Wikipedia's public image that this should not be brushed aside. NTK (talk) 06:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the characterization of this as a mistake, and agree with Raul's decision to put this on the front page. I also don't think it's Raul's responsibility to decide if an article is "FA enough" for the front page, any FA article should inevitably make it into the front page. Masterhomer 06:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

This is clearly a nonsense position, there is obviously more than one net article promoted to FA status per day and it is necessarily impossible for every featured article to be posted to the front page. NTK (talk) 06:32, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I have been contributing to Wikipedia for a long time and I can tell you this was not always the case, and it may not always be the case. Nevertheless, I do not think Raul's position implies any sort of requirement for judgment, I believe that any article attending FA status should be threated equally with regards to the front page. The time for judgment is the FA nomination process, and that is open to anybody. So in summary I think complaining about Raul is counterproductive and if you really want to effect change you should probably be more active in the FA nomination process. Masterhomer 06:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

If that were the case we could easily solve this issue by replacing Raul with a script that randomly features a FA that hasn't been on the front page yet and not waste his time anymore. This won't be done because your premise that all featured articles are equal and equally worthy of the front page is false. This is a "featured article" that never should have made this trek. It is a total repudiation of Wikipedia as a serious reference work. NTK (talk) 06:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Let gets this straight, this whole thing is very unproductive. I'm pretty sure we all know you will get nowhere with this, and Wikipedia already has a fairly formal process for how featured articles are nominated. You would better spend your energy contributing more to this process then complaining against Raul for doing his job. With a couple of sentences during the nomination process, you alone could have had the power to prevent this article from being FA in the first place. Masterhomer 07:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, come on. You are saying because I have not monitored the featured article process on a daily basis to prevent this kind of thing from happening, I have no right to complain? No, the "Featured Article Director," if we have such a position, should be someone with a mandate from the Wikipedia community as a whole, with a position that is clear to the community as a whole, and who has this ongoing responsibility. It is clear that a large proportion of Wikipedians think that this featured article was a huge mistake. At a minimum it is clear that such extremely divisive and controversial articles--divisive and controversial not for their content but for their quality and importance--should not be featured on the front page as representative of Wikipedia as a whole. If we had an open position where multiple candidates could run on different philosophies of how featured articles should be selected, and selected for the front page, I think that there would be a consensus for this at least. But there never was such a process; there was only a de facto coronation on a talk page three and a half years ago of the current, self-appointed "director." There were objections at that time not only that the role was not defined well enough (as it still is not) and that there never were any other candidates considered (which there still have not been) but that the entire "ratification" poll was conducted on a talk page that was under the radar and only viewed by a tiny segment of even the 2004 Wikipedia community. It was never properly reviewed. You don't seem to understand that what I am objecting to is the process itself. NTK (talk) 07:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, there's a large number of threads (many in the history of this very page, even) in which Raul's status is complained and argued about, but obviously none of those complaints have led to his removal. Either the complaints are falling on deaf ears, or he has more support and approval than you seem to think. I've also noticed a trend, in the course of these threads: it's easy to drum up opposition to Raul, but historically difficult to develop widespread support for any alternative system/method/user. A viable alternative seems to be a precursor to replacement. – Luna Santin (talk) 07:49, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

A viable alternative is very simple, not rocket science. Here's one off the top of my head: Have a page for candidates to list themselves as Raul-replacements (himself included if he wishes) and have a poll on who to replace him. If nobody else wants the job I'll take it. It's not a duty I would seek out but I certainly wouldn't put such a controversial, unworthy article on the front page. But I am sure there are others who have been active with the FA process who are also more fair-minded and would be willing to run. NTK (talk) 08:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

"and have a poll on who to replace him".... but wikipedia is not a democracy. You mean a consensus based on arguments, where weight of arguments may sway the decision to the least voted option --Enric Naval (talk) 17:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I personally don't see anything procedurally wrong with the way that this article made it to the front page. An argument could be made for its delisting, but the fact that only three editors participated in the FA discussion is not in and of itself improper. I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more transparency in the appointment of the director, but to suggest that the article was placed on the front page by a small cabal of three editors and Raul654 is a bit of a stretch -- RoninBK _{T C} 07:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

It is not the point that it was done by 3 editors colluding or that Rual got his position over 13 people colluding, I don't think that anyone was trying to make that point. The point is that the Wikipedia community does not have any say what so ever anymore, and that the current system means almost anything can get on the front page even if only a couple of editors have pushed it through. There needs to be a consensus system where pages are voted for front page from FA status, and Wikipedia should prevent itself from even allowing pages in areas that voters are biased towards (computers and video games). Look at all the featured articles, how did the ESRB change of a games rating beat out all that history, science and literature. While the article might well be consensus in that most wikipedia editors like computers/video games, it is an embarrassment for an Encyclopedia to put this article ahead of thousands of much more worthy articles. POTD articles need a new rating system, they need to reated on historical significant/educational value and other worthy traits, not just on being 'FA'.--58.111.132.29 (talk) 07:29, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is as much as an encyclopedia on video games as it is on nuclear physics. We do not discriminate on fields of endeavor here. As an encyclopedia completely written by it's visitors, Wikipedia depends on people like you to contribute to articles. Complaining never is productive, in fact it is usually counterproductive. Masterhomer 07:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

'Wikipedia is as much as an encyclopedia on video games as it is on nuclear physics.' is a statement I agree with to the bottom of my heart. Any topic, no matter how esoteric, or maligned, or low interest, should be able to make front page. I am confused that a video game article is 'an embarrassment', why is this so? Because other articles are more worthy? Because of the lack of notability of said article? I do not understand why these are issues.Sigma83 (talk) 08:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The comment by 58.111.132.29 has swayed me over to that argument. He/She isn't "complaining" but proposing an outline for a new system, and giving reasons why that system is needed. Hear hear, I say--jwanders^Talk 07:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I fundamentally cannot agree that "Wikipedia should prevent itself from even allowing pages in areas that voters are biased towards" Who are you to say that your bias against a computer/video game article outweighs the bias of anyone else? That rationale violates the spirit of our Neutral Point of View policy. -- RoninBK _{T C} 08:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I would in fact go further than what I said above, and upon further examination and reflection say that Raul654 is responsible for the stagnation of the entire Featured Article process and consequently in part for the quality management and assessment of Wikipedia as a whole. His assumption of an unelected, uncontested, unmandated, and termless position of authority over the Featured Article and Today's Featured Article process, his total refusal until last November to delegate any of the process, and only delegating part of the Featured Article promotion job to a single appointed, and unreviewed, deputy, has directly led to a massive backlog in featured article candidates and the disrepute and disrepair of featured articles in general. We must demand better. NTK (talk) 08:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, it's one thing to say that Raul654 once promoted an allegedly flawed article to the main page, it's another thing entirely to accuse him of rampant neglect of duties and abuse of power. Exceptional claims require exceptional proof, and we're going to need more than this single incident to prove that. -- RoninBK _{T C} 09:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I find ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion an excellent and totally appropriate front page choice. The front page FA selection process should sample all aspects of Wikipedia, not just those areas covered in traditional encyclopedias. Video games are a major industry and an important social phenomenon that arguably deserves more public attention. The incident described in the front page article was a milestone in the industry's effort to self-regulate. This featured article demonstrates that our extensive coverage of video games is more than just a fan trivia collection. Raul654 should be commended for picking this article instead of the many safer choices no doubt available.--agr (talk) 10:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

As someone with absolutely no interest in videogames per se, I didn't expect much from this article. Instead I found it to be an intriguing and well-written discussion of how technology, sociology, and regulation intersect. Good choice for FA. Raymond Arritt (talk) 11:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Some very wonky arguments in here - forget Raul - should the position exist? if the position exists, where are the powers of the position outlined? what is the process of recall/alteration to the position outlined? I for a long time thought this position needs reforming because I feel the position is inherently at odd with the spirit of the project. So let's stick to talking position and less about person --Fredrick day (talk) 11:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I personally have to agree with NTK so far as I do not believe the article to be FA quality (and therefore not main-page quality) however that is the fault of the FAC process in this case, before Raul even go to the main page selection. Perhaps Raul might have seen that it wasn't FA, but then he might have believed it was, and presumably some people did because it underwent an FAC at some point, and whose to say my opinion on the quality of the article is more informed than theirs? I am very aware that we may be trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. SGGH ^speak! 11:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Following on from Frederick day's post, there are two issues here really. One is the job of promoting FAs, one which works perfectly well under the current system and which was effectively ratified in the delegation discussion recently. The other is designating the TFA which is an incredibly difficult job. There are so many competing interests for who wants the TFA on a given date. The alternative to having one person designating the TFA is a committee which would just descend into anarchy and squabbling. I think the system works well as it is and shouldn't be changed. I leave you with a quote from Churchill Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. It seems perfectly applicable here. The current system is the best we have and it works perfectly adequately. Woody (talk) 12:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there any reason why the director post could not becomes a "duty" position and rotates between two or three trusted editors who do a month or so at a time (or however we want to work it)? That way we build redundancy into the post and also get a mixture of Weltanschauung at the apex of the current process. --Fredrick day (talk) 12:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

But this is not democratic at all! Editors were never given an alternative to "let Raul pick it," everything now is flowing from a hasty straw poll on the talk page in 2004. It would be very easy to come up with consensus guidelines which prevent these kinds of extremely alienating pages from being on the front of Wikipedia. 66.234.51.139 (talk) 12:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

You say it's "not democratic at all" and you follow it with "come up with consensus guidelines which prevent these kinds of extremely alienating pages from being on the front". So you want the person who does the job to be democratically appointed to the position but that same democracy won't apply to the articles that person can choose from. - X201 (talk) 13:12, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not particularly useful to discuss the individual editor currently doing the posts because they just lends to shrill cries of "he does a great job!", "he's biased and should be removed". What is your suggestion to what should do with the position? should it be removed? if the position is removed, what replaces it? --Fredrick day (talk) 13:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Just a short note to say that as someone who spends most of my Wikipedia time involved in FAs, I have no problem with Raul654 or with the current process. I don't see a need to change Raul654's role or authority, or the TFA selection method, or the FA process. It all seems to be working reasonably well to me. Mike Christie (talk) 18:41, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

That's what I said but it in a less verbose manner. I always try and get Churchill in there somewhere! ;) Woody (talk) 18:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. I think this complaint by NTK is way too extreme. Recall of the Featured Article Director? For a FA you happened not to like? Even if some TFA is a bizarre choice, that doesn't mean the process of nominating articles for TFA is entirely wrong, or the policy must be revised. And as a matter of fact, I strongly disagree with NTK's opinion that this article was a mistake. I like the nature of TFA: regularly, I see a Featured Article that I would never have come across surfing Wikipedia, but which interests me nonetheless. Therefore, the fact that some people don't care about the re-rating of a video game (not a common event, mind you!) doesn't mean the choice was wrong. And to even propose the policy is broken... now that seems ridiculous to me! Andreas Willow (talk) 21:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this was a good choice for a main page article. It is my opinion that this is not primarily an article about a video game; it is an article about censorship - and is therefore of interest and relevance to everyone. BreathingMeat (talk) 02:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I also disagree that the FA process is broken -- at least in the way NTK believes. If anything, observing the choices that have appeared on the Front page over the last four years, IMHO the choices are more often worthy & substantial topics & less often some obscure niche subjects only -- well, er, yes -- a nerd would know or care about! -- llywrch (talk) 23:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Potential solutions?

It seems to me (from a quick glance) that the root problem is that we have relatively unimportant articles being selected to the front page, regardless of how they get there. I have a few ideas how I think we could solve this:

Assign an "importance" factor

During the FA process, what if each user voting also assigned a numeric value (too keep it simple, from 1-5 or so) to the article? Then we could have a bot randomly pick from our "top-importance" articles for the front page.

I think this should be done as part of the Featured nom process. It helps mitigate the brokenness that gets articles promoted to Featured with ~5 "support" votes. Tempshill (talk) 19:59, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

User-selected front page article

Instead of having just one person selecting an article, why not have a weekly poll? Any interested editor could add articles to running (within a predetermined submission window) and the top seven articles would then be our front page articles for the week. We could also use this as a filter to prevent multiple articles of the same genre (science, history, literature, geography etc.) appearing on the FP within a given week, to keep it diverse.

My apologies if either of these are already in use (the conversation above doesn't make it seem like it), but I'm fairly unfamiliar with the FP process. Oberiko (talk) 14:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Option 1 will create a cluster**** of various editors waging war against each other of how one article is important and the other is not. It might be easy to assign "important" to articles like electricity, but then what about articles that we have never heard in our lives but various other Wikipedia editors did so and believe they are indeed important?

It wouldn't be an agreement, but an individual vote. I.e. "Support 4". Yes, you would have die-hards who vote for something important to them as "5", but the overall would likely be fairly accurate.

There should definitely be an importance factor in deciding which article should be the featured article, which whoever chooses should have to adhere to. I'm sure some criteria could be drawn up. An article such today's should never be the featured article again. It's an embarrasment. Petepetepetepete (talk) 15:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Option 2 won't create any diversity, but a trend or bias since the same people would be voting on which articles get featured in the front page. It would be like having a court of conservative/liberal judges voting on the side of the issue that best fits their ideology. --BirdKr (talk) 14:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it would. Each article submitted could be assigned a pre-determined genre. I.e. "Article X: science" or "Article Z: other". Should two articles of the same genre be in the top-seven, we would then just take the higher of them. I'm sure we could incorporate rules or procedures of some kind to try and enforce diversity. Oberiko (talk) 15:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

But what's the role of the Director in either of those options? is he/she the administrator or the manager of the system? --Fredrick day (talk) 15:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you clarify the difference? In the first option, I don't think we'd need an administrator beyond someone to record the tally. In the second it would definitely help to have someone there to prune results which are to similar to recent FP entries (i.e., two battles from the same war / country).

an administrator would be there to manage the process and carry out the will of group X, a manager would have final say. --Fredrick day (talk) 17:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Both would benefit from having watch-dogs to prevent rallying (going to users talk pages and requesting that the user vote for something in particular) and Voting blocs. Oberiko (talk) 16:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Neither of these options is actually going to work. "Importance" is a completely subjective opinion. If an article is notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia and it has passed the FA process (meaning it is a quality article), then it should be considered for the main page. There is a page for people to request that certain articles be placed on certain days, and other users are encourage to !vote as to whether that choice will be kept. That gets pretty heated as well. You'll always have some wikiprojects vote-stacking to get their articles on the main page, and other people complaining that some articles aren't "important". There is no way to make everyone happy. Karanacs (talk) 18:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Let me start by depersonalizing my comments: this is not "about" Raul or the job he does, but about process. Suggestions for main-page inclusion in other modules are handled by the community: T:TDYK, WP:OTD, WP:ITN/C. Article candidates can be offered and discussion is open. However, WP:TFA/R restricts the discussion to five candidates in a 30-day window, provided that a specific date is requested. As of now, there is a six-day lead time in the queue, so any discussion is against a ticking clock. In addition, WP:TFA reinforces its nonconsensus process: The articles appearing on the main page are scheduled by...the ratified featured article director.... [The FAD] maintains a very small, unofficial list of featured articles that he [my emphasis] does not intend to appear on the main page. Therefore, a consensus ratification vote of 15 people (including himself) has set an unexpiring term for a nebulously defined role and no clear contingency plan. I feel the role is better suited as a Featured Article Coordinator/s (as administrator has different meaning here), sort of like a DJ at a radio station who follows a computer-generated playlist and occasionally plays a "request".—Twigboy (talk) 15:05, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

While I can see your point about a computer generated playlist, I think people will be more unhappy here. The recent dispatch showed the trends for FAs, and there are a lot more articles on video games than there are on topic that others consider more important. Raul does a good job of making sure that newly promoted articles on the core topics reach the main page quickly, but there aren't a lot of those. A truly random process would mean we'd see fewer articles on core topics and more on pop culture/video games. Karanacs (talk) 16:37, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I used the radio station playlist analogy (try not to think of a playlist on a personal media player) because it is not exactly random. When a radio station generates its playlist, it considers that the same artist would not repeat in a certain span of time. It also weights certain genre (perhaps newer music over old releases) in its selection. The formula for weighing selections may also be tweaked by the program director from time to time to account for trends. Therefore, if the community expresses the need for more academic, less pop culture TFAs, then that can be programmed, based on FA categories. All that said, the playlist generator does not remove the need for human intervention. Common sense needs to prevail, as no computer can accomplish that, just as a human cannot be a randomizer.—Twigboy (talk) 17:44, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Isn't that a pretty good description of how it works now? Raul uses community input on the TFA request page to set up the playlist, and uses his judgement to avoid topic repeats and so forth, in the same way you describe. Mike Christie (talk) 17:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

That makes him the gatekeeper rather than a facilitator downstream in the process.—Twigboy (talk) 18:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

proposal 3: rating for being well-written, not for its importance

Featured articles are chosen by the factor of them being well-written, so the ones featured on the main page should be the ones that are best written. Please don't add any alien factor like "importance" to a decision that is based on writing style P.D.: It's not about important articles, but about well-written articles. If you want important articles, then remove the featured article of the day section, since it's not based on importance --Enric Naval (talk) 17:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Part of the Featured article criteria is that an article be well-written. If articles are being promoted that are not well-written it is because there are not enough reviewers actually looking for that. It's very difficult to attract reviewers to WP:FAC, and that means that sometimes articles get promoted that maybe aren't quite ready because the people who reviewed them weren't as in-depth or had differing opinions on whether it was well-written. The solutions to this problem? a) help out in the FAC process or b) nominate articles that don't meet the criteria for featured article review. Karanacs (talk) 18:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Today's article was junk - we need a better balance at FAC. Not every day should be Mozart or Swahili, but stuff like this should be excluded by process. This is not about recalling Raul who does a good job. It is, as noted at the way top of this discussion about tweaking FA standards so that we aspire in FAs to something more. This kind of crap opens us up to mockery & derision. In fact, it is almost a self-writing Onion headline. We can do better than this, surely. Eusebeus (talk) 18:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is lots of people want to write video game articles and bring them up to FA status, and fewer people want to write articles about "more important" topics and bring them to FA. How can you draw the line on topic without offending a group of people who really are interested in that topic? Karanacs (talk) 18:41, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Why junk? Was it badly written? If it's a featured article then we should look only at how well written it is --Enric Naval (talk) 18:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems well-written and comprehensive to me and that is the FA threshold on wikipedia. As to the "important" articles, it is a matter of the systematic bias that afflicts Wikipedia. See the dispatches article on it in the Signpost. To all those complaining about a lack of an "important" article on the front page, start writing an article, get it reviewed, get a gold star and get in the queue. Woody (talk) 18:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Here is my little anecdote about featured articles. I am a doctor working daily with cancer and I think Cancer is the best article I've read on Wikipedia. A while ago, I noticed that Cancer was not a featured article, so I listed it as a candidate. SandyGeorgia answered that we needed to reformat the references and fix our style of writing. Seriously. Here we are a bunch of doctors volunteering countless unpaid hours and we are told to put in many more hours moving commas and hyphens just so we get a little bronze star. I essentially sent them to hell. My conclusion from this : criterias for featured articles place too much emphasis on format, not enough on content. Emmanuelm (talk) 19:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I certainly think that used to be the case in places. I would be happy to help you do all the wikipedia formatting stuff if you need it, as would anyone at Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers or WT:FAC#FAC help volunteers. I know you had no way of knowing this at the time. Whilst FACs do concentrate on content, we also have to make sure it meets all of its manual of style obligations. Woody (talk) 19:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, Woody, thanks for the offer. By the way, I do not own Cancer. If you think the subject is worth the effort (like, who cares about cancer, right?) and are willing to help us, please announce it in the talk page and go at it! We'll be there to make sure you do not write something unscientific. Emmanuelm (talk) 15:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

There are two distinct issues. The granting of the bronze star is one thing, and then the elevation to the main page is another. If you read carefully here, you'll find that it is the latter detail that is the root cause of most of the consternation today, and the general position appears to be that an article being an FA is not automatic, unquestioned, access to the main page. I find great merit with this, and I suspect that everyone else does too, or else there would be no need for any person in the main-page FA selection process as any random number generator would do. mdf (talk) 20:35, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I would have to disagree on this issue. When Fighting in ice hockey made the main page, there were some complaints about it as well (see the talk page), but what articles like these show is that Wikipedia has articles on an incredibly broad range of topics, and that even the more obscure topics can be covered at the highest levels. Yeah, this specific article is a goofy one to put on the main page, but this fact alone is one of Wikipedia's main selling points, imnsho. Its fair to discuss how the process and Raul's role could be improved upon, but honestly, I think we should leave the "OMG! I hate that article selection" argument at the door. 365 main page FA's a year. They can't, and shouldn't, all be about traditional encyclopedia topics. Resolute 02:53, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you disagree with, so I'll re-state what I said.

If an article's FA status is the access card to the main page, then this should be written as policy, along with the specification of a random number generator used to pick the daily FA from the set of FA's (I'll leave it to you to imagine the bureaucratic simplifications and overt drama-reduction this would entail as well; also note that this option also includes the potential for a "goofiness factor").

If, however, some set of people is to make a choice as to which member of the set of FA's is to appear on the main page on a given day, then I don't see why this process, and the people associated with it, can't be open to criticism, even extreme criticism, when it/they make a blatantly poor editorial decision.

I read this entire debate as an example of a virtually unanimous consensus for the latter position. So, with that, I find it unremarkable that the opening shots of a critique are going to be something like what happened yesterday. To paraphrase them, "The ESRB vs. Oblivion article was a patently sucky choice for the main page, regardless of whatever merits are intrinsic to the article proper. We need to fix the process to prevent this kind of editorial monstrosity from ever recurring."

Now, I find myself siding heavily with the consensus here in that some humans ought to be in the loop. This because a "main-page featured article", in addition to the usual FA requirements, should also be excessively notable -- the entire point is to direct traffic to the article, is it not? To engage the editor, to encourage edits? An article on a low-grade random media clusterfuck from 2 years ago just doesn't cut it, at least in my feeble opinion (and apparently many others). Especially one where, during its FA approval process, one supporter was "impressed" so much could be found on such a "narrow" topic, and (quite reasonably!) didn't feel it likely any further material could be added. Was there truly no other alternative? mdf (talk) 13:39, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I think there are two issues with your statement. Part of the point of an article being on the main page is to reward the editors who work very hard to create/improve really well-done articles. It's not just to drive traffic. Even if it were, an encyclopedia is also supposed to help broaden people's minds to information they might not have been exposed to, so that means any well-done article (as WP define in the FA process) should be eligible. The other problem is the issue with "excessively notable". Who is supposed to define that? I'm very interested in reading and writing articles on the history of Texas, but people in Europe (and most likely those in the other 49 US states) probably won't think that is "excessively notable." I'm totally bored by articles on soccer, so does that mean we should never put an article on the World Cup on the main page? Different people are interested in different things, and there are a LOT of people interested in video games who frequent WP. While I don't personally like those articles, that doesn't give me the right to prevent those who do from enjoying them on the main page. Karanacs (talk) 16:34, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

As I said, if FA status is the one and only key to the main page, then what other choice is there but to shutdown the entire teetering apparatus of TFA selection replace it all with a few lines of code? A simple position, and certainly releases several people from a number of onerous burdens, but one I believe would put the encyclopedia in a state of disrepute on a regular basis.

As for the reward argument: my guess is that people are going for FA status, not the TFA one. But this is my particular bias, having had a few of my images on the main page and observed the resulting shots fired against the linked article. You should canvas them to make sure, but I suspect many would rather not their hard work not be held up before thousands of vandals, or be forced to defend their substantial efforts from brutalization.

Finally, the bit about "excessive notability" isn't difficult to define: there should at least be hundreds of citeable sources. We don't need to cite them all, but they do need to exist. And not web-sources either, nor main-stream news media sources. To suggest a few: books, monthly magazines, academic journals, even, dare I say it, other encyclopedias. Consider yesterday's joke in this context: every last reference there is to a gaming (!) website or the ESRB, and number a grand total of 23. And that is going to be about all you will ever find on that subject. Compare this to an excellent TFA possibility: asteroid belt. That article has 77 references, and I can tell you there are literally tens of thousands of others not cited there. Best of all, there is no incipient shortage of subjects or articles that would easily pass this test. For example, the history of Texas, or even the World Cup. mdf (talk) 20:15, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess I could have worded that a lot better. I wasn't disagreeing with anything you said. I meant to say I disagree with the arguments that the article selection for the main page is an issue. The Oblivion Scroll article is certainly not what one would expect to see on the main page, but that shouldn't disqualify it from consideration. Frankly, I see this entire debate being spawned by an WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument. If editors go through the process of bringing a relatively obscure topic up to featured status, I see no reason at all why it should not be a candidate for the main page. What I was trying to say was that if we want to debate how the duties Raul performs are handled, thats well and good, but the "I don't like what goes on the main page" half of this argument is only going to detract from debating more important issues, imo. Resolute 17:39, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Why on earth should we premiere FAing of obscure content when there is absolutely no lack of it? Obscure topics already have so much going for them on Wikipedia. If anything, they're extremely comfortable topics that have few or no controversies and little general interest. I don't like the argument that TFA is merely some kind of editor award, but I like it even less when it's implied that stuff like individual episodes of Family Guy or minor characters in any random number of Stargate TV-shows are great encyclopedic feats. If we're supposed to encourage editors, we should focus on featuring reasonably notable topics with good overall relevance to the general public, because those topics are the ones that require the most effort to bring to FA level.

Peter ^Isotalo 06:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

you coulndn't be more right Peter. There needs to be a higher threshold of notability for the featured article. Personally, I can't understand why that was an article in it's own right at all and not just a couple of lines in a page on computer game censorship or something, after so many people thought likewise in the articles AfD, which it only rather narrowly survived, how it ended up as the featured article is beyond belief. Petepetepetepete (talk) 08:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

proposal 4: a single mistake does not require a change in process

OK, by any definition of importance, the change in rating of a video game is pretty unimportant. There are widespread complaints about too many video game FAs on the main page. And if we are going to feature a video game, there are people at WP:TFA/R who should be given first consideration.

So let's say Raul made a mistake.

Now, how did we segue from a single mistake to these wild claims about a broken process? FAC is not backlogged, given Sandy's work. The FAs are not in disrepute and they are not in decline (promotions are increasing by 30% a year). Finally, the TFAs have been consistently well-balanced, considering the pool we're working with.

Lots of smoke here, but I don't see a fire. Marskell (talk) 18:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Didn't we just have a fairly serious attempt at discussing the possible over-representation of video game articles on the main page over at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests? There was plenty of high-pitched arguing, but there were also some pretty decent attempts formulate questions relevant to why video games should be treated as though the topic was equal to any other random topic (whether it be biology or phonetics). There was not one single serious attempt to answer any of the pertinent questions. I find the suggestions for recall highly inappropriate, but I do think Raul made a very poor choice in this case. With the recent video game debate in mind, this selection seems almost like a needlessly high-handed argument in that debate, even if it might not have been the intention.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. I had not seen this discussion until you had told me about it. It does not strengthen Raul's case to learn that the ESRB Rating article was promoted while this discussion was ongoing. I think that the Chrono Trigger article would be a much stronger choice for promotion than the ESRB one. -- RoninBK _{T C} 12:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this point, and aside from this, my point in "recalling" (probably a bad choice of word on my part) Raul was not to "punish" him for a single mistake (although I don't think it is a single mistake) but to give Wikipedians a first chance at defining the position and choosing the person to be in it. Raul deserves a lot of credit for his early and continuing hard work on creating Featured Articles, which I perhaps did not convey, but he used this to ascend to what is perhaps one of the single most powerful editorial positions at Wikipedia without any term, without defining its boundaries, and without ever having been vetted or any other candidates being presented. Even if he had been doing a perfect job, I think that would be sufficient reason after such a long time to reform the process and give people an option. Egregious breaches like this one only make it more urgent. NTK (talk) 19:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Geez, NTK, why don't you present yourself for the position, since you seem to know so well what should and what shouldn't go on the front page? No other candidates have ever been presented because none has presented himself, not because someone prevented candidates from asking for the position, you know. Hell, you even know what represents an "egregious breach" for something that doesn't even have a set of rules for defining a breach. And you don't even think that it was his first mistake, you must have been following his work and making note of his mistakes (what sort of mistake did he do, by the way, and by what rules?). Seriously, just go yourself for the position or find someone else that can replace Raul. And why do you say that he "used this" to "ascend" to a powerful editorial position. "This" is his "early and continuing hard work", and it wasn't "used" by him to reach the position, he was named by others because of it, and no one else did that work, who were they supossed to put instead?. Really, your arguments don't convince me at all, and I don't find them constructive. If you want to change the process then propose viable alternatives instead of making veiled accussations against raul and general undefined complaints against mistakes you don't specify, ok? --Enric Naval (talk) 20:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I did present multiple clear alternatives and, your sarcasm aside, I would in fact volunteer myself for the position if nobody else would, although I don't think there haven't been other candidates because nobody is willing but because there was never an opportunity for other candidates to be presented. Raul was "ratified" on the Featured Article talk page 3.5 years ago by a handful of editors and that was it. That may be "inertia" at work but that is certainly not "consensus." NTK (talk) 21:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

proposal 5: The position becomes a duty role

Based on my comments above, as an interim step - is there any reason why the position of director couldn't become a duty role fulfilled by 3 or 4 (very) trusted editors on a rotating basis - thus building in redundancy to the organisational process and variability to the selection without dis-stabilising the current set-up? --Fredrick day (talk) 19:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I rather like this one. While it does require we find some highly trusted editors, it definitly has KISS working in its favor. Oberiko (talk) 19:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

While it does require we find some highly trusted editors - surely we can rustle up 3 or more editors that a) have the type of experience we want, b) want to do it and c) meet the approval of the community. If we can't, we've got a far bigger problem :) --Fredrick day (talk) 19:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Given that a problem has not been clearly articulated, I'm not sure what this solution will accomplish. Marskell (talk) 19:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

It will ensure that those who fancy having a go at the job get a chance and that redundancy and variability is built into the role. Is there some inherent problem with other members of the community taking a turn at this role or are we saying there is some particular reason it has to be one person until they have decided they had enough/die? If I wanted to have a go at the role, what is the reason currently that I cannot? --Fredrick day (talk) 19:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

That the process continues to move smoothly is the only real priority. (We're not a democracy for a reason.) FAC is not backlogged—just the opposite. Sandy is closing virtually all of them anyway now; adding extra people for the sake of adding extra people is a solution in search of a problem. I would not be opposed to a page detailing the current understanding of responsibilities, however. Marskell (talk) 20:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

So what is the current process for me to stand for the post? --Fredrick day (talk) 21:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Right now, it is based on participation. Those who actively participate in the Featured content processes get "promoted" to more power. SandyGeorgia was recently promoted to be Raul's delegate for closing FACs, because she was commenting on almost every single FAC out there. Those who prove that they are interested in and understand the process get the ability to do more things. Those who don't participate really don't deserve the job. Karanacs (talk) 22:38, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

promoted by who? how? --Fredrick day (talk) 22:50, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Well, Fredrick day, since you've not been seen participating at FAC, it's hard to understand what would qualify you to understand the job. In fact, most of the people criticizing today's FA have rarely been seen at FAC, which says ... something. If editors feel that articles are getting through FAC that shouldn't, those editors should be in there, understanding the standards, understanding WP:WIAFA and doing the thankless reviewing (as for example, Karanacs and Woody do). Criticizing Raul when you've never walked in those shoes is ... interesting. And I disagree with Karanacs' use of the word power; if we call it power, I had far more of that when I had the power to Oppose articles that didn't meet criteria. I also got a lot more chocolates. Bottom line is, FAC is a community process, and it's curious that anyone who isn't helping and isn't reviewing should be criticizing what gets promoted, since Wiki works on consensus. Why would we dilute volunteers even further by having multiple people do what Raul already does just fine? (ec) By who? By regular FAC participants, who know what the "job" entails and who's been there long enough to understand every aspect. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Please READ my comments on this matter and in particular my comments about Raul (ie the total lack of them ) and then retract your comment about Criticizing Raul or I will ask for you to blocked for misrepresenting a) my comments and b) my proposal. I am good faith editor interested in a) how the process currently runs and b) is their scope for improvement? I am not interested in a witchhunt - lots of other editors are - but that's not my problem. Have I asked for him to be replaced? no Have I asked for anything to happen? no. Am I having a conversation on a policy page with other good faith editors? yes I am. Will I continue to do so? yes. The "how would I get elected" comment is because I am trying to find out more about the process, let me make this clear - I have no interest in doing the job, my temperament is entirely unsuitable for the job. That does not mean as a good faith editor I cannot ask about positions or processes that I perceive (and maybe will not at the end of this process) as not being entirely in line with the spirit of the community. Attack my proposal, attack my understanding of what goes on but don't attack me as an editor because it's uncalled for and is the sort of tactic that you are accusing other people of. --Fredrick day (talk) 23:06, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Please read my comments. I'm sorry you seem to have overinterpreted my "you" to the individual "you" instead of the global "you". Raul is being criticized by people on this thread; please don't take it personally, because you're not the only person participating on this thread. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

My apologies if I've over-reacted. I entirely understand that it must be difficult to deal with the constant trolling and the like that Raul's role but let's me clear about this - I'm actually not bothered that it's Raul that doing the job and from what I can see he's done an excellent job, it's the position I'm interested in - I think the nature of it is inherently against the spirit of the community and that's why I have been trying to tease out here. People can disagree with me (and many do strongly) but as best as possible, I'd like to keep this about the role not about the person fulfilling the role. --Fredrick day (talk) 23:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

No problem, thanks, and I'm sorry if it seemed personal :-) I'll let others explain the dangers of the breakdown that could occur if more than one person did the task Raul does. It's been covered many times, ad nauseum, on many forums, but perhaps I'm not the best person to explain. The simplest summary is Marskell's; until a problem is identified, we don't need a solution. One article that a few (very few, actually) editors don't like, when none of those editors participate in or took the time to oppose the article at FAC, is not a problem looking for a solution. The solution is simple: anyone who isn't happy about what they see on the main page can get active at WP:FAC or WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Well I think the first think I need to do is take an active role in FAC and see if this changes my views on the position. then in a while think a bit more if I want to make this an actual proposal. Does that seem fair? Regards --Fredrick day (talk) 23:32, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Nothing would please most FAC and FAR regulars more than more knowledgeable reviewers: here's a response I recently gave someone wanting to get involved, explaining the best way to get started. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC) Also, you might want to transclude the FAC urgents list to your talk page; I regularly update the FACs most in need of additional review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:39, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

em.. sure I'll em.. transclude it with the em..phase invertor? (hint: can someone do it for me or tell me what to do?) --Fredrick day (talk) 23:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

It's on my talk page; just do what I did :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:46, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Missing the point

I hate to say this, having read only the beginning of the discussion, a lot of people seem to be missing the point. Raul does not choose feature articles. Featured articles are decided by an existing process, completely community driven. If you think an article shouldn't have been a featured article then you are perfectly entitled to put it thru FAR (after it is on the main page). Indeed if you think things are bad enough you are welcome to put thru an emergency motion to Raul to schedule something else in it's place before it gets on the main page. If you don't want 'crap' articles to be featured articles in the first place then you should take part in the existing community driven process. Don't complain that only 3 editors pushed thru a featured article. Complain that you, and everyone else didn't take part in the discussion which made it a featured article in the first place. The simple fact is we are still only producing featured articles at a very slow rate and there is no reason why you can't be more involved in the featured article process perhaps even taking part in every discussion. If the existing process isn't working, then replacing Raul, making TFA community driven or whatever other oftrepeaten but flawed ideas are not going to help anything since clearly it isn't Raul that is the problem but the fact that the community is allowing unworthy articles to be FA (if that is really the case). Indeed it would be a major mistake for Raul to independently decide 'this article isn't really FA worthy' so I won't TFA it, if the community have decided it's a FA then Raul too has to go thru the community process to delist a FA. Nil Einne (talk) 14:25, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The queue to get on the mainpage is hundreds of articles long and is growing rapidly. With one TFA per day there has to be a selection that is based on something other than just FA status or we'd wind up with an obvious systemic bias on the main page. Raul does a pretty good job of that, but he's not merely a randomizer.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

It's important to remember that a lot of those in the queue may no longer meet current standards. From 2006 on, I left my FAs on the long-term request page, and they never made it because they deteriorated with time and I did not keep them up to snuff. An embarrassing lot of FAs are like that, so I hope there isn't any stigma with putting one up for FAR. It can only help an article (unless it's done with stupid bias, ulterior motives, or for argumentative, spiteful reasons). That said, putting something up for FAR because it is "too obscure" is an hilarious notion. In a way, I am happy that the featuring of (gasp) a video game article has caused such a bitch storm. Now the issue can come to a boiling point and something can be done so one of the most FA-rich WikiProjects doesn't feel like a second class group of Wikipedians when we try to promote our hard work. ZeaLitY [ DREAM - REFLECT ] 23:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree with NTK

The featured article process is so opaque and, at times, arbitary, that it's a complete waste of time contributing to it. Unlike complex AfDs, featured article discussion outcomes never have any sort of 'summing up', so we can never find out who's arguments swung who, or if the arguments were examined at all. In fact, it's done by a bot. Case in point, 300 (film) was promoted on the back of a discussion with 5 supports and 5 opposes, with the support coming from those who'd worked on the article.

A review was started for the featured article which started this off, ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but this has now been closed and archived after a single day of discussion. By a bot. I suppose I could go around, cap in hand, and beg for information on who was controlling Gimmebot and why they closed the discussion, but really, I should not have to. Such institutionalised secrecy is unacceptable.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The bots don't close the discussions and this is not hidden: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/archiving with the delegates being User:Joelr31 and User:Marskell. You can see who removed the FAR in the page history and this is clearly stated in the FAC instructions. Woody (talk) 11:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Having to inspect the FAR page history to discover closer identities and justifications is obscurantist and user-unfriendly. Why can't they just sign the discussions and give a short justification, like admins do for AfDs? That way, it would be easier to identify and challenge bad decisions.--Nydas^(Talk) 13:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOT#MYSPACE

• Template:The First Signer of Guestbook Barnstar
• Template:AlcheMister barnstar

I would like to start a centralised discussion about this issue. I know that people often comment to the effect of "harmless", "builds community spirit" etcpp. I personally think that it's crap and should be deleted, with the positive side effect of possibly alienating one or two idiots who are only here to play the hidden page/link game or maintain their guestbooks. And I do think this is really one big issue. And awarding barnstars for such stuff is just outrageous. Imo. Comments? Dorftrottel (warn) 17:35, March 5, 2008

Agreed, both look like good candidates for speedy deletes. Oberiko (talk) 17:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I've been mildly disgusted by these for a while. Wikipedia isn't a game. Karanacs (talk) 18:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I've moved the second template to User:AlcheMister/AlcheMister barnstar, but neither are even remotely close to meeting a speedy deletion criteria. Mr.Z-man 18:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The first one should also be userfied. --SMS ^Talk 18:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

If the social material promotes a sense of well-being and community spirit which fosters article writing, then I am all for it. Not sure, are any folks who've given these ones been those who do article writing? [[::User:Casliber|Casliber]] ([[::User talk:Casliber|talk]] · [[::Special:Contributions/Casliber|contribs]]) 06:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed solution: Create class of users that can have social networking content

Here is my proposed solution to this issue. Establish two classes of users:

• Class 1: Your userpage is restricted to Wikipedia-related content; no social networking MYSPACEy or blogging-type stuff allowed. But you get no advertisements.
• Class 2: You get a quota (e.g. 10 MB of space) to have all your images, subpages, etc. and you can do pretty much whatever you want (except copyvios, personal attacks, etc.) but any non-Wikipedia-related subpages will need to have Google-style text-based advertising on them. This will provide revenue to support traffic to these pages. We might even have a separate namespace for this type of content.

Everyone would start out in Class 1. You can upgrade to Class 2 at any time. To go back to Class 1, you need to get rid of your social networking stuff first. Actually, now that I think about it, we probably don't even need to have classes – just have a rule that any social networking-type subpages need to have the ads.

I'm sure we can find a compromise that accommodates everyone. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 21:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

• Why would we do that? The single largest cost to the Wikipedia Foundation is the technical costs - server resources and bandwidth. The community rejected advertising ages ago. If you want a MySpace profile, then why not try MySpace? Guy (Help!) 14:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
• Hell no, for the exact same reasoning is Guy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not a social networking site. Go register on Facebook if you want to network socially. Resolute 14:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
• "Social networking" of a sort is inevitable, but it should ultimately be about wikipedia. In short, it should be the same rules as now. There's already a fair amount of latitude in personalizing user pages. Status quo seems to work fine. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:34, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
• I see no need for encyclopedia users to downgrade to a Class 2 user. There are other sites for that. If WF wants to create a separate site as a fund raising tool, that's fine and good luck. -- SEWilco (talk) 14:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
• Completely undermines WP:NOT - It would need to be fundamentally re-written. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 19:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

oppose - this is an encyclopaedia, anyone who fails to understand this after a couple of polite warning should be asked to leave. Why on earth would we voluntary want to fill up our servers with that type of crap? --Fredrick day (talk) 19:41, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Reply I agree that WP:NOT would need to be fundamentally rewritten, and I advocate that it be. And I'll use an example to illustrate why community-building content is important. Some people might say also that playing chess is a waste of server resources. But guess what, while I'm watching my watchlist to see if my opponent has moved, I'm also checking everything else, and if someone vandalizes one of my pages, I'll spot it. Or if someone responds to a discussion, I can reply to them, and we make progress faster. And rapport is built with other users, which in many cases leads to collaboration on encyclopedic subjects. So indirectly, the chess improves the quality of the encyclopedia. If I were over at Yahoo Chess doing that, then Wikipedia would not be getting those benefits. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 22:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Oppose Absolutely not. This is an encyclopedia. GlassCobra 20:13, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia has enough participation and man-hours already, and our priority is no longer to increase those numbers. But even disregarding that, the goal is to get and keep the right kind of people. If people come here so that they can play chess, there's a big question mark as to whether or not they'll ever be interested in writing an encyclopedia -- they could just as well play chess all day and waste resources. Whereas if we're purely just a big ol' boring encyclopedia, and people still come here nevertheless, the chances that our participants are interested in contributing increase significantly. Equazcion •✗/C • 22:23, 13 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm not at all clear on what problem this is intended to solve. Frankly, I think there's already a consensus that active, productive editors are allowed some leeway on the NOTMYSPACE thing, so I don't see a problem there. I don't think we want unproductive editors using Wikipedia as MySpace, whether or not there are associated ad revenues. Where's the problem? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 22:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

What about what happened to Vintei's shop? That guy was active and productive. Some people might specialize in the fun stuff and be a positive community-building influence. Kinda like how in our society, we have circus performers. Some people might say, Hey, these guys are not doing something productive. Oh, but they are. People who are employed doing other stuff can enjoy the carnival, and in fact the ability to spend money on fun stuff is part of the incentive to work.

But obviously people will say, "Well, if a user wants to only specialize in fun (community-building) stuff here, then take it off wiki." That's kinda like state governments that say, "We know we can't stop our citizens from gambling, but nonetheless, we don't want the casinos within our state lines." As long as they're going to do it anyway, wouldn't you want to be the ones to collect the tax revenues? If Vintei's stuff is going to make people happier here, and want to hang out more on Wikipedia, checking their watchlists and whatnot, then awesome. It doesn't matter whether he himself gets involved in building articles, etc.; he helps that happen indirectly.

We thrashed the community-building issues out on the MfD for Vintei's shop and many other places. But I think at this point, I've run out of arguments because it's just a battle of WP:EM vs. WP:NOT (as it currently stands) and we know which one is the trump card. By the way, I think the whole concept of "Wikipedia is an ENCYCLOPEDIA, NOT... (long string of things)" is somewhat fallacious because one could also argue, "Wikipedia is an ENCYCLOPEDIA, NOT a place for discussing encyclopedia policy," and vote to delete Village Pump. One might argue, "But the Village Pump, while it itself is not part of the encyclopedia, and attracts editor-hours that might otherwise be spent creating articles, it also indirectly helps the community and thus the article-creation process." Exactly – and that same argument could be used for keeping a lot of the MySpace-type stuff. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 23:12, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

You're mistaking Wikipedia for the real world, or a society unto itself, in need of representation from all facets of an actual society, which we're not. We have a focused concern that is itself a part of the world. If a bunch of encyclopedia writers showed up at the circus tent demanding equal time, they'd likewise be told to get lost, 'cause that's not what circuses are for. We have our role and they have theirs. Equazcion •✗/C • 23:17, 13 Mar 2008 (UTC)

You may be missing my point. Here's an example that might be more apropos. I had a teacher who said that when she was in the corporate world, they appointed her the Vice President of Fun. Her job, apparently, was to figure out community-building stuff for the company to do. One might argue, that type of position is worthless; why not dispense with it? Apparently, they found it useful enough to keep. Similarly, we might have some users whose role is just to work on community-building stuff. If it helps bring in/retain editors, then it can be just as useful as someone who does stub-sorting, FA reviews, etc. We need all these specialists, including those who specialize in fun stuff. 1 Corinthians 12:17: "If the whole body [were] an eye, where [were] the hearing? If the whole [were] hearing, where [were] the smelling?" Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 01:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not missing your point. I'm disagreeing with you, like everyone else here. You need to re-read my reply from earlier above, that starts with "I think Wikipedia has enough participation and man-hours already, and our priority is no longer to increase those numbers..." as that paragraph answer these points you're making again for the second or third time. I completely understand your reasoning. I'm just saying you're wrong. This would not help us. Equazcion •✗/C • 02:08, 14 Mar 2008 (UTC)

OK, just making sure. The idea that Wikipedia has "enough" participation and man-hours is laughable. If there were, there wouldn't be gaping voids in the encylopedia's coverage. It's like saying that a company makes "enough" money or a charity feeds "enough" hungry people. That's only true if you reduce the scope of what you want to accomplish and arbitrarily set the bar at something less than its full potential. We haven't even covered the vital articles sufficiently. And guess what, it's the community's fault for driving people way with its wrongheaded, counterproductive philosophies that are often the antithesis of Wikipedia:Editors matter and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a community. It's rather telling that both of those are essays at this point, rather than guidelines. They represent a minority view, unfortunately. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 16:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The idea that Wikipedia has enough man-hours is entirely justified and not contradicted by gaps in coverage. The gaps are generally the more uninteresting topics. The popular ones are always covered, and more people does not equal coverage of the uninteresting or unpopular -- because these are still people, and if you tell people they're free to work on whatever they want to, they most assuredly won't pick the boring stuff. So your logic is pretty laughable there. And guess what, it's not anyone's "fault" but Jimbo's for creating an encyclopedia written freely by people. And that's if it indeed is a "fault", which it isn't. Your conclusions are contrived according to the point you're trying to make, which masks any actual merit your point might have. Which is a shame, because it may have some. You're just not making any sense. Equazcion •✗/C • 10:07, 15 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Could it be that certain subjects that people are interested in aren't necessary ones that attract people to write on them for no remuneration? To take another real world example, there are some people who like to both play computer games and write the code; in fact, a lot of people will do it for free, as evidenced by all the freeware out there. And then you have fields like fast food, which a lot of people want to eat; but few people will volunteer to serve behind the counter at Burger World for no pay. Some of those vital articles are like that. The need for them has been recognized and they've been on the list for awhile (much like Top-Importance articles in certain WikiProjects that have made little progress), but most people don't feel like working on them. Now, if you throw a little compensation in there, maybe. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 22:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

It's a little far-fetched to think people will consider themselves compensated. The scenario would have to be one where according your model, people are attracted to the site possibly for the social aspect, and then see articles (on boring things) that need attention -- and they, what, start working on them because they figure Wikipedia does so much for them already, allowing myspace content and all, so they feel compelled to write about those topics? Like, compensation before the fact? It's not very likely that would be much of a motivator. Except where a legal obligation exists, people generally work to get compensation, they don't work because they've already been compensated. Not that the allowance of myspace content would even be considered any kind of reward to anyone, no matter when in this scheme they would receive it. Equazcion •✗/C • 01:56, 16 Mar 2008 (UTC)

This is sort of already done. See: Wikia. They use adverts to cover the costs. --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

no they use ads to generate revenue and make a profit - the intention in no way, shape or or form is to 'cover costs'. --Fredrick day (talk) 22:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I admit I'm very green. I've only been running a company for approximately a year now. Making a profit doesn't cover your costs imply your costs are already covered? --Kim Bruning (talk) 01:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC) I may need to call my accountant again...

Profit is what's left after you've covered your costs. So you're both wrong. Ads cover the costs and make them a profit. Equazcion •✗/C • 01:23, 14 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Oops. A bit too fast with the humorous reply there... --Kim Bruning (talk) 01:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Got to watch out for that "sense of humor," Kim. How are others to know you aren't mocking them? Making fun of their serious comments. Sarcastically demeaning their lack of real business experience. Etc. Of course, you wouldn't do that. Sophisticated incivility: hold up a mirror. "Trolling," it will be called.--Abd (talk) 02:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Mmmm I didn't find Kim's comment trolly... I think most people knew it was humor... lighten up dude... Equazcion •✗/C • 02:37, 14 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Kinda backfired, didn't it? :-P Oh well, live and learn -- Brown Paper Bag 02:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

sorry I've only run for-profit business for over 40 years, so I'm afraid I miss gags from people who've only done it for less than five years (or bankrupts as we call them in the business) ;-) --Fredrick day 02:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, this is supposed to be a solution, but... what's the problem that its trying to solve? Also, ads on a handful of userpages wouldn't make much money, especially since they'd probably be fairly random. And 10MB of space is fairly pointless, even if the final total is 10MB, there might be 1000MB in old revisions to get to the final pages. Mr.Z-man 02:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The web hosting costs for myspace-type content on people's userpages is also negligible, but I think people object to hosting it because the principle of the thing. The advertising is more symbolic than anything. I'm just throwing out ideas in an attempt to reconcile the two concerns of not wanting to be people's free web host, and people wanting to have that content. Do you have any ideas, or is it going to be that old standby, "What we have now works fine"? That seems to be the "rough consensus" of those who haven't already left in disgust over how things work here. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 16:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia. Aside from the resource consumption issue, the reason for not allowing myspace-type content is that we don't want to encourage a change in focus. People serious about writing an encyclopedia may not want to deal with people who come here to chat with their friends and play games -- and it's the serious people who will be the most valuable toward our goal. Again, if we know everyone who comes here is coming as a result of seeing purely an encyclopedia, then we know to some degree certain things about what they'll be doing here. Your "manager of fun" example doesn't apply to Wikipedia -- Corporate employees are stuck at the workplace all day and benefit from having fun things specifically made available to them through the company. Wikipedia is a website you access from wherever you happen to be for as long as you want. You're not "stuck" within the Wikipedia website for an 8-hour day, and if nothing fun happens on Wikipedia, you simply have no fun for 8 hours. If Wikipedians want to participate in mysapce-type acticities while at Wikipedia, guess what? They can. Simply open two browsers. You seem think there are only two types of users, those who "left in disgust" and those who believe in keeping things as archaic as possible. That's pure conjecture. You're inventing a "problem" that needs to be "solved" based on the disgruntled people who left. For any given institution, especially one as large as Wikipedia, there will be plenty of ex-members who feel that their departure was caused by something being "wrong". Why would you base your attitude on them? They're not more objective just because they're now outside the system. In fact they're less so, because they were members, and only the ones who've had bad experiences. You're basically coming at this from an entirely unbalanced perspective. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:58, 15 Mar 2008 (UTC)

The community is opposed to myspace-y content and ads, so the solution to a problem invented by people who are no longer here is to combine them? Ads on a few userpages would still have a negative effect on the part of the community that is opposed to ads, with minimal benefit (revenue). Mr.Z-man 22:54, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:OR, WP:SYN in presentation of numeric and algebraic information

I have been on WP for a while, and in that time I have noticed a fair amount of confusion and disagreement about WP:OR, WP:SYN and related issues for numeric information, numeric data, algebraic formulae, calculations, graphs, charts, tables, etc.

However, I was under the impression that simple calculations like converting fractions into percentages for comparison with other percentages is permissable. For example, from Wikipedia:Attribution#What_is_not_original_research.3F:

Editors may make straightforward mathematical calculations or logical deductions based on fully attributed data that neither change the significance of the data nor require additional assumptions beyond what is in the source. It should be possible for any reader without specialist knowledge to understand the deductions. For example, if a published source gives the numbers of votes cast in an election by candidate, it is not original research to include percentages alongside the numbers, so long as it is a simple calculation and the vote counts all come from the same source. Deductions of this nature should not be made if they serve to advance a position, or if they are based on source material published about a topic other than the one at hand.

Nevertheless, I see this results in never ending fights, over and over. For example, if 3 sources give their survey results as percentages and one source gives their survey results as a ratio, surely one is allowed to convert the ratio into a percentage for comparison purposes. However, some dispute this.

Also, suppose a source states that a quantity X of fluid is certain to contain one molecule. Nevertheless, a more thoughtful examination of the problem makes it clear that the quantity X contains at least one molecule. Is this OR to state this correctly, rather than as the source does (presumably because of a typo or slipup)?

Another example is when a source states that a container contains 10 gallons. However, this is only roughly correct, since a more careful but simple calculation shows that the container contains 8.9 gallons. Is it OR to state or note the correct figure?

Another example is when a probability is left out of a calculation. For example, suppose that the source states that one must consume X gallons of a liquid to get at least one molecule of a substance. However, using simple probability, it is clear that consuming X gallons only gives one a chance of 95% of getting one molecule of the substance. It is OR to include the 95%?

Thank you.--Filll (talk) 14:43, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe WP:OR prohibits the making of simple logical or mathematical deductions - in fact it explicitly permits them. WP:Common sense can clearly be applied in most cases. Particularly when a source is obviously wrong or unclear, and it can be corrected in an equally obvious manner.--Kotniski (talk) 14:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, I would object to making an edit that claims that the source says something it does not. I would caution to take care to not refactor the quote itself, but to make your synthesis afterwards. Do not for example change 'Foo says "Bar is ten gallons"' to 'Foo says "Bar is 8.9 gallons'; you could however state that 'Foo says "Bar is ten gallons", however it is actually 8.9..." followed by a showing of your math. (Hopefully that made sense...) -- RoninBK _{T C} 15:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

About the molecules - verifiability VS truth means the sourced info gets in even if it's wrong. Thus WP helps perpetuate mistakes. Dan Beale-Cocks 13:56, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

That's not right - WP:V doesn't require that anything must stay in an article. It only says that unverifiable material should stay out. We are expected to exercise editorial judgment by not using sources that consensus of involved editors says is simply incorrect. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

You're right. But that consensus can be tricky to reach if there are very many sources saying X and few sources saying !X. Dan Beale-Cocks 22:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Our non-mathematical articles routinely paraphrase sources, indeed extensive quoting is discouraged. A paraphrase may be precise, imprecise, but appropriate ("Smith was an 18th century author" where source says Smith lived from 1750 to 1802) or downright misleading. We make editorial judgement on these issues all the time. There is no difference in mathematical formulas and conversions, except, perhaps, some objective criteria for validity in many situations.--agr (talk) 14:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that it's OK to make mathematical calculations on the data. When citing this, I would put the source numbers of the calculations in the footnote (or occasionally in a comment hidden by <!-- ---> tags. The actual numbers given by the source documents can be included as part of the citation of the source. As for including incorrect data from source, I would say that this is a big no, for the main article text. Remember that we like to use eeliable sources – if source data is incorrect, then it isn't reliable (for this number). Once again, in various situations, it might be worth commenting that one of the sources is incorrect in a footnote, but in almost all cases, it isn't worth commenting on the error in the main text of the article. Bluap (talk) 15:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it's okay for some people to make some simple math calculations on the data. We don't want the classic road example to be inadvertently introduced. (A politician repaints a road over a narrow bridge, going from 4 lanes to 6 lanes. (a 50% increase) Accidents rise, so the road is repainted from 6 lanes to 4. (A 33% decrease.) The politician announces that the bridge is now at 17% greater capacity.) Dan Beale-Cocks 22:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Assume good faith has been marked as a policy

Wikipedia:Assume good faith (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Oppose the change, assumptions made of anyone or anything is to subjective to be more than a guideline. Making a state of mind a policy is unenforceable and therefore essentially useless. --Hu12 (talk) 18:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

A puzzlement is that if we're supposed to focus on the edits and not on the editor, why is it necessary to assume good faith? Note that not assuming good faith isn't the same as assuming bad faith (WP:NPOV implies that it is, but that's a false dilemma). Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

To get back on point (those who think AGF shouldn't even be a guideline are welcome to start a separate thread, preferably at the talk page there) - Wikipedia has only 42 policies, while there are hundreds of guidelines. Given the relative numbers, and the general stability of policies, I suggest that changing a page from a guideline to a policy not be treated casually; at minimum, notification of the planned change belongs on this page before the change occurs, so there can be discussion.

In this case, the page has been reverted back to a guideline, something with which I personally agree. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:44, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it does seem like it would make more sense for it to be a guideline. Guidelines can have more examples, etc. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 13:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

IP block exemption, last call

Last call, last call for IP block exemption policy. We have been going once, going twice; on this page, and at Wikipedia_talk:IP_block_exemption#Who_is_strongly_opposed?

If you have any remaining issues with this policy, please say so *now*. I'm posting here to make sure that no one can later claim that "the community has not been heard, and there was no consensus on this". If anyone claims this after tomorrow, we'll all just point and laugh at you. ;-)

• If no one opposes now, I shall mark this as policy, and forward a developer request. Allright?
• On the other hand, if people do still have issues, we'd love to hear them. We won't actually take things to the devs until we have issues ironed out, no worries. but this is your last chance to voice them!

--Kim Bruning (talk) 20:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Obviously no one is going to show up 'till I post a policy tag. Will do so now. ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think this is fine. Since there has been so much furor about Tor in the past, it's hard to believe this could be so quietly adopted. EdJohnston (talk) 00:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Now policy. Those who don't grasp/want wiki-way policy formation cannot claim that "people weren't heard", as they had their chance :-P. I totally expect a number of people who *are* familiar with the wiki-way to still have comments though (I've been around ;-) ). So I'll wait a day or two before going to devs. --Kim Bruning (talk) 18:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

“The battle for Wikipedia's soul”

• http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10789354

“ Wikipedia is facing an identity crisis as it is torn between two alternative futures. It can either strive to encompass every aspect of human knowledge, no matter how trivial; or it can adopt a more stringent editorial policy and ban articles on trivial subjects, in the hope that this will enhance its reputation as a trustworthy and credible reference source. These two conflicting visions are at the heart of a bitter struggle inside Wikipedia between “inclusionists”, who believe that applying strict editorial criteria will dampen contributors' enthusiasm for the project, and “deletionists” who argue that Wikipedia should be more cautious and selective about its entries. ”

Edit point

I think it is time we decide which way to go. There have been many failed attempts to address this, but they all failed due to their partisan or limited nature. Generally speaking which way does the community want to go? -- Cat ^chi? 03:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

We want to evaluate each case separately. Nokmar (talk) 03:40, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the community should read false dilemma. Postdlf (talk) 03:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I just read the article. I value encyclopedias for their educational value, but tend to take a classical view of education. That is, I view it as a process not only of informing, but of intellectual improvement. Encyclopedias are of no value if they do not produce valuable and insightful information. The Economist gave the example of Solidarity leaders and Pokémon characters. I take the view that we should have entries on all Solidarity leaders, but no entries on Pokémon characters (just the show itself). Some works of literature and cinema do have value because they sometimes provide insight through fictional symbolism. They also at times produce social change. Pokémon, on the other hand, is a meaningless children's show with no educational value. I understand that this is a dangerous contradiction, though. I have seen many insightful and notable entries nominated for deletion simply because they were too foreign to the nominator. They appeared not to be notable. So I think we should state clearly that subjects with educational and intellectual value are always notable and shallow subjects are not.--Awareshiftjk (talk) 03:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Passing judgment on what's "shallow" and what's "intellectual" doesn't strike me as very NPOV. At least "notability" is something that one can attempt to objectively define, in terms of it being something that a lot of people are interested in (even if it's shallow), but trying to decide what has intellectual merit... very subjective. *Dan T.* (talk) 04:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Exactly what I was going to say. There is far, far too much subjectivity involved in determining what has educational and intellectual value. And while I would personally agree on the lack of value to me of a Pokemon character, at the same time, an article such as 2003-04 Calgary Flames season might be seen as having no value to a Pokemon fan where it has a great deal to me. In such a case, who is right? Ultimately, to respond to White Cat's question we have places like Conservapedia for the limited "educational scope", and wikia for all things "trivial". Wikipedia has sailed down the middle of the two alternatives for some time now, and I don't see the harm in continuing on this course. Resolute 04:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

So, User:White Cat, are you actually suggesting that we need to make a general, high level decision about whether we are "inclusionist" or "exclusionist"? What possible purpose would that serve? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 04:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Awareshift's idea strikes me as somewhat unfeasible and unrealistic, largely because what does possess educational and intellectual value to one person does not to another. I personally would say that Dungeons & Dragons possesses such value (because of its reading level and (depending on DM) morals system), but, even assuming good faith towards him, he would likely think otherwise based off of the fact it has movies and video games. Seriously, when was the last video game where you were forced to divide by the cosine of x? Remember, Wikipedia is for a layman's audience. It isn't for profs at the University of Washington trying to make foot warmers out of nosehairs. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v :L13 ½-Raichu Soulknife)} 04:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Those young people you speak of should visit Wikipedia to study math or history instead of kill time. I imagine that reading about Dungeons and Dragons too often will actually hurt your performance in school.--Awareshiftjk (talk) 04:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Awareshift, but if they study them, there's a very good chance those articles are suddenly going to be plastered with the word "WANKER" or "VAGINA" over and over again, thus nullifying their educational value for a short time. A lot of kids don't want to study; they'd rather have fun, and if it means replacing Prisoner's dilemma with a picture of George Carlin masturbating, so be it. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v :L13 ½-Raichu Soulknife)} 04:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I know they study them. I don't think that they should, but they do.--Awareshiftjk (talk) 05:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Are we talking about the same articles? -Jéské ^{(v^_^v :L13 ½-Raichu Soulknife)} 05:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Footwarmers out of nosehairs? What class do they teach that in? -- RoninBK _{T C} 04:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, "educational and intellectual value" are a matter of how a subject is covered, not of what the subject is. Most universities (American ones, at least) have cultural studies courses that explore "shallow" pop culture, because shallow or not it's significant and it's illustrative, and we help ourselves more by understanding it than by ignoring it out of some kind of misguided belief in a separation between high and low culture. Postdlf (talk) 04:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. The distinction I was making was not between high or low culture. It was between meaningless and meaningful as well as between influential and weak subjects. I have no bias against anything new or popular, so long as learning about it is truly educational. So, try as you might, I doubt that you would be able to produce an article about Pokémon that would be worth reading intellectually.--Awareshiftjk (talk) 04:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think we already have, to an extent. We'd honestly be less likely to have an intellectual article about, say, Neopets because of outside influences. I hate to say this, but in this case at this point in time, Pokémon beats out Neopets for intellectual read.

It is because of these external influences that we can never have intellectual articles of some subjects, say Transnistria or Israel. Should we delete them because nationalists are using Wikipedia as a battleground, or should we keep them and invalidate your very point? -Jéské ^{(v^_^v :L13 ½-Raichu Soulknife)} 04:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think just learning the facts about Israel is enough to provide insight and learn lessons from history as well as the present. It would be even more insightful if we allowed analysis like Encyclopaedia Britannica does, but facts are good, too. You claim that the entry "Pokémon" teaches readers important lessons. What lessons did you learn from reading it that help you understand life? In other words, how did reading it make you a more intelligent person?--Awareshiftjk (talk) 05:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, reading it taught me that you seem to like Citizendium more. Seriously, though, your example is a bad one because, as I have stated, that set of articles (Israel/Palestine) is a cultural hotbed and tends to be skewed, and I do not believe a skewed view of a conflict helps anyone. As for the Pokémon article, I seem to have gotten the mistaken impression you were talking about challenging reading, not programming the next set of robots. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v :L13 ½-Raichu Soulknife)} 05:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I was talking about educational reading, which may be challenging or not. Intelligence is a function of both knowledge and the ability to understand new things (in my opinion). Learning about Israel teaches people about the fundamental world views of Jews and Muslims. It isn't about a strip of land. It is about their views of tolerance and history as well as the ephemerality of foreign alliances. Alliances are meaningless because they can dissolve into war at any time. It also teaches the reader how Muslims and Jews care much more about history than others. These are all insights one can deduce from reading about Israel, to use your example. Learning about history helps us predict the future and understand the present. I occasionally read Encyclopedia Judaica which has a Jewish bias. I also occasionally listen to Arab commentators. Both are biased, but both commentaries help me understand Israel.--Awareshiftjk (talk) 05:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Learning about history can predict the future? WHY THE FUCK DID I GET INTO TAROT?!

In my opinion, intelligence is not *what* you know. someone could not know y=mx+b and still be intelligent. Someone, likewise, could know the name of a minor character in, say Dexter's Laboratory and still be intelligent. No, intelligence is *how* you use your knowledge. Reading about history is no more intelligent than playing through a game of Magic: The Gathering. Only if you can use the knowledge gained from the activity is it of any use. Calling something "intellectual", as you're currently doing, strikes me as rather anti-intellectual. No layman wants to read an article on history if they have something better to do, such as laundry, bathing their gimp, or waterskiing.

I can guarantee you that, if you delete every article not related to the 3 R's or Nobel Prize categories, you'll be stuck with a bland lump of dry, gray putty that was once an ornate and intricate statue. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v :L13 ½-Raichu Soulknife)} 05:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

First, I define intelligence as the ability to understand things--both new and familiar. Learning certain types of facts does improve intelligence. For one thing, learning meaningful facts over time makes you reflect on their meaning. This is mental exercise that improves your intelligence. For example, memorizing mathematical formulas will not necessarily improve your ability to understand new formulas, but trying to comprehend what the formulas actually mean will. Mathematical intelligence also improves musical intelligence, and visa-versa. Likewise, learning about history helps you understand current affairs. Memorizing a single date will not do anything. But, as you learn about different events, you begin to see patterns and reflect on them. This is also mental exercise. I fail to see any underlying meaning to Pokémon cartoons, so watching Pokémon will not educate you.--Awareshiftjk (talk) 06:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

And playing it? Pokémon is, believe it or not, a video game first and animé second. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v :L13 ½-Raichu Soulknife)} 07:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, I was recently grading homework for a computer science course and one of the students explained class based inheritance using examples from Pokémon. I think it's dangerous to exclude information because you don't see the value in it, someone else might. I know I value Wikipedia because it's inclusive. --Edalytical (talk) 19:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I believe that it is the balance of inclusionism and deletionism that provides the proper balance that Wikipedia needs to have. The problem is that it needs to be balanced. Tilting too far inclusionist, and you become indiscriminate, go look at a Trivia section to see what I mean. Tilting too far Deletionist, and potentially good articles are shot on sight, before they have the opportunity to become viable, WP:The Heymann Standard. As much as we state that AfD is not cleanup, often times the threat of deletion is the catalyst that drives the article beyond a mere stub. And our wide-scale inclusion criteria is exactly what separates Wikipedia from the rest.. -- RoninBK _{T C} 04:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

In other words, we need both inclusionists and deletionists so we end up with a straight pole. Gwinva (talk) 04:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

My view, and I hope it is widely shared, is that any subject is acceptable for inclusion as long as there are reliable outside sources to keep everybody honest. The "battle" will only be lost if unsourced information proliferates on Wikipedia, which at first will seem like the inclusionists won, but will be quickly followed by the loss of Wikipedia's "soul" as people's first stop, as a useful, fact-checked clearinghouse of information. AnteaterZot (talk) 04:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Suggest the community read C.S. Lewis' book An Experiment in Criticism, where he argued that the value of literature is as much a reflection of the reader as of what is read, and that efforts to divide literature into "highbrow" and "lowbrow" and assuming that "lowbrow" means "not serious" have been a really, really, really bad idea that prevents real literary appreciation and growth. He suggested a moratorium on trying to judge "literary merit" and using a different approach. What's true for literature is true for other things as well. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 05:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Presence of Pokemon related articles are not responsible in the absence of quality on articles on polish solidarity leaders. However there probably are more secondary sources on Pokemon than polish solidarity leaders. We do not delete articles on polish solidarity leaders or prevent their development to make room for pokemon related articles. It is just that nobody has yet written those articles. In addition do we really want a user that is an expert in pokemon write about polish solidarity leaders? No offense but getting indulged in pokemon in the past ten plus years does not make any one an expert in polish solidarity leaders. Pop culture (Pokemon) aside, this problem plagues even important articles just as much as the economist illustrates. -- Cat ^chi? 11:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The other thing that I don't think that the economist article considers or that is brought up here is that because we are a volunteer project, we cannot force people to write or work on topics they have no interest in. Since WP is an internet culture, it is going to attack a cross-section of the larger internet culture - meaning that we are going to have a lot more people working on articles on anime characters and video games than we are going to have on political figures from non-English speaking countries. This itself is an overall systematic bias that we have to be aware of, but know that we cannot change (otherwise, editors will leave once we tell them they must do something), but by developing policies and guidelines to make such that those topics are treated in an encyclopedic fashion such that when we can "fill in" other topics such as solidarity leaders, we have encyclopedic coverage of those topics as well as more popular culture topics, with an overall increase in the apparent quality of the encyclopedia. This doesn't mean we delete the coverage nor prevent appropriate expansion of pop culture topics to make other topics look better, but it does mean we have to consider how much weight some of those topics are given relative to the goals of creating an encyclopedia. Basically, the Economist article almost is looking at WP now as a finished product and saying that it's bad, but if you keep in mind and consider that we are unfinished, then it is perfectly fine that our coverage is currently unbalanced, as long as we understand that the goal is to get to a good balance and take steps to help get us there now. --MASEM 14:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia by very nature will never be a finished project. All articles that are not featured in quality are incomplete and will not be a part of the finished product. In other words they are already edited out before they reach the end of the production line. They can became featured articles in time but they will definitely not if people do not allow work on them. This is why I cannot understand some people, namely so-called deletionists, work they way in removing clearly incomplete articles. The articles on popular culture and solidarity figures in Poland are typically unrelated. Balancing the amount of content on pupular culture and other topics by removing popular culture related articles does not sound very productive to me. -- Cat ^chi? 17:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

And I'm not saying we delete them, but instead make sure that our pop culture topics are edited in the same encyclopedic manner as our topics on world leaders and history and geography and other more "non-trivial" topics. We may need to trim the depth of coverage these presently have and utilize outside wiki's for overflow, but there's no reason we can't cover these to at least a degree that meets with the Five Pillars. --MASEM 18:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

What is happening is self righteous people are mass removing material on topics they dont care much about. This has no consensus behind it. If there is consensus behind it, I can start trimming articles I do not care about. I have a very long list to process I suppose. Of course eventually we would be only left with the main page in such a thing. -- Cat ^chi? 21:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Assuming good faith, they are trying to help clean up WP, though methods such as TTN has taken have not been constructive to this. However, the concept of merging topics failing notability into other areas should be a point that is taken much more at heart before articles have to hit AfD, and even if AfD is still reached, this should always be an option -outright deletion of a contested article without any considering of retaining that information is bad. --MASEM 22:14, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I wish people creating shitty fancruft would use a spell checker. Also, lots of fancruft is part of some huge business franchise, which produces stuff in various formats that are used as sources -thus entire swathes of wiki are "in universe". Really, I don't care how trivial it is, I just wish they could write betterer. Dan Beale-Cocks 22:56, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

betterer? or more better? :) Sbowers3 (talk) 00:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The true problem: notability and mainstream media justification policies

The true problem is in the notability and similar policies. That can make any silly detail of Pokemon super-relevant (maybe millions of hits in Google and stuff like that) while much more relevant artists from non-English, and specially third world countries, countries can pass unadverted or even be deleted as non-notable.

These overall criteria bias the contents of Wikipedia in favor of mere trivia. We need a more academic and, as much as possible, less mediatic approach.

As for the problem with children vandalism, the best solution is surely to stop censoring certain images, so schools start censoring Wikipedia at least in class time. That would save a lot of work to our patrollers.

I am inclusionist for encyclopedic content and for what allows for a more and better of our world. But I am exclusionist for trivia, and the articles on Pokemon, Star Trek, the Simpson... chapters, minor characters, etc. belong to a fanzine or some media not Wikipedia.

Maybe the solution is to create "Wikizine" inside Wikimedia, for such more diverse but less encyclopedic activities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sugaar (talk • contribs) 05:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Those images are censored because they are illegal or in the wrong article altogether. Further, I haevily doubt you are familiar with the discussion that took place at WT:POKE some time ago. Pokémon species articles (sans Pikachu) have been lists for a few months now. Further, as I have stated, owing to external influences (i.e. rival factions editing) we'd also have to, if we implemented your reasoning, remove all articles on wars, rogue nations, and cultural conflict so as to present as bland and tasteless a view of the world as possible. Shit, the pixies couldn't come up with a scheme better designed to turn everyone into mindless robots who only know exactly what they have to know and nothing else. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v :L13 ½-Raichu Soulknife)} 05:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I will point out that I've been struggling with other editors to fine-tune and polish WP:FICT (and to a lesser extent WP:EPISODE) to reflect a balance that makes both sides happy, in that we can give good coverage when we can provide secondary source (why should the reader care about this work if they've never heard of it), while providing primary sourced information to meet the "WP is not paper" approach of including such. It has taken a while to get here, but the metaphore of balancing a straight pole by pushing at a slant is very apt: initial drafts went too far in one direction, and fine tuning got it to where it is. We do suggest that for more in-depth treatment of fictional topics that a outside wiki is completely appropriate (though people balk at any push on Wikia due to possible conflict-of-interest issues), and I think we're now in the learning stages of figuring out that exact balance for many areas, thanks in some part to the recent ArbCom cases. I know there's inclusists vs deletionists, but I strongly believe we don't need to rush to make a decision, unless we get a mandate from the Foundation to take this in one direction or the other. We need the compromise and figure out steps forward from that. --MASEM 05:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Secondary sources have little to do with notability but with popularity. Every armed forces servicemen have a secondary source covering their life. "Unheard of" would not be shows televised internationally on multiple countries. If being "heard of" is notability, then definitely thats not what is happening. -- Cat ^chi? 10:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Not true: while a popular work may lead to large coverage in secondary sources (a very common case), this is not the only way a topic can gain secondary sourcing and thus sufficient sourcing to be included. "Significant coverage in secondary sources" is a measure of the cumulative effects of a topic's popularity, importance, effect on other people, and other areas, while falling under the goal of the Five Pillars. So notability is not reflecting "being heard of". --MASEM 14:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Right polularity and etc, which are not the same as notability. It is a poor metric for notability. -- Cat ^chi? 17:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Being sourced in multiple independent reliable sources is a bad metric for notability? Seems to meet all our principles to be a verifiable, no-original-research encyclopedia. --MASEM 19:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You should read UK press sometime - very many pages are devoted to c and d list "celebrities", but not much coverage is given to, for example, mathematicians or scientists. Unless they produce a populist "study" showing that 'drinking wine is healthy' (which will get mis-reported.) Thus WP ends up with a gajillion sources for someone who comes third in a TV singing competition, and will have infoboxes giving that person's age, weight, hight, eye colour, blood type, etc etc. Dan Beale-Cocks 13:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as this thread began with a quote from an article in the Economist I thought it worth mentioning that there is another article about wikipedia in the March 20, 2008 issue of the New York Review of Books, titled "The Charms of Wikipedia". The author describes himself as an "inclusionist" and tells of how he ended up as a defender against article deletions, with a bit of mocking about the notion of "notability". Looks like the article is currently online here. Just thought it might be of interest. Pfly (talk) 06:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I particularly liked the part about "the biggest leaf pile anyone had ever seen." --Pixelface (talk) 07:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I liked "When, last year, some computer scientists at the University of Minnesota studied millions of Wikipedia edits, they found that most of the good ones—those whose words persisted intact through many later viewings—were made by a tiny percentage of contributors. Enormous numbers of users have added the occasional enriching morsel to Wikipedia—and without this bystander's knowledge the encyclopedia would have gone nowhere—but relatively few users know how to frame their contribution in a form that lasts." from the same article. AnteaterZot (talk) 07:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

A high level discussion

About a year ago, no one was even trying to mass blank/redirectify articles of trivial topics. Afds on these were also mostly unheard of. This isn't an inclusionist vs. deletionist discussion. This notion is not based on consensus or discussion at all, if so please cite this community-wide discussion. I think because the covered topics are trivial individually no one wants to spend time discussing them individually. Although the practice of reviewing and establishing notability itself should be done on a case by case basis, this is an overall general discussion to reach a general agreement on the topic to hopefully establish what to do and what not to do.

Our criteria in establishing what is notable may need adjustment. As the economist article discusses, important topics with a capital "I" may have very little to no secondary coverage that are readily available to establish notability. Likewise things with overwhelming coverage from secondary sources may be fundamentally trivial which isn't necessarily article worthy then again it may very well be article worthy.

It is important to note that different sections on WP:NOT (WP:NOT#PAPER, WP:NOT#OR, WP:NOT#MANUAL, WP:NOT#INFO (often linked to as WP:NOT#NEWS or WP:NOT#PLOT)) are not in conflict with each other.

-- Cat ^chi? 10:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

White Cat, this didn't seem to be a problem until recently. I don't know that for certain, but I used Wikipedia in the past, stopped using it for a long, long time, then came back to find that the community seemed to have gotten totally thrown out of whack

This is basically a problem of various cabals -- you know who you are -- swarming around certain subjects. See Wikipedia:List of cabals. Most of those are jokes, but a fair amount of those are surprisingly legitimate. Several also aren't listed. There are also social clusters around anime, Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, etc.., and probably more stuff that I've missed.

Groups like this swarm around certain subjects (aside from all of the annoying bot owners, generating stuff, too, without an official RFA) and when people come by to enforce the guidelines, they're stifled because of a localized group of little kids defending their articles with democratic, bureaucratic authority, appealing to the fact that they are the "majority" and wikilawyering.

These same groups of people have all formed one giant monstrosity called "inclusionsts." Virtually every POV-pushing troll on Wikipedia supports Inclusionism. And why shouldn't he? If you want to promote your business, use Wikipedia for political propaganda, dump fan analysis on Wikipedia, or upload internet memes for the lulz, why wouldn't you support Inclusionism?

And it's important to point out that so-called "deletionists" aren't even really deletionists, as it seems to me. Perhaps some of them are, but that's silly. I say that because they don't have a blanket policy of wanting to delete articles. They simply want existing guidelines on the notability of fan fiction, pop culture, and copyvio, to be enforced. See m:Precisionism There wasn't this distinction before, because in the past, policies were enforced, I think. Crap like Chris Crocker (Internet celebrity) wouldn't have made the cut.

Clarification would be good, but not likely possible because inclusionists stand in the way of such clarification. But if the rules were simply enforced and these edit gangs were broken up, there wouldn't be a problem. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 15:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm disturbed by your example; Chris Crocker meets WP:BIO; the notion that enforcement of policy would result in deletion of that article demonstrates a deep misunderstanding of Wikipedia inclusions policy. JoshuaZ (talk) 15:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I am an inclusionsist at heart. I am not a troll. I suggest you stop insulting me and people like me. Please post your comment in a civilized manner.

I am also unhappy with the group effort by some deletionists that work together to overwhelm any opposition in the way of the deletion. Basicaly they try to make up in numbers what they lack in logic.

-- Cat ^chi? 17:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand the point about Notability being too low a bar, The problem is however, the only reason that Notability works at all is because it's an objective standard, that keeps out most of the trash, while being as fair to all. It doesn't matter what I think about a subject, as long as it has the required sources, it's in. Other than that, I don't like Notability that much. Perfectly good articles are being deleted simply because the subject predated Google. The problem is, how do you redefine that fence in a way that is objective and fair? -- RoninBK _{T C} 21:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not insulting you. I'm saying your philosophy is silly, not you, the person. There's a big difference there. Despite your philosophy, you seem to be a good editor. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Your offensive tone is unacceptable. What makes your philosophy any better than mine? You are insulting all opinions but your own it appears. Why should anyone care what you have to say given your attitude towards theirs? -- Cat ^chi? 21:41, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Sanctioned alternate wikis?

Could part of this problem be solved by actively encouraging the opening of alternate Wiki's? Things like Memory Alpha and Wookieepedia seem to have the capability to host the bulk of information regarding their respective topics, with far less worry about relative importance.

Perhaps I'm an optimist, but I think the complaints of most "inclusionists" would be settled if there is a place that the information they want to share can be hosted. Oberiko (talk) 18:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

There are some Wikis, however, that are unusable by a specific group (i.e. the D&D Wiki because of its allowance of homebrew). And the inclusionists still won't be happy even if there is - most of the anons on Pokémon-related subjects complain that Wikipedia, by its very nature, should contain all the crufty crap that was the individual species articles. Whenever we tell them to go to Bulbapedia, they wing back a loud "NO!" and keep complaining. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v :L13 ½-Raichu Soulknife)} 19:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If such an outlet exists then I'm going to agree with firmer rules. Perhaps something along the lines of "Would this content be more suited to an alternative wiki or as a Wikibook?" Oberiko (talk) 20:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

My main concern with alternate wikis is that their existence is sometimes abused in discussions, for instance by arguing that an article on a Star Wars-related topic should be removed because a Star Wars wiki already exists... Such arguments ignore the merits of an individual article and article topic, and instead focus on the general subject area (see below). Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that's not the arguments I see at D&D or Pokémon articles at all - they tend to focus more on the subject of the article and not the subject area. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v :L13 ½-Raichu Soulknife)} 21:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I was referencing mostly various AFD discussions I've run across, which often contain comments to the effect of "Keep - Star Trek characters are obviously notable" or "Delete - there is a Star Trek wiki for this stuff". Neither coment addresses the article or article topic itself, but rather references some other, unrelated factor (the notability of the Star Trek franchise or the existence of a Star Trek wiki). Black Falcon ^(Talk) 22:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, Oberiko. Also, what you just said is now a part of WP:FICT: Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)#Relocating non-notable fictional material

It might be good to add a "move it elsewhere" section to WP:NOTABILITY, period. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Why do we even need wikipedia for? All articles on history can go to the history wiki because I have hereby officially declared them unnecesary. No one gave me this authority but hell I can mass redirectify articles regardless... -- Cat ^chi? 21:40, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree totally. I would keep history, but move all sports off to a sports wiki. Perhaps make an exception for sports that have global appeal (football as in World Cup, tennis, cycling), but certainly only marginally important sports (lacrosse, cyclocross, American football). Mvuijlst (talk) 12:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Focus on the topic, not the subject area

What happened to judging articles (and article topics) on their individual merits, as opposed to making sweeping generalisations about an entire subject area or entire class of topics (and entire groups of editors, for that matter)? Why are subjective personal opinions about the importance/unimportance or intellectual/popular/cultural value of a general subject area a part of discussions regarding something as objective as the presence of coverage in reliable source? And finally, what's the story with the Pokémon articles? (Why is it such a common example in these types of discussions?) Thanks, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Pokémon articles are common examples because, up until last year, every single Pokémon species had its own individual article - and every single one of those articles (exc. Pikachu) had more cruft issues than a crack team of chimpanzee hackers trying to fix coding from Daikatana. After a discussion on WT:POKE, it was decided to merge all the species articles (again, sans Pikachu, and, more recently, into lists of 20). While the articles on the actual franchise and its video games are superbly-done articles (I can say this having worked on Pokémon Diamond and Pearl), the character articles are nowhere near as good as the game articles.

Pokémon also tends to get brought up because, until the megamerger, there was a "Pokémon Test" which was used at AfD to determine notability (for example, "Article Foo is less notable than Stunky"), and the entire metaseries tends to be somewhat pervasive. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v :L13 ½-Raichu Soulknife)} 20:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You came this close to owing me a new keyboard for the Daikatana line... -- RoninBK _{T C} 22:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying! A number of comments I had previously read now make sense. (By the way, just so there is no confusion, my call to "focus on the topic, not the subject area" was a general call; it was not directed at either the Pokémon issue or your comment specifically.) Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 22:37, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

There are some subject areas that could have very many articles, but don't actually need them. Examples include Bus routes, Pokemon, wrestling articles (an article for every wrestler, for every episode, for every plot line, for every move etc), some tv shows or book series. It'd be great if these subjects had a few main "gateway" articles - editors could concentrate on making these excellent. I hate to sound so negative about these subjects; the dedication and knowledge shown by editors should be commended. I hate the artificial split into "deletionist" or "inclusionist" camps. Dan Beale-Cocks 13:52, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

"The result is that novices can quickly get lost in Wikipedia's Kafkaesque bureaucracy."

The rest of the article is just a blind. This is the key item. This is not the first time our deletion system *alone* is presented in an article, and even is mistaken as somehow being the core of wikipedia.

It isn't. It certainly shouldn't be notable or big enough to get articles in prominent magazines, all by itself.

The deletion pages on wikipedia have taken on a life of their own. "Wikipedia won't be able to survive without deletion" you say, but I've heard that before: "Wikipedia won't be able to survive without Esperanza" and "Wikipedia won't be able to survive without the AMA".

I'm skeptical we even need a deletion system. But if we do, perhaps we could make a new one from scratch, that actually follows wiki-principles. (Does anyone still know what those are? ;-) )

--Kim Bruning (talk) 22:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC) "bureaucracy, what bureaucracy? he said... while ripping it out and stuffing it under the carpet.

Oh I don't know. Wikipedia is one of the top ten most visited sites. People tend to care what happens in the sites on the top 10th most visited. -- Cat ^chi? 21:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that what you want may be a change in attitudes, rather than just a change in structure... Black Falcon ^(Talk) 23:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

What are the main arguments for deletion?

I can understand the need to prune articles that fall into Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, but I do find it somewhat difficult to grasp the need to get rid of articles such as characters from movies / television series' and the like. Can someone (in bullet point notation) lay out the primary reasons? Oberiko (talk) 15:17, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

While I am not convinced of the merits of the arguments, I think the basic idea is that many of these articles do not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines (WP:N), and thus they should be merged into lists or deleted. The controversy arises because there doesn't seem to be broad consensus as to how stringently to interpret the guidelines. Fritter (talk) 16:41, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

It's all to do with the way that people have difference philosophies of what Wikipedia should be, and that people contribute for different reasons. There's two extreme points of view:

• Should Wikipedia aim to be a h2g2-style all-encompassing Wiki of all human knowledge? (An extreme "inclusionist" philosophy, or a "Wiki" philosophy)
• Should Wikipedia be an accessible encyclopedia aimed at writing encyclopedia-style topics for a general audience avoiding niche topics and only containing easily verifiable information? (An extreme "deletionist" philosophy, or an encyclopedia philosophy)

And several degrees between the two, where Wikipedia currently lands as it tries and come up with the limits between the two philosophies where there are quite blurred lines as articles become increasingly harder to verify as they increasingly contain more specific, niche, information and that's where heated arguments begin about where Wikipedia's boundaries should be exactly.

And there's no real answer to what the particular correct philosophy is, just opinions, and both ideas have their own sets of advantages and disadvantages, and you're never going to please both sides completely. It's a difficult problem without a solution and you're never going to please everyone. -Substitution (talk) 23:01, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Is it acceptable to try to change certain policies by voting to not apply them in individual cases?

Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines notes that there are three main avenues for changing policies. Basically, (1) You can codify existing practice which have developed from the grassroots; (2) you can propose a change in a top-down manner; or (3) Jimbo can change it. A number of essays, such as Wikipedia:Product, process, policy, discourage the last two methods, and note that it is very hard to change policy through formal proposals. Guidelines can be changed a bit more easily.

We know that, after the foundational principles were laid down, most subsequent Wikipedia guidance arose from codification of practices rather than through proposals. It seems clear that, if there is an issue not currently covered by guidance, but a practice for dealing with that issue has become pretty widespread, it is acceptable and fairly easy to enact new guidance codifying that practice.

What about if we want to actually change guidance – that is, remove an existing provision or even change it to the opposite of what it currently is? Many unsuccessful attempts are made to do this through avenue #2, proposals. Can the guidance be changed by deliberately changing current practice, e.g., pushing for actions to be taken that run counter to existing guidance, so that eventually the changed practice can be codified as a change to the policy or guideline page?

I want to make a distinction between three different kinds of situations, which I will label A, B, and C, as follows. (A) At times, it is obvious that we can/should ignore all rules and act contrary to policy for the good of the encyclopedia. (B) Sometimes the policy in question is a foundational policy that cannot be deviated from. In either of those situations (A or B), the acceptable action is clear-cut. (C) But sometimes there is room for legitimate disagreement as to what is the best course of action; typically, these cases involve guidelines or non-core policies (e.g. WP:N, WP:UP, certain provisions of WP:NOT, etc. as opposed to policies like WP:NPOV, WP:COPYVIO, etc.) In those cases, is there leeway to simply violate the guidance if the rough consensus of users decides it wants to do so as a way of changing the norm, and by extension, eventually the guidance codifying the norm?

Suppose, for instance, someone is playing a chess game in a userspace subpage, and someone else nominates it for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia:UP#Games and WP:NOT. Half the editors voting in the MfD want to keep it, because they disagree with the rule. The other half want to delete it. Should the keep votes be disregarded because they are contrary to guidance, and the page be deleted? Or should it have a result of "keep" or "no consensus" because this is a legitimate way to begin changing guidance through avenue #1? Wikipedia:MFD#Prerequisites would seem to suggest not; it notes, "This is not a forum for modifying or revoking policy." On the other hand, Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means says that most rules are descriptive, not proscriptive; so how does one really know when it is okay for the rough consensus on an individual 5-day XfD, for instance, to override policy that was presumably adopted by a broader consensus over a longer period of time? Does it basically just depend on what the closing admin thinks will survive a deletion review?

I'm thinking that what we have now is a bit like typical legal systems. Where is no statute, common law can develop through decisions in various cases. But where there is a statute, it overrides the common law, and the court can't make a decision contrary to it. On the other hand, the court can overturn the statute if it runs counter to foundational principles (which in the real world, might be the Constitution). And people (including those in positions of trust and power) sometimes disregard rules and processes if they think they can get away with it. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 20:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:Consensus can change, but changing against the wind is a difficult task.

Let's examine your chess analogy. First of all, scrub the idea of !votes, because Wikipedia is not a vote. The admin is trained to determine the merits of both sides of the debate, and rule whichever side provides the stronger case. That being said, the Keep argument has a higher burden of proof in this case, because they not only have to argue against the Delete argument, but must also prove that at least in this case that policy should be set aside. -- RoninBK _{T C} 21:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, OK. There seem to be a lot of cases where people say, "We have to get rid of that page; it's ugly, unprofessional, a waste of time, etc." and the other side says "I like it; it's harmless; why do you care; Editors matter;" etc. It seems to be basically a matter of opinion. But the admin closes one way or another, with the exact reasons unknown, and one side is pretty upset. Moreover, the odds of getting it overturned on DRV are pretty slim, so they typically don't bother. As Abd has noted, one of the problems is that admins usually don't state the exact reason(s) why they close debate a certain way; they just say "Result was _____." If they had to state the reason (e.g. a brief statement of the decisive policies/facts) then it would further help diminish the illusion that this is a vote and possibly lead to better DRV discussions. In fact, I think I'm going to propose this right now. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 21:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Please, in the future, distinguish between policies and guidelines. The examples you mention of "non-core policies" - WP:N and WP:UP, are in fact guidelines. Policies are very, very different from guidelines; in fact, they are sufficiently different as to almost make this discussion pointless. Guidelines do have some give; policies, while sometime ambiguous, don't allow discretion except when they are ambiguous. Sometimes arguments over guidelines - such as whether it's acceptable to put footnotes before punctuation rather than after - simply don't get decided; that's much less common with policies. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent point, thanks. However, WP:NOT is a policy which also governs userpages, and is frequently cited in deletion debates. So, would even a "unanimous minus 1" consensus of editors in an MFD be unable to disregard WP:NOT in the chess case? Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 22:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You can also ignore all rules. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 21:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, policies can have exceptions too. The burden of proof is just an order of magnitude higher. The point is, if you are arguing against guideline/policy, you have to prove your case as to why we have to IAR. -- RoninBK _{T C} 22:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, OK. So it sounds like, if you successfully argue IAR in a lot of debates covering a certain issue, that could lead to policy eventually changing, because the practice has changed. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 22:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Theoretically possible, but you'll need one hell of a movement behind you, and it may be a protracted battle. A one-man war is gonna be VERY difficult to maintain, (I know there's at least one person in this conversation who could attest to that...) -- RoninBK _{T C} 22:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Is the reason why it's necessary to have a movement behind you that one person simply can't cover all the deletion debates? Theoretically, in each debate, it just takes one person with cogent arguments to make the difference, even if everyone else is against them. The closing admin can say, "You know what, he's right" and close accordingly. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 23:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

O:-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 23:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I say a movement, because an admin cannot close a discussion with, "Even though all these people said Delete, I'm gonna close as Keep just because Obuibo said so." Not even Jimbo Wales has that power anymore, (though if you can get him onto your side, it's a plus...) Winning an argument pretty much requires convincing others to your side. One person may be able to sway enough people to save an article from deletion, but to affect policy, you're going to need quite a few like-minded people backing you up -- RoninBK _{T C} 00:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

@Obuibo Mbstpo: If you need to argue and defend using IAR in the face of anything other than mindless process wonking, it probably doesn't apply. @RoninBK: They could. Deletion debates are not a vote and an incredibly convincing argument put up against a bunch of crap might win out. It would probably be contested, but its not forbidden. On an aside, Jimbo can do pretty much anything he wants that won't turn massive portions of the community against him. Mr.Z-man 04:38, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I use IAR, or rather WP:WIARM almost exclusively. --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:38, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

...In a perfect world. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 23:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I forgot, non-admins can close debates too. Sayyyyy, this gives me an idea... Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 23:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

And it'd better darn well be very careful, tactful, and well thought through! --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:14, 8 March 2008 (UTC) No poisoning the well for others please!

No, no, I would never want to do anything contrary to Wikipedia policy, guidelines or community standards. By the way, how about a nice game of chess? I've got User:Obuibo Mbstpo/Sandbox 3 set up so that you only need to enter the board position once and it shows you the perspective from both sides (white player and black). It rocks. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 02:52, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I might, but it looks like you got yourself a template loop there, Kasparov... -- RoninBK _{T C} 03:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't like your snide implication that I'm only the second-best chess player in the world. I would very much prefer that you refer to me as "Deep Blue." Thank you. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 16:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

My favorite game is "Global Thermonuclear War", but thanks.;-) I would very much prefer you ignored all rules and instead worked for the good of the encyclopedia. --Kim Bruning (talk) 04:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Well said, indeed. (I guess it is true, that the only way to win is not to play.) -- RoninBK _{T C} 04:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, I was thinking of making more edits such as this in which I voted, "Keep and record in central database of precedents for justifying future userpage-restriction-relaxing amendments to WP:NOT and WP:UP in accordance with Policy Change Source #1, 'Documenting actual practices and seeking consensus that the documentation truly reflects practices.'" I can write analogous remarks in my keep votes in which I am attempting to shift the boundaries of article notability at AFD. Perhaps some users will copy this technique, and by keeping track of the results, we can eventually have evidence in our favor for amending the policy. I was thinking that this is an alternative method to making a formal proposal and trying to argue it on the policy talk page, as WP:PQ would seem to recommend as a more efficient method. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 17:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The actual procedure is slightly more fluid. 1. people do stuff. 2. someone notices no one wrote it down yet. 3. they write it down. Voila, policy! This is process actually responsible for ~90% of our documentation afaict. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:33, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Note that we reject precedent. But if everyone *IS* doing something in a particular way at some moment, changing a policy page to say so at that moment is easy (while if no-one is doing it, changing a policy page is extremely hard) --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC) caveat: there are some problems with how policy is maintained atm. I hope to try and solve them through Wikipedia:Lectures, so that everyone is at least on the same page... but no promises.

I notice that the page specifically says, "This does not mean that Wikipedia ignores precedent. A precedent usually has reasons too, which may still be valid. There is a distinction between unresolved good-faith concerns over a reasonable or policy related matter, and disruptively trying to enforce an individual view. An issue decided in the past can always be discussed again, especially if there is new information or a question of policy being breached."

So, here it seems like it's saying that you aren't supposed to buck policy as a way of changing practice and thus changing the policy. Or at least, that people can challenge you about it. Hmmm. Well, anyway, it's obviously set up to try to prevent a wikilawyering approach. In that case, though, I think people should quit saying "Your viewpoint is to be completely disregarded in this XFD because it's in violation of policy!" when anything you say is really an expression of your opinion of what is best for the encyclopedia and could thus be an application of WP:IAR; moreover, consensus is simply made up of individual opinions taken as an aggregate, so whether you express your opinion in an XFD, or the village pump, or the policy talk page, it contributes to the consensus. However, it just might not carry as much weight as it would if it were supported by policy, or if policy were neutral, because policies are expressions of wider consensus than the consensus in an XFD.

Moreover, each statement made in XFDs (or Village Pump, or policy talk page, or anywhere else) could be viewed as flowing into the overall consensus much like drops of colored water from many pipettes might be poured into hundreds of beakers large and small, resulting in various shades of color in each beaker; and then they are all poured into one vat whose color reflects the contribution of all those beakers. Each drop of colored water that was put into all those little beakers contributes to the final color of the mixture at the end; the individual drops being metaphors for statements of opinion; the pipettes being metaphors for users; the beakers being metaphors for separate debates; and the vat being a metaphor for policy. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 19:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

WTF about the CCC link. Fixed.

Any good-faith position or edit always carries some amount of weight, depending on the reasoning you provide to support it. This weighting is not modified by policy, rather, policy pages put their own weight into the balance. Policy/guideline/essay pages explain what position a large number people actually currently support (or more accurately, what they used to support a couple of months ago). If policy/guideline/essay pages are well written, they might also contain some hints in which direction people's opinions might change. I don't think there's any hard-and-fast formula to actually calculate what the consensus is at any particular point in time. WP:SILENCE does document a hard and fast method to determine whether something does not have consensus. --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:41, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I love how you make policy page edits like that at a moment's notice. (Some people are timid and think they have to thrash it out on the talk page first.) Unfortunately, no one will be able to easily look later and tell what was the conversation surrounding the change. I was thinking that a cool technical change would be to add a button in the edit history to jump to that time in a user's contributions, so you can see the other edits they were making around the time that the edit was made. So, years from now, people might be able to figure out what prompted it. It could help in gaining insight into the evolution of policy (not to mention other pages). Shall I submit it to Bugzilla? Ah, I'll just be bold and do it, no need to talk about it first. See bug 13295. I'm not being sarcastic, by the way. Sometimes things can come off as sarcastic when we're not engaging in private and/or real time conversations. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 20:03, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way... I'd be happy to ignore all rules and work for the good of the encyclopedia if the rules would ignore me for awhile! :) Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 00:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, speaking of games, I found this cool article: http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Gaming_the_system Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 05:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Policy on users adding themselves to parent categories?

While users re-adding themselves to deleted categories is one thing, users re-adding themselves to parent categories is quite another. While those diffs are quite old, the user currently remains in the category as discussions on the matter didn't really result in any conclusive remedy. The category was removed, the discussion died down and was archived, and sometime afterward it was re-added. Can the UCFD decision be enforced? If not, what is the point of designating something as a parent category in the first place? On UCFD should we no longer nominate categories to depopulate of individual users? It would indeed seem pointless if it can't be enforced. The arguments made in the above discussion about redlinked categories that the disruption caused by re-adding redlinks is minimal doesn't equally apply to this scenerio, as the category does exist and the category is alive and well in the category tree. I've asked the user to remove himself yet again, which was refused. What recourse? If the answer is do nothing, then that is essentially saying UCFD decisions are not binding. If that's what the community wants, then fine, but let's not pretend they are by keeping the process around. VegaDark (talk) 07:02, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This argument has been going on for over a year now ... both sides of the debate are getting a bit POINTy. Take it to arbitration if you feel strongly about it. Blueboar (talk) 16:26, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I still maintain UCFD decisions aren't binding. You've spent two years and can't even compose a guideline with more than minority support. Now you're proposing to get even stricter? SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

If UCFD decisions aren't binding, then UCFD should be deleted, full stop. —Random832 23:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Look at it's creation history, it was created in a fit of pique by a CfD admin sick and tired of seeing user issues pop up there. It was not a determined consensus effort. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

So do you at least agree that CFD decisions regarding user categories (prior to splitting off to UCFD) are binding? VegaDark (talk) 03:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It was a reasonable decision to create a new venue for deletion, renaming, and merging of a type of category that is judged by standards that are vastly different from those that apply to regular categories. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 04:24, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Schmucky, no one has spent two years composing a guideline, and the proposed guideline you're referencing is one that even I opposed. Moreover, one doesn't need a guideline when there is WP:NOT (a policy). Black Falcon ^(Talk) 23:10, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

And how to apply NOT to user categories is not a cut and dried issue and there isn't a consensus and every attempt to write a guideline for applying NOT has been discarded. I've written the only consensus statement on user categories to every remain in a guideline at WP:USER. Users don't belong in article categories, work-in-progress articles should be commented out, and user categories should be treated like any other user content - wide discretion for creativity until it becomes polemical or disruptive.

Wikipedia:User categorisation is marked historical and abandoned. It was first attempted as a guideline in 2005. The current attempt at a guideline is at Wikipedia:User categories and has no agreement on anything. The only consensus statement about user categories is in WP:USER, which is in the section on how to apply WP:NOT, is a simple statement I wrote in March 2006, [3], explained above.

So yes, for more than two years, almost three, there have been active attempt at defining how user categories should be policed. The current enforcement attitude shown towards user categories (like what started this conversation) shouldn't be occurring. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

I want to address three points separately: the consensus for WP:NOT, the consensus of individual UCFD discussions, and the failure of attempts to develop a guideline for user categories.

1. Regardless of your opinion on user categories, surely you will admit that WP:NOT has consensus support, including the provision that Wikipedia is not a MySpace equivalent. Whether that provision applies to certain cases can be disputed, but there can be no question that the principle itself is accepted.
2. With the possible exception of foundation issues (such as NPOV), consensus is determined in large part by what actually happens. And what has happened for about a year is that a single interpretation of WP:NOT as it applies to user categories has prevailed across more than one thousand CFD discussions involving hundreds of distinct editors. And this interpretation of WP:NOT is that user categories should, in some way, be useful to the encyclopedia; in most cases, this usefulness takes the form of facilitating encyclopedic collaboration. It is an interpretation that has sometimes called for deletion of categories and sometimes for their retention, but it is an interpretation that has been directly or indirectly adopted by most UCFD participants (someone who argues for keeping a category because it's useful is accepting this interpretation just as much as someone who argues for deletion based on a lack of utility).
3. Previous attempts at specifying guidelines for user categories - there are not as many as you make out to be - failed for the simple reason that they adopted excessively bureaucratic and narrow approaches. (By the way, Wikipedia:User categorisation was a de facto WikiProject to convert lists to categories; it was not a proposed guideline, so that example doesn't really support your argument anyway....)

Returning to the issue that started this thread ... regardless of one's opinions on UCFD, and even putting aside for the moment the CFD closure, what is the justification for keeping a non-category page in a category that exists specifically to be a parent category for other categories only? Black Falcon ^(Talk) 04:24, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Common sense applies here; you're not a "Wikipedian by religion". –Pomte 08:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Humour? technically it might fall under freedom of religion too, you are whatever faith you choose to be... Lx 121 (talk) 18:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how freedom of religion is an issue. No one is trying to prevent SchmuckyTheCat from placing himself in a "X-ian Wikipedians" category; however, he should remove his user page from the "Wikipedians by religion" parent category. By its very name, that category is not intended to contain individual user pages. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

It's clearly not appropriate for user pages to be in these categories; their entire purpose is to organize other categories (see comment by Pomte above). SchmuckyTheCat should remove his user page from the category. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Danny Keough

(This was appended to the previous discussion; I added the header, based on the article name.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Horologium (talk • contribs) 14:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC) I noticed looking at the "Danny Keough" article that it was incorrectly formatted. The article was in two columns and the end notes were in one column. That is the opposite of what should have been done. It would have been the right way if the notes were longer than the paragraphs, but such was not the case. The rule is that if you have more than 3 or 4 lines in a one column paragraph, it should be broken into two columns. The number depends on the width of the page. In the case of article with notes, since you don't want to make the formatting too complicated, the number of columns should be one or two in the article but always one in the notes, unless the notes are very long.72.209.202.195 (talk) 12:55, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Nationality of deceased

This is about people who held differing nationalities throughout their life. On the biographical article itself one can give all of this information. However in other pages, for example name disambiguation pages, this is not appropriate. However many such pages give the fist name, a nationality and a word or two on their significance.

Example 1: Einstein (surname) where Albert Einstein is listed as German (and also Jewish). Of course he took Swiss and US citizenship later in life.

Example 2: Robinson (name) where Abraham Robinson is listed as American - He was also born in Germany but it seems he took US citizenship too (I am awaiting conformation of this).

In these cases which nationality should be chosen. Where is the correct place to find existing guidelines or otherwise address this concern? Thehalfone (talk) 09:16, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Why not just hyphenate? Robinson would be "German-American". For Einstein, I'd say also "German-American", but I was unaware of the Swiss connection. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 09:18, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This will usually be a good solution. With Einstein it may be a problem though! It currently reads German-Jew, and I am sure many people would be offended I removed the Jewish reference. Still I will make that change for Robinson. Thanks. Thehalfone (talk) 09:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Related question ... how would you classify people when the nation they were born and lived on got partitioned into two countries? For example, if person X was born in area Y of entity Z, but lived most of his productive life in area Y1 of Z, and later Z gets partitioned into the countries Y and Y1, how would you classify (or categorize) X? These problems turn up very often in South Asia, especially for people who died before the 1947 partition. --Ragib (talk) 10:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I think we are dealing with several different issues here...

For a disambig page the key is to keep it short and simple. All you need is enough information to identify the various people and distinguish one from the other. Someone like Albert Einstein can probably be listed simply as: "Scientist who developed the theory of relativity" or something... without mentioning his national origin/citizenship/etc.

For an article on the person, we have the luxury of going into his/her national origins, changes in citizenship, etc in more detail. If a country has changed its name, or the borders are now different, we can have a short paragraph explaining this: "Sean Ogg was born in in 1902 in the small village of Badass which, at the time, was part of the Kingdom of Lancre (now part of Uberwald). He migrated to Ankh-Morpork in 1925 and became a Morporkian citizen."

Then there is the issue of categorization... the accepted practice in categorizing someone is to defer to "self-identification"... ie what race/nationality/religion/ etc did the subject claim to have. Blueboar (talk) 14:18, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

For the categorization, the "self identification" doesn't solve the problem where the original country is divided. Let me give an example ... the scientist Jagadish_Chandra_Bose was born in Mymensingh District of East Bengal (and his family hailed from, which is now part of Bangladesh, during British Raj. He spent most of his later life in West Bengal which is now in Republic of India. Naturally, Bose has a British Indian passport, and would generally be termed "Indian". However, this "Indian" does not convey the same meaning as "Indian" post 1947 partition (And Bose died before that in 1937).

Now, would it be correct to categorize Bose as "Indian scientist"? That category is for Scientists from "Republic of India". Would it be correct to include Bose as a "Bangladeshi scientist" based on his heritage and birth and native region? Neither Republic of India nor Bangladesh existed when Bose died, and we do not have any category for "British Indian scientists". So, what should be the correct category here? --Ragib (talk) 23:30, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite of Wikipedia:Protection policy

A rewrite of this policy, currently at Wikipedia:Protection policy/new, is proposed. As explained on the talk page, the intention is not to change any of the spirit of the policy, but only how it is presented. Comments and criticism are welcome. Happy‑melon 11:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:IP block exemption has been marked as a policy

Wikipedia:IP block exemption (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

See also: Previous 2 (non-) discussions on this page. :-P --Kim Bruning (talk) 20:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:PW member participation in FLC's and FLA's

So the problem here is that in the past, there have been pro wrestling articles that were nominated for FA, but they have passed because people said comments like "It looks good, it rocks, its good, support" but without a reason. But now, this is a problem. Alex Roggio nominated New Year's Revolution (2007) for FA, but there were not enough responses, and it failed. About a week ago, I nominated No Way Out (2004) for FA, it failed because there were not enough responses and there were 2 opposes, 1 made no sense, and the other we fixed the problem pointed out but the person did not reply back. Also, List of WCW Hardcore Champions has been nominated for FL, but there have been no responses because people outside the project dont pay attention to pro wrestling articles. If no one outside the WP:PW, then the good articles written here will never have a chance to become Featured articles or Featured Lists, I proposed WT:PW that we should either set up a policy where WP:PW members can participate in FAC's and FLC's where they must give a reason for their support or disapproval, and/or with that policy, the project can set up a list of approved members who can participate in FAC's or FLCs. Suggestions?--TrUCo-X 22:10, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no rule that prevents members from WP:PW to vote in FACs. The only thing that stops you is the previous consensus taken by WP:PW, which WP:CONSENSUS says can change overtime. Alex ^T/_C Guest Book 22:33, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

There was no such consensus. User:Scorpion0422 decided that should be the policy, but for WP:PW only. GaryColemanFan (talk) 00:03, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Then there you go! XD No need for this topic. Just start a consensus at WP:PW and if you want approval, discuss it at WT:FAC. Alex ^T/_C Guest Book 00:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Bots and the {{bots}} template

There is discussion ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#nobots about whether or not bots should obey the {{bots}} template (especially in regard to user talk pages). Please chime in there. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:03, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Long usernames

This user was blocked because his username was too long. I'm not arguing with the block, as it was supported by multiple admins, and besides, I'm not sure it's my place to do so. But here's a practical suggestion. If Wikipedia has a limit on username length, why not put a limit on the number of characters that can be entered in the username field during new account creation? Jonneroo (talk) 07:31, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Corrected typo in the above text. Jonneroo (talk) 07:33, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that as a side issue, re-blocking someone after they've been unblocked to make a username change request is disruptive to the username change process. —Random832 20:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

AWB > BOT?

Hi; I use AWB a fair bit, often reaching 6-12 edits per minute. The "rules" section states that accounts making more than a few edits per minute should apply for a bot account - is this necessary in my case, would you say? I mainly just do disambig, typos... that sort of thing. User:TreasuryTag/Sig2 08:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I sure hope not, cause then every Huggle user and maybe every VandalProof user would need to apply for a bot account. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:05, 9 Mar 2008 (UTC)

I know, that's what struck me as strange :-) User:TreasuryTag/Sig2 09:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd say no, your still confirming each edit. If you had a set of rules or regexes for AWB and all you were doing was clicking start, that would be a bot. Visually editing a large number does not in and of itself require a bot. Now if you wanted to write rules and what not to fix disambigs, etc then yes. Also, 6-12 edits a minute, assuming its not being done for like 5 hours straight really shouldn't be an issue. I remember reading that Wiki gets 70,000 edits a day. Might check over at WP:BON if you want a second opinion. MBisanz ^talk 09:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I wouldn't worry about it, unless and until someone actually raises a complaint about the speed of your edits. The AWB project cautions against making highspeed edits because of the potential stress on the server. (Personally, I look forward to the day that someone accuses me of being a bot.) -- RoninBK _{T C} 09:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, no WP:BOT is policy, and quite clear on the point: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval is required if one does 6-12 edits per minute. Even if the end of the requested approval is: you don't need to do anything specific, continue as you are doing not being a bot. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:33, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you (Treasury) doing anything different than Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BaldBot? BRFA is so backed up I'm hoping we could IAR is it is. MBisanz ^talk 09:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The bot policy covers "Assisted editing tools". If you read that section, it seems to be saying that mass-edits performed with those tools that are generally accepted and benign, such as disambiguating links and making spelling corrections, doesn't require a bot account. Equazcion •✗/C • 09:59, 9 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Quoting from that section: "if there is any doubt, you should make an approval request", doing 6-12 edits per minute, is "doubt" (to say the least), so going through the approval process is required. Anyway, the process is at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, not here (WP:VPP). This is not the place to ask for exceptions to the WP:BOTS policy, while, apparently, the less "exceptional" road (WP:BRFA) hasn't been tried yet. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:37, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

It also says "Contributors intending to make a large number of assisted edits are advised to first ensure that there is a clear consensus that such edits are desired." You're lawyering. The spirit of the policy is what's important, not the wording, as polices are not laws. The point is to make sure people don't make possibly-controversial edits en-masse. Disambiguating links and spell-checking is benign, and no specific "exception" needs to be "requested". If the user's edits become a problem, that can be dealt with when the time comes. Equazcion •✗/C • 11:11, 9 Mar 2008 (UTC)

I'm not too happy about Treasury's handling of the user:88.108.85.25/King Cobra issue. Thus far Treasury reverted 4 of the 5 edits this anon user made, and placed 4 warnings (up to level 4) on the anon's talk page. As none of Treasury's edit summaries comply to Wikipedia:Edit summary#Use of edit summaries in disputes, there's also a distinct WP:BITE issue going on. I'd recommend Treasury to do less edits, and give a bit more attention to explain reverts to newcomers, and over-all be more welcoming to newcomers, for edits that on first sight are maybe a bit ill-advised but are not by far vandalism. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:42, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Neither am I (happy about his edits), and I as well as a few other users have posted warnings to his talk page. The edit summaries are the result of the anti-vandalism tool he's using, called Huggle, and they normally do conform to guidelines, as they're meant to be posted in the event of reverting blatantly-inappropriate edits. Equazcion •✗/C • 11:47, 9 Mar 2008 (UTC)

So Treasury used huggle to revert non-vandal edits (in which case, as a side-remark, of course huggle doesn't emit proper edit summaries)... Whether this is a request via WP:VPP or via WP:BRFA (which IS the more appropriate place without wikilawyering), the result would be the same: 6-12 edits per minute not allowed for this user under the given circumstances. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Not allowed by whom? The edits might be problematic but we're dealing with that. If they continue to be a problem the user will be talked to again about it. This number of edits per-minute you keep quoting doesn't mean anything. Inappropriate edits are a separate issue from bot approval, and will be dealt with as needed. Equazcion •✗/C • 12:00, 9 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Treasury asked a quick decision via VPP, instead of taking time to listen to advise via BRFA. The fast decision was given. If Treasury thinks the decision unfair, here's the place: WP:BRFA.

Not knowing how to use edit summaries is an issue for WP:BRFA.

Here are the essential requirements for bots (per WP:BOT),

• is harmless
• is useful
• does not consume unnecessary resources
• performs only tasks for which there is consensus
• adheres to relevant policies and guidelines

Treasury takes allowances for more than one of these requirements. That is not allowed (whether I say so or not). I'm not saying the flaws in Treasury's editing behaviour couldn't improve soon with some proper advise, but there's no pre-emptive just go along behaving like a semi-bot, and we'll see about the behaviour improvement later. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Treasury didn't ask for a decision. He asked for advice. The requirements you list are requirements for an automated bot -- in other words, if you write a program and intend it to run unassisted on Wikipedia, it must meet those criteria. Treasury is using an assisted-editing tool, for which there is a separate section of the BOT policy, and they have nothing to do with the criteria you just listed. Users of assisted-editing tools, if used to make very frequent edits, might need to seek bot approval if making possibly-controversial edits. Reverting vandalism is not controversial -- but it can be problematic if benign edits are being reverted as vandalism (ie. the editor used bad judgment). If that happens, though, it is a separate issue. A user needs to be talked to about their judgment, and possibly even blocked for such a thing eventually; but no one ever needs to apply for a bot account if they frequently revert things as vandalism that are indeed not vandalism. That wouldn't help the situation at all, and it's not the point of bot accounts. Equazcion •✗/C • 12:23, 9 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Equazcion, quit the wikilawyering on Treasury's behalf. This is not the kind of user that should be doing 6-12 edits per minute, until behavior improves. That behavior improvement would maybe not take much time, 24H is maybe enough to see which way this goes. Until then, 6-12 edits per minute are out of the question. The reasoning of what is behind the various sections at WP:BOT is that if you use AWB in non-bot mode, or any other semi-automated tool, responsibly you won't do 6-12 edits per minute on a regular basis (because using your eyes checking the edits supported by AWB and other semi-automated tools, and/or adding a few appropriate words to the edit summary, etc takes more than 5 to 10 secs per edit).

Other users have tried to wikilawyer their way out of doing high speed editing with or without tools, saying they *really* checked their edits before submitting any of them. The current text of WP:BOT is a result of that wikilawyering. It's clear and simple: if there are questions raised: submit a WP:BRFA request. Those assessing such requests have some experience, and would normally give proper advise.

I also think you have a bit of an antiquated view of WP:BRFA requests (that is: a view dating from before requests became recommended for high-speed editing that is not really bot, and also became recommended for requests that from the outset were not intended for a bot flag). --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

There are two reasons for the bot approval process. The first is to approve the task, which is not relevant for AWB and kin. The second is to grant a bot flag so that the edits can be filtered from the recentchanges list. That is important even for manually approved edits, and the reason why people who use AWB to make edits at a high sustained rate should set up an alternate account with a bot flag. It's a routine thing to get approval for an AWB account. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't know that. Still though, this would just be to flag the account so that the edits don't show up in recent changes, and not to approve the task. In other words, if the bot account were refused, the user would still be allowed to make the edits at that speed -- and reverting edits inappropriately would be addressed elsewhere. In yet other words, a bot account is not required in order to make rapid edits -- it just helps (others). Advising rapid editors to request bot accounts isn't a way of overseeing frequent editors, as long as the task doesn't need approval. The task in this case is reverting vandalism, which everyone knows is fine. If there are problems with those reverts, it needs to be addressed elsewhere, and telling the person they need to request a bot account doesn't solve the problem. It just makes the recentchanges list easier to read. Equazcion •✗/C • 13:03, 9 Mar 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what was unclear in Carl's recommendation "That is important even for manually approved edits, and the reason why people who use AWB to make edits at a high sustained rate should set up an alternate account with a bot flag." So, please Equazcion, quit the wikilawyering, and listen to the advise. WP:BRFA is the more appropriate place for the request, the people there have quite some experience on the matter, and would give proper advise. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Kindly stop making accusations. I agree with CBM and did not argue with any of his points. Noting those, the user probably should apply for a bot account -- I don't disagree there. But that is, again, only to make the recentchanges list easier to read, whether the edits are problematic or not. Requiring the user to apply for a bot account is not a solution to bad judgment while editing, even in the case of rapid editors. Equazcion •✗/C • 13:15, 9 Mar 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, and maybe I have a bit of a different view (and experience) as Carl's in that respect:

• Task requests have been submitted with AWB as executive tool (and properly so);
• The BRFA procedure is free to look into use of edit summaries and the like, and the outcome of the request can be based on such assessment;
• AWB-based requests are not always granted, Carl's view ("It's a routine thing to get approval for an AWB account") maybe lacks a bit nuance: either the request is granted, either 6-12 edits per minute is advised against during the request procedure. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:27, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

My (our) stance is that a bot request in this situation would not be to ask permission to make rapid edits. It appears you disagree with CBM and I, which is fine. Equazcion •✗/C • 13:31, 9 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and I have no problem with that (with agreeing to disagree), but as said, BRFA is the appropriate place, they have the experience. Filing a request includes providing data in this scheme:

Operator: ˜˜˜

Automatic or Manually Assisted:

Programming Language(s):

Function Summary:

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run):

Edit rate requested: X edits per TIME

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function Details:

Note the suggestion to provide info on editing rate (which would be 6-12 edits per minute per Treasury's request for advise above), and programming language (which would be AWB, huggle, and/or whatever Treasury feels like). It would be bad advise given to Treasury to suggest leaving fields blank in the proposed application scheme would make a favourable impression on those assessing the request. It is a common reason for turning down requests (my experience). --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:48, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Policy about articles of murder victims

I've been heavily involved in an AfD about an article on a recent murder victim, and the problem is that although I favour deletion on the basis that the victim is notable only for being murdered, the argument of others is essentially that there is significant media coverage, and this doesn't seem to be an invalid argument. The problem is that this seems to be a regular occurrence at AfD, and there is no fixed consensus that I can locate on the following issues:

1. Should such articles be immediately introduced into Wikipedia, or should time elapse to ensure notability of the murder? Is the initial press coverage sufficient as a source?
2. If they should be included, how should they be titled? If only notable for the murder, should it be "Murder of XXX", "Media coverage of the murder of XXX", or is it alright just to use the name of the victim?
3. If they shouldn't be included, then what policy justifies that?

I have several answers, including ones backed by what I think are appropriate policies that I have mentioned at the current AfD, but I wondered if anyone thought that some sort of specific consensus about this issue should be sought, as proposed by Joseph A. Spadaro at the AfD in question? Fritzpoll (talk) 10:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, the recording of an event of an illegal killing of any kind, of which there are thousands every day, rests only upon the notability of the event. A more interesting question to me is how to label the entry. Should it be with the name of the killer, which is the more usual, or the victim, or maybe somebody else? A very interesting case, which I recently wrote up, is the case of baby Zachary Turner. He was the victim, and knowing that it would get written up sooner or later, I didn't want to see it identified in any other way. JohnClarknew (talk) 16:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to see such a policy, but given how the AfD's tend to go, you will never achieve consensus on one. As I very often state in such deletion debates: "newsworthy is not noteworthy". Wikinews exists for such stories. The problem, as I see it, is that Wikipedia is reflecting the same systemic bias that we see in the major news outlets, specifically the overcoverage of stories related to Missing white woman syndrome. There are very few murders/deaths/disappearances like that of Robert Latimer, where you can definitively state that a single murderer or victim is notable for being a murderer or victim. Resolute 17:03, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd prefer if the names of the killers can be avoided, to reduce any reward of such behavior. But that's a psychological issue and not a documentary one. Another issue is that an early accusation can be wrong. As for victim articles and recentism, I'd suggest that such articles be considered for deletion after sufficient time elapses to give an opportunity for notability to be established. This would be a separate consideration from other reasons for deletion. Six months? A year? -- SEWilco (talk) 18:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)\

That's backwards, actually. Notability must exist before the article is created. To give an article on a murder victim x time to prove notability only opens the door to every band and wannabe to say "well, I might be notable in six months, so let's see what happens." WP:CRYSTAL exists to prevent this. If any of these murder victims do become notable as a result of dying, the article can be recreated 6-12 months down the line. Resolute 03:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

How did you know from Day 1 that Natalie Holloway is notable? How do you even know it now? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The AFD debates usually (always?) mention WP:NOTNEWS, etc. Well, Wikinews IS news. The obvious policy is a speedy transfer to Wikinews then a redirect to the Wikinews article. The article would still be easily accessible by WP readers or editors. Maybe someone could semi-automate the process. Sbowers3 (talk) 19:42, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, articles can't be transferred from Wikipedia to Wikinews (without the agreement of all the authors) because the two projects use conflicting copyright licences. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 19:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

1. Should such articles be immediately introduced into Wikipedia, or should time elapse to ensure notability of the murder? Is the initial press coverage sufficient as a source? - Wikinews is for coverage of breaking or recent news. Wikipeida is an encyclopedia, and as such we need to take a long term approach to events. We need to discuss their significance (such as did the murder lead to new legislation) and end result. I strongly feel that time needs to pass after most events before we discuss them, just so we can know what the significance of the event is. I am also warry of initial press reports. They are often inaccurate or speculative, and will not reflect subsequent information.
2. If they should be included, how should they be titled? If only notable for the murder, should it be "Murder of XXX", "Media coverage of the murder of XXX", or is it alright just to use the name of the victim? This is another reason to wait before writing an article. Article's should be entitled by the most common name for an event... and it can take time for a consensus to develop as to what that most common name is. But, if we must write an article before such a consensus is achieved, Naming would depend on what exactly is covered in article... is it a biographical article of the victim, that goes beyond just the murder? Is it a bio of the murderer? Or is it just about the murder? If the latter, I would suggest "Murder of (Victim's Name).
3. If they shouldn't be included, then what policy justifies that? WP:NOT. Specifically: Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, point 5 - "News reports. Wikipedia considers the historical notability of persons and events."

The problem is that Wikinews is fairly new... a lot of people don't know about it. If more people knew that this was a more appropriate venue for current and recent event reporting, we would have less problems along this line. We should support our sister project... and encourage people who want to write about current and recent events to contribute to Wikinews. Blueboar (talk) 19:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we should do more to invite people to contribute to Wikinews. Some places where we might do this are:

• WP:YFA - where we tell them what not to write about. We could include breaking news and a link to Wikinews.
• When a search fails and we tell them they can create the page, we might have "Create a Wikinews story".
• In the "Before creating an article" message box above the editing box for a new article, we could link to Wikinews.
• At the Help desk, etc. we could tell people about WP:NOT#NEWS and provide a link to Wikinews.

Do you think these or any others are worth doing? Sbowers3 (talk) 22:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I personally think that this is a good idea, but people involved in these debates insist that it is included in Wikipedia, and, not unreasonably, want to know why not? A "notability" argument then breaks out with both sides saying "oh yes she is" or "oh no she isn't". I think your solution stems some of the original problem, but it won't necessarily answer the problem of policy tug-of-war when they inevitably are AfD'd - Fritzpoll (talk) 08:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

What's throwing me a little is that we have some inconsistency. A lot of the debates are ending no consensus, but some are ending in delete, such as the British murder victim Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gary Newlove. What has been pointed out to me is that the same debates are taking place over and over again: look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eve Carson and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lauren Burk. I know it might be tough, but I think that some consensus needs to be formed so that we don't end up locked in the same debates over and over again. I'm not sure what the procedure for doing this would be, but perhaps a draft policy that we can RfC? Fritzpoll (talk) 08:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The deletionists are primarily making policy and guideline arguments, which is theoretically fair. The problem is that these so-called guidelines are not being applied uniformly. When I bring up the presence of Natalie Holloway, who if anything was less notable than Eve Carson prior to her disappearance, I hear deflecting arguments that amount to "that's different". No. The only difference is that Holloway is such a media-driven story that if there wasn't an article here it would make wikipedia look stupid(er). The argument about "wikipedia is not 'news'" is also fallacious. Today's news is tomorrow's history. The argument that it can be created or recreated in 6 months is also an exclusionary diversion tactic, and is inefficient. It's easier to get the sources right now than to look for them in 6 months. The better way is to allow the article to take its course, provided it's written even-handedly and is properly sourced (as the Carson article seems to be) and then review it later when the dust has settled. Maybe there could be some kind of automatic review after some specified time, perhaps 6 months (since that's the figure that keeps getting mentioned) to determine if the story is still "notable", i.e. if it still "has legs", which is the only reason I can think of for justifying the Holloway article's existence. Someone said that consensus is unlikely. I don't agree. The deletionists are arguing guidelines. So the guidelines need to be changed, and then there should be consensus. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 09:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed - neither side seems certain. The problem is that policy suggests that waiting for a subject to become notable is unacceptable. It may be that a consensus can be forged to exclude articles of this type from this requirement (albeit temporarily, as you suggest) but this will require a policy discussion of the kind I propose. Certainly, the current AfD battles indicate there is a great deal of uncertainty on this issue. As to your bringing up Holloway, I have mostly seen people arguing against you (including myself) on the grounds that another article of a similar type existing isn't much of an argument at AfD. Still, these are all discussions that can be avoided if we can forge a coherent consensus. - Fritzpoll (talk) 11:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I should propose deletion of the Holloway article, on all the grounds cited on the Carson page, and see what happens? Even though I don't agree with deleting it, it would at least push the issue. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Aside from that, another idea comes to mind, which I think has been posed in the Carson AFD page - to have an article called "Murder of Eve Carson", on the grounds that the event is noteable due to coverage. The problem is, no one is going to come to wikipedia and look for an article by that name. So "Eve Carson" would simply redirect to "Murder of Eve Carson", and it would essentially be the same article. It could also be referenced from the UNC page, but simply putting a paragraph about it there and leaving at that, as someone suggested, is not sufficient to cover the info. What do you think of that concept in this case, and as a standard in general? That would also address the Holloway issue - rename the article to "Disappearance of Natalie Holloway" and have "Natalie Holloway" redirect to it. Seems like that could satisfy most of the concerns. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 12:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

That's sort of what I was driving at with my second question. I think that it might be harder to argue against non-notability when the article is clearly about an event rather than a person. Some of the biographical information would, however, have to be rewritten/removed as it would suddenly be inappropriate for the article it was in. Personally, I would find articles titled in such a way, tagged with a {{currentevent}} tag easier to include. With the inclusion, perhaps of sections covering the intensity of the media coverage, these would probably be of encyclopaedic value - if developed as a gudieline, however, we would have to be careful to stress the intensity of the media coverage. Perhaps we could write a proposal for a guideline, RfC it and see what happens so that we can avoid the pointless rehashing of arguments going on at these AfDs? I'm happy to draft something out in my userspace to get some opinions... Fritzpoll (talk) 12:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

What info would you exclude from the Holloway and Carson articles? Note that I'm now treating them the same, as no one has provided any explanation as to why they shouldn't be. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 13:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You see, I actually went and read the Holloway article to see how to answer your question (I really meant "might need to be changed" - just wasn't very clear!) and spotted a difference immediately: the Holloway article doesn't have an entire section devoted to who she was, what she did while she was alive or anything, except where it directly informs the event. This is in contrast to the Carson article, which spends the majority of the article talking about the life an memorial of the victim, and not about the event which is notable. I'm going to post a version of this up at the AfD, because I think it's where some of the confusion is being generated - everyone is arguing at cross purposes - Fritzpoll (talk) 14:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I am laying the bare-bones of a guideline at User:Fritzpoll/Victims_of_crime_guideline, and welcome any edits and discussion on the associated talk page. - Fritzpoll (talk) 17:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

• I find it very interesting that this debate continues to rage. I have been involved with several articles relating to the Virginia Tech Massacre and have seen this debate over and over again. Jocelyne Couture-Nowak was nominated for AfD 6 times (1 2 3 4 5 6), as well as 3 deletion reviews (1 2 3). The consensus that seemed to be reached in regard to the other victims was this: professor = notable, student = non-notable. (I can't off-hand find all the discussions for the AfDs for the various victims, but that is how it has turned out: list of victims). One specific example that I can recall, though, was Emily Hilscher, the first victim who also received considerable press coverage. It was decided to merge her information (which was pared down quite substantially as you can see) into the victim list page. The event itself was considered the notable aspect, not the victims. I fall on the side of exclusion because I feel that so many of these articles amount to nothing more than just an obituary. In fact, the "secondary sources" that many point to in establishing notability are nothing more than glorified obituaries themselves. This creates a basis for establishing notability based on trivial coverage by these sources. Rooot (talk) 19:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Thus, I think that WP:MEMORIAL needs to be clarified and expanded. Rooot (talk) 20:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I found the AfD for Emily Hilscher → HERE. Rooot (talk) 20:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This is an interesting issue. Sometimes I have seen articles about a one-time criminal which ended up being moved so that they were about the victim instead. An example is the article about Cameron Hooker, which was moved to Colleen Stan. Note the discussion at Talk:Colleen_Stan. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 01:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I remember there being a big AFD debate for Jessie Davis --- that resonated with these same issues. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC))

On a semi-related note there was also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Julie Birch about the murderer in a nn murder case. That didn't get as heated because it wasn't in the news now, but it was the same sort of issue, and currently Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Murder of Jana Shearer is a bit tangled. I think this is getting to be a longer running issue with general untimely deaths and does it make the person notable if they weren't already per WP:BIO or the relevant sub guideline. Examples: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Keeley Dorsey (3rd nomination) (a nom-admitted pointy nom, but one that raised a valid point of the lack of consistency) and stemmed from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mickey Renaud (2nd nomination) which went round and round in circles before it closed as delete. I don't know what the 'answer' is to any of this, but they're sure not to be quite discussions. TRAVELLINGCARI^{My story}_{Tell me yours} 11:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

In 2007 in the talk page of the essay (once a proposed guideline) WP:NOTNEWS, I kept up a pretty complete listing of AFD results for articles based on news stories, including a number of murder cases. This essay was an attempt to delineate the difference between the news judgement of newspaper and TV editors, who seek to maximize newspaper sales or TV viewership, and that of encyclopedia editors. This study, covering mid May through mid-September can be seen at Wikipedia talk:News articles#AFDs for news stories(May 10-September 19, 2007). A policy should take into consideration the actual consensus from such AFDs, as well as the opinions of a few editors who wish to stamp their views into policy or guideline form via talkpage discussions. Some murders, kidnappings, or disappearances were deleted and some were kept. All received multiple substantial coverage in reliable and independent sources and thus technically satisfied WP:N. A non-notable crime victim such as Natalee Holloway or Madeleine McCann can gain so much worldwide attention over so long a time that the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann or Natalee Holloway have not just the splash of coverage that every murder or kidnapping gets, but enduring coverage of every twist and turn in the case investigation. To avoid having either memorial articles or biographical articles of persons with no real prominence, it has been argued in AFDs and article talk pages that it is preferrable these articles be titled "Disappearance of,," or "Murder of .." Clear exceptions to this idea are the Holloway article as well as Joseph Force Crater about the disappearance of Judge Crater in 1930, long the most famous missing man in America. If a murder or kidnapping had no real effect on society (such as the "Amber Law" or other laws named for victims) and did not get the continuing non-stop coverage of the Holloway or McCann cases, then its article was very likely to be deleted, even if there were a number of citations for a shocking crime. Shocking crimes, per se, are clearly newsworthy, but not, per the AFD results, automatically encyclopedic. An encyclopedia is not a newspaper. Edison (talk) 03:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Talk Page of Redirected Pages

Sorry if this is a very simple question but, if I redirect a page, should I clear the talk page of all quality/importance assessment templates, etc.?

Thanks, Daniel99091 (talk) 08:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC).

I usually do remove these templates because they transclude categories which are no longer desired on redirects. If you redirect because you performed a merger, these or similar templates are usually already present on the merger target's talkpage. Be careful to leave non-trivial templates likes peer reviews or oldafds in etc. for the case that the article gets recreated at a latter time. – sgeureka ^t•c 10:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Fade up

Article Religious violence in India is giving totally one sided and wrong picture of India , So I have started a constructive article at Religious harmony in India and requested every constructive Wikipedian to contribute article

Is it policy problem or policing with some policy I do not know, some people deleted my effort to create an article at Sandbox first then they shifted the same to my personal user space here User:Mahitgar/Religious harmony in India so ,how do I invite other contributors for contributing in to this article at my personal user space?

While I do want to go with rules over here at en wiki , but if a semi regular visitor like me gets baffled while creating new articles here , I wonder what a totally new guy may be facing here while creating his or her first article ! Mahitgar (talk) 17:02, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Sandbox is for everyone to do things like testing, nothing there will last more then a few minutes at the most. You can always ask people to work on article on your userspace, but I think the main problem is that the article doesn't seem very notable or even very neutral. Harmony is basically the lack of actions. If I were you, I'd run it by the folks at WP:India and get their opinion on it. Oberiko (talk) 17:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Gay Bashing

What is up with people being harrassed on and off wiki for being openly gay? I foresee a lawsuit here unless wikipedia steps in to regulate this behaviour. Plz. note that I'm not trying to violate the "no lawsuits" policy, I'm just ringing the tocsin as it were. Average White Dork (talk) 19:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd always had the impression that Wikipedia was a relatively gay-friendly environment; I think we have openly gay editors out of proportion to the general population (of course, pseudonymity probably helps with that; there's no guarantee that these people are "out" in real life). Certainly, gay-bashing is blockable - could you point me to some examples of gay-bashing where the offender hasn't been sanctioned? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Sarcasticidealist - I observe a disproportionate number of open LGBT people in the community and they're all generally welcomed and treated with respect. That doesn't mean that some people aren't intolerant — if you have a specific complaint or incident please point to it so that appropriate action can be taken. Dcoetzee 23:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The "turd burglar" incident, while not directed at any individual was particularly unfortunate. DuncanHill (talk) 00:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikinews vs Wikipedia - the Spitzer example

We have been trying to get people to realize that breaking news belongs on Wikinews and not on Wikipedia. This afternoon's announcement about NY Governor Spitzer has now unleashed a rush to put the latest and most up-to-date "report" in the artcle about him. The problem is that most of this "reporting" has either been factually wrong or is shear speculation... In the last fifteen minutes the article has stated that "it has been reported that" ... "he is expected to resign" (he did not), "he admitted to being involved" (he did not), and has repeated a host of other allegations, speculations and inaccurate statements made by the media. This is Wikipedia at its worst. Here we are, not really knowing all that much about a breaking news event... and everyone wants to write about it. Given that this is a BLP, we MUST be very very careful about what we "report". I really think we need to be strict here. All of this should be directed to Wikinews until we actually know something beyond what was said two minutes ago on whatever news show we happen to be currently watching. Blueboar (talk) 20:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Would protecting the page until a formal announcement is made be reasonable in this instance? John Carter (talk) 20:02, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to keep the page at Semi as long as possible in the spirit of "anyone can edit", but maybe later this evening when there are fewer of us and more of them online, full might be a good idea. MBisanz ^talk 20:22, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

No, it would not. Full protection of a regular article is only acceptable in cases of extreme vandalism or edit warring by established Wikipedians (i.e. those not affected by semiprotection). Under no circumstances is preemptive full protection because there might be "fewer of us and more of them online" appropriate. Mike R (talk) 20:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

My point being that later this evening, there may be more extreme vandals and fewer admins to deal with them, which might make full protect a good idea. Then again, there are also likely to be more RS by then, so maybe it won't be needed. MBisanz ^talk 20:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

If the Gov. does resign over these allegations, even if true, it would make us, once again, a laughingstock in Europe. Who really cares if he did or not? I myself patronize high price prostitutes and strippers on a regular basis, in addition to having a beautiful wife and a girlfriend as well. Average White Dork (talk) 20:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

John... re your comment... I think the section on the event should be removed and the article fully protected for at least a few hours... just to calm everyone down and make sure that we actually have some perspective on this event. Tell anyone who complains to post to Wikinews. Blueboar (talk) 20:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

There is not much of a problem here. The speculation that Spitzer will resign is being reported in many mainstream news sources. Any uncited statements have been quickly removed. We should be proud of how quickly and thoroughly we update our articles when stories break.

Wikinews is different because it allows interviews, original research, investigative journalism, etc. But the existence of Wikinews should not preclude Wikipedia from keeping its articles up to date. Mike R (talk) 20:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I just reviewed the WP:BLP page. While I can and do think that there is more than sufficient cause to add a "breaking news" provision to that page, I can't see anything regarding the extant content which would qualify for removal of the content on that basis of that rule. I am going to post a comment on the BLP page to see if we can create a guideline to deal with similar circumstances in the future. John Carter (talk) 20:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The "current event" banner has been on the prostitution section [4] for ...um... many minutes now. -- SEWilco (talk) 20:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Mike is correct, the job of Wikinews to be able to do synthesis and original research(actually original reporting which is a bit different) shouldn't stop us from updating pages as events occur. Indeed, we are very good at being an update to date source for major events and have been recognized in the news as such for a variety of subjects such as our work with the sinking of the MS Explorer and the Virginia Tech Shootings. There's no good reason to hobble ourselves on what we are good at. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Once again, a proposal to change BLP policy to limit notability for living people only to those in paper encyclopedias (copied from BLP talk page)

The reliance of this policy page on Jimbo's thoughts should be zero. He's been more or less caught with unclean hands once again, proving that bios of non-notable people (people not in paper dictionaries) are a CORE problem of Wikipedia. Just by reason of existence. Just by BEING there, they present an unending source of problems (legal, moral, time, money), and an unending source of temptation for those in power. Thus, I propose (for the zillionth time) that we do away with the damn things. Period. No exceptions except for LIVING people famous/notable enough to be in the Britannica, or some other paper encyclopedia. For dead people, this is not a problem, any trivial person has room in Wikipedia, since it's not paper-- who cares?

And by the way, this proposal will fix the problems with Jimbo's bio, also. None of those bad things need go in, however well sourced. Jimbo's bio just won't exist until he gets famous enough to be up in a paper encyclopedia. Which probably won't happen in his life time anyway. SBHarris 21:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a lovely fantasy but not actually going to happen so is it even worth discussing? --Fredrick day (talk) 21:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, although I can't verify this right now, I am myself virtually certain that Jimbo already does have an entry in a printed encyclopedia or online version of same, or other printed biography. On that basis, the fantasy is also probably based on faulty premises as well. John Carter (talk) 21:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Cite your source (online only doesn't count, since they're all subject to the same living person notability-creep that WP is). And if so, and he's up in paper, no problem, he can stay in the WP. And be subject to the viciscitudes of being hounded by the tabloids. But other less famous people won't be here, and thus they won't be here to tempt people at WP to take cash or sex, to fix up their look. Nor will they be subject to meanspirited editing by anonymous people who have no idea what's it like to be targetted by the press-- until it happens to them. Seriously folks, this is one of two or three major moral/ethical problems facing Wikipedia right now. If you/we screw it up, you/we will deserve what we get. SBHarris 21:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

well take it to the relevent policy page then. --Fredrick day (talk) 21:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello? This IS one of those pages. Its THE BLP policy page if there IS one. The BLP rules, which CONSTITUTE the policy, are the main article that this is the TALK page for. Those rules need major modification. We reach concensus for it HERE. SBHarris 21:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This page mainly cover the how/how not it does not really concern itself too much with the why (at least that's my reading of the page), which is why I'm suggested that you proposal would be more suited to here. --Fredrick day (talk) 21:55, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Responding to earlier comments, it is more than presumptuous to demand a person cite a source to justify existing content to fit a policy proposal which doesn't even exist yet, isn't it? Having said that, check the October 2006 Current Biography. Out of idle curiosity, do you have any idea just how many such biographical dictionaries exist? John Carter (talk) 21:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not proposing "biographical dictionaries" or Who's Who or whatever your favorite bio source is. I am proposing paper encyclopedia deliberately so that it limits things to the REALLY famous, and also draws a bright line which is easy. There aren't many of THESE. And they all have strict space problems. Thus, they don't pick semi-notable sports figures, actors, business people, and so on. The Britannica didn't even HAVE living bios until 1911, which was a century and a half after it was founded. And you can bet that those it had were more famous than are 99% of the people bio'd in WP. The other reason to suggest paper, is so we don't get the famous "Clinton" or "Bush" defense of BLP policy. You can still write nasty-but-verifiable things about famous politicians, if that gets you off. And yes, I'll copy this to the PUMP. SBHarris 22:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

And you limit them so that they exclude people who have become famous recently, regardless of how famous they are. Let's tie our hands so we have to sit around and wait for the paper encyclopedias to update to cover someone recently famous. Sounds like a brilliant idea. --Minderbinder (talk) 22:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Oppose WP:NOT a paper encyclopedia, plus why would we want to become subservient to the POV of a paper encyclopaedia. --Fredrick day (talk) 22:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If that is your proposal, then it is incumbent upon you to define the terms of your definition. Frankly, I cannot imagine that you will ever be able to do so, even to your own satisfaction. And I note that, in the process of copying this, you eliminated my comment which indicates that there are roughly 13,247 encyclopediae in the possession of the various colleges in Missouri, as per here, and even 2185 in the possession of the library of St. Louis County, Missouri here. The Library of Congress stops at 10000 as per here. Personally, I think that this proposal, if it is to have any chance of success whatsoever, should be placed on a separate proposal page, where the various issues I have to imagine the proposer still hasn't reasonably considered would be ironed out. Having said that, however, I honestly can't imagine it has a snowball's chance. John Carter (talk) 22:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Look at your own entries. Of those last 2000, 500 of them are encyclopedias of home video movies. How many are paper general encyclopedias, which is what I propose? Not many. And once again, I'm making this proposal so WE don't have to fight about who is "notable" enough to be here, since it's totally unanswerable, and fundamentally corrupting. We just have to let a very few sources, who already have terrible space and money problems, do picking for us. So you'll get your Bush and Clinton, but you won't get your Wales or Siegenthaler or Rachel Marsden or Daniel Brandt or Seth Finkelstein or Jeff Merkey or anybody else who's caused endless trouble which all could totally have been avoided. If you can find any of them in any general encyclopedia in your list, I'll eat my hat. SBHarris 22:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The Library of Congress stops at 10000 encyclopedia here. Like I said, you still haven't clearly defined your own, at best nebulous, terms for inclusion. Until you do so, I really can't see any good purpose for discussing a proposal which also clearly violates other extant policy. I suggest that you spend a bit more time thinking this idea through, and create a separate page for it, where the details of the proposal can be thought through. Even then, though, as it does conflict with other extant policy, I don't think it has much any, if any, chance. And the New York Public Library has 4284 printed circulating encyclopediae here, 6916 printed noncirculating encyclopediae here. John Carter (talk) 22:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Printed. General topic. Encyclopedia. (limited topic things are not really "encyclopedias", are they, despite what they're called). "Circulating or not" is irrelevant. Now, what don't you still understand about the proposal? SBHarris 22:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

So, basically, for your now developing definition, there are questions of how we define an encyclopedia. Right now, your definition seems to fairly clearly violate OR, like it already violates several other policies. Maybe, when you've decided just how you are going to specifically define your terms, so that we have a clearer idea how many policies would have to be changed for it, it might make sense to discuss. Until then, though, ... John Carter (talk) 23:09, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

On a practical note, how are we supposed to verify that a person is included in a paper encyclopedia? A brand new copy of the 2008 World Book costs about US$1000 (Britannica is more). Not the kind of thing an average person would buy or an average public library is going to update more than once per decade. There's an online version for only $50/year (why would I pay to use an encyclopedia to write a free encyclopedia?), but reading above, that doesn't count. This is far too impractical to be workable. Mr.Z-man 22:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You have the same problem quoting items from old newpapers on microfilm or in the stacks of your library. If you don't want to make the effort, you should be doing it. If people were complaining about the high cost in time and effort to dig up stuff about YOU, Mr. Z-man, you'd understand the argument immediately and completely. As it is, use your imagination some more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbharris (talk • contribs) 23:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

would you like to check the attitude at the door and stick to your proposal rather than engaging in personal attacks on the editors debating it with you. --Fredrick day (talk) 23:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This wouldn't make it just difficult, this would make it prohibitive. I don't quite see the connection to microfilm/old newspapers. Yes, that's difficult, but we don't require microfilm references for anything. I do think we accept far too much in terms of BLPs, but this is way too far in the other direction. I think we'd be doing a great disservice to our readers if we only had bios on dead people and major world leaders. Mr.Z-man 23:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The biggest problem (as I've also raised on the parallel BLP talk page discussion) is that for this proposal to be at all meaningful, it would encompass all statements made about any living person in any article; it wouldn't just limit the number of biographical articles. So Wikipedia could not mention Jimbo Wales. An article on the New York Yankees could not mention any player or manager that did not have their own article in some print encyclopedia somewhere. An article on a country, city, or other political subdivision could not mention any office-holders that print encyclopedias had not bothered to document. The article on George W. Bush could not mention Jenna Bush. It would eviscerate just about every article dealing with any contemporary subject, business, culture, politics, etc., if only the most famous people (as some print encyclopedia has arbitrary determined based on size limitations) could be mentioned or discussed in relation to that topic. Postdlf (talk) 23:07, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm willing to give up the extraneous mention stuff and let it remain. As it is, it's subject to a notability criterion very much like what has been suggested alterntively for BLPs--you can only include stuff that would remarkable on its own, if it didn't involve the subject. Thus, no bios of kids of famous people, if they wouldn't have done anything to be famous on their own. Can we even mention them? Perhaps just the names. Not the birthdays and not the social security numbers. And those for the same reason. You don't (or should not have to) give up your privacy just because your parent is famous. SBHarris 23:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to say that I find many of the objections to this proposal a little weird. It would be pretty easy to come up with an exhaustive list of encylopaedias that could be used for this policy. As for the suggestion that it violates current policy, of course it does - that's why it needs to be proposed and discussed. That's how policy is changed. I find User:Postdlf's point to be an excellent one (I think that this proposal, if implemented, would result in a lot of BLP-creep into other articles, and not really solve all the issues that User:Sbharris is hoping) but I don't really think it's enough on which to scuttle the proposal. So I'm not going to dance around: I oppose this proposal just because I think that there should be room in a non-paper encyclopaedia for living people who are insufficiently notable to make it into paper encyclopaedias. I recognize that this can cause problems, and there are things we can do to mitigate these problems (automatic semi-protection of BLPs, for example, and a broadened policy on whose biographies get deleted upon request). But this proposal goes too far and would do too much damage to the encyclopaedia's content. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

BTW, the exhaustive list of GENERAL PAPER encyclopedias would be a very short one. The lists you see above include "Encyclopedia of Barbie Doll Collectors" and "Encyclopedia of Wood Paint Coverings" and stuff like that. Nearly all of it is totally irrelevant, yet it's being put up as a problem with my proposal. Evidently by people would couldn't even bother to check the content of their searches. And who are nevertheless wanting to be the bio scholars on other people's lives. What's wrong with this picture? SBHarris 23:55, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the idea that a list of such encyclopediae would be fairly easy to generate, I would have to say that I think there would be major disagreements, given the number of such books throughout the world, but I'll let that ride. I note the local libraries, for instance, have encyclopediae of mythology, which I'm assuming wouldn't qualify, and thus potentially endanger a lot of content related to that subject, as the more direct sources might be harder to find. It also has encyclopediae of Louisville and Indianapolis, which, if mythology were to qualify, would probably qualify as well. I do find the idea of automatic semi-protection of BLPs an interesting one, though, and wouldn't mind seeing that implemented. Has it ever been proposed before? John Carter (talk) 23:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

A silly and unworkable idea. Paper encyclopaedias, because of limited space, choose to exclude people who would warrant a position for practical reasons. People who have worked in them (I have) know in practice that perfectly valid entries get dropped with the response of "we really should have X in, but we haven't the room". Why should Wikipedia, which doesn't have the same space limitations, follow that rule? FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 00:07, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This would be an awful idea; it is unclear what would constitute a person who would be in a paper encyclopedia. And the vast majority of BLPs are perfectly fine. The cliche is throwing the baby out with the bathwater; this would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater and then sterilizing the parents. I've suggested before that we consider a specific policy of courtesy deletions for marginal notable people and what might be a reasonable standard for that. See User:JoshuaZ/Thoughts on BLP. One standard discussed there is allowing courtesy deletions of someone if they are not a willing public figure. As I note in that essay, Durova has proposed the standard of "delete if deletion is requested and would not be in a paper encyclopedia" - this is a standard which is far weaker than that proposed above and even that does not fit with our current deletion practices in that it would delete many articles which the community has decided are definitely notable enough to keep. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

BLP notability standards for contentious facts

Split from the above section; and I suggested this on the BLP talk page. Wouldn't this solve a great many problems outright?

To avoid problems, wouldn't it be just easier to enforce notability standards to any possibly contentious material? In other words, if Lawrence Cohen (me) was notable for whatever previous reasons, and got accused of incident x, that it can't be mentioned in the article about Lawrence Cohen unless that factoid(s) was reported by multiple non-trivial sources? Lawrence § t/e 22:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

That's already nominally the policy, no? "Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability, or is a conjectural interpretation of a source." What would you see as the difference between this policy and your proposal? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 22:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The present policy is subject to endless gaming. As in, somebody gives your on-line chat logs about sex to AP news, which prints them. Now what? My answer: we shouldn't even have to be deciding, unless it's the president of the country. And maybe not even then. SBHarris 22:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Notable is notable. We are servants and subordinate to NPOV as limited by BLP. Lawrence § t/e 22:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Simple. Let's say a newspaper like Rocky Mountain Daily News publishes some unpleasant fact about Lawrence Cohen, or that I would not like to see on my Wikipedia bio. If it's sourced, and it's a good RS, then, hey great--under the current system, we included it. Under my revised idea, anything contentious or negative has to basically be notable on its own, as an event or fact. Let's say I was a local mayor of Somewhere, Montana (to crib from a current real governor in New York). I get busted for soliciting a prostitute. Rocky Mountain Daily News reports this. Great--include it, under our current standards. It would be due at least one sentence. Under this new idea, unless "multiple", "non-trivial" sources covered my arrest, we can remove it with no problems and use that to keep BLPs from becoming a coat-rack of every one-off negative event that people have in their lives. It's basically to give BLP more teeth.Lawrence § t/e 22:54, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE and WP:BLP1E would apply. If you are notable for something else and some minor incident occurs that makes the news, it would be undue weight to give it much more than a passing mention, if that. If its reported in multiple major sources it should get more weight. If you aren't notable for anything else, and the Podunk Times reports that you were arrested on a minor offense, that would not be enough coverage for BLP1E. Mr.Z-man 23:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) However, it's currently accepted that one-off mentions are included for various little foibles, for example. If I were a British rock star and a London paper reported I was photographed doing lines of cocaine off the buttocks of my girlfriend Some UK fashion model, then someone would add a one-line note to my bio. And to be honest, it wouldn't be generally contested. Applying a very, very basic and simple notability test to contentious/negative facts in existing BLP articles would be a pad lock on doing harm. To do this, all we need to do is change this line in BLP

Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability, or is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see Wikipedia:No original research).

To...

Editors should remove any contentious material about living persons that is unsourced, relies upon sources that do not meet standards specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability, is a conjectural interpretation of a source (see Wikipedia:No original research), or is not itself covered by several non-trivial reliable sources that are independent of each other.

...thats it. That way, it means that only events that more than one indepent source cover is worthy to include. Simple, easy. Lawrence § t/e 23:10, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

• How in the WORLD are you going to find out if the sources are independent in the true sense of the word? Just because they don't mention each other doesn't mean that somebody hasn't read the papers or talked to somebody who's read the papers. And I have people complaining that my paper general encyclopedia standard is too hard to verify. Come on! SBHarris 23:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

• Er... easily. Independent = you can't source to the New York Post three times for one allegation, or three times to The Register. However, if the New York Post, The Register, and the LA Times all report a given negative fact or allegation, you're good to include it. I'm not saying we need to go and interview newspaper editors to ensure they've never done lunch with another editor, or to follow financial trails and make sure Rupert Murdoch doesn't own all the papers in question. And please calm down. For whatever reason you sound hysterical today posting on BLP matters. Lawrence § t/e 23:23, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

See UPI, AP, Reuters International... SBHarris 23:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I see them. If the three major wire services on the planet all carry a story and fact about a BLP, we'd look foolish not to include it in the article. That's not what my proposal addresses. Lawrence § t/e 23:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Requiring multiple reliable sources to mention a contentious fact is one thing; requiring multiple such sources to non-trivially cover it sets the bar much too high and violates WP:NPOV. Besides, notability guidelines do not and should not directly limit article content. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Extensive discussion on this can be found here on the BLP talk page. Lawrence § t/e 00:42, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Short Question

Is there a policy against posting the names of deceased people without consent? This edit seems controversial. --EoL talk 01:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no such policy. However, there is a policy against posting those names unless they're cited to reliable sources. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 01:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

And without who's consent? The deceased? They don't talk much, you know. And under the law, silence implies consent. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Er, not necessarily - for example, it is possible to consent to assault, but silence is not considered to be such consent. But that would be "off topic". Sarcasticidealist (talk) 01:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This does not have to do with self-defense tactics, it has to do with civil objections, as with the point made by Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. In fact, the article lists those 3 guys but apparenlty no source confirming those names, so it could just as well be Manny, Moe and Jack. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 01:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we owe any responsibility to the dead to not reproduce information about them found elsewhere, but I think their names are just irrelevant. Knowing the names of the "three spectators" that were killed in the incident doesn't help us understand the incident, and we have no need to know that those individuals were the victims because they have no other significance here. Their names, ages, and hometowns are dead-end facts. Postdlf (talk) 14:40, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Someone might like to know, for any number of reasons. However, if the names were just stuck there with no attribution, they could be fake names, or pals of the editor, or who knows what, so they should be deleted on that basis. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 03:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Which you already did. I would say you did the right thing for the wrong reason, but whatever. :) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 03:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:ThreatsOfViolence

Further to another incident in which a school was threatened with violence (currently at AN/I) - here's a proposal from User:Bstone (and myself, I guess!) for a centralised approach to such events, which seem to crop up every few weeks or so... thoughts most welcome. Privatemusings (talk) 03:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I should add in particular, that any pointers which may render this proposal redundant would be particularly welcome - I haven't been able to find any centralised discussion, but that doesn't mean it's not there! thanks - Privatemusings (talk) 03:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Here is the redundancy you are looking for: Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm. You could merge them. Jehochman ^Talk 03:38, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Fire. Durova^Charge! 05:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys - I've posted these links to the new proposal talk page for consideration... Privatemusings (talk) 05:38, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

There are some guidelines to follow first. Threats of violence usually stem from two parties who are in conflict. The key here is to resolve the conflict by being civil. Threats emerge when one party feels that they have been disrespected numbours times. A good essay that needs to be read before acting on this wp can be found on Friday user page. We first need to understand the 'why' before we try to make policy. Thright (talk) 19:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)thright

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Articles about people notable only for one event

I started an MfD on the above section, but this was speedy closed as being against procedure. The issue is regarding should the One Event section be in BLP, a policy page, or in WP:BIO, a guideline page. Previous discussions: Original Oct 2007 proposal; 2nd discussion; third discussion here and here; latest discussion here. As can be seen, this is a good natured discussion. Nobody is being stubborn or difficult. But few people get involved, and the thing drags on because no wide consensus for having the section IN or NOT IN the policy page can be established. It was suggested that this would be the appropriate arena to generate the wider discussion needed to get some consensus as to what should be done. My own view is that the One Event section is best placed in the guideline as it's a notability issue, and that is how it is worded. SilkTork *^{What's YOUR point?} 16:02, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you point to somewhere specific that the meaning of "one event" is discussed? Some individuals notable only for "one event": Mohamed Atta, Crispus Attucks, Lee Harvey Oswald... Am I missing something? Postdlf (talk) 16:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

To which you can add Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, Robert Peary, Mark David Chapman, and Nick Leeson and others. That is why it is felt that the section is a guideline rather than a policy. There is already a policy statement about such events: Wikipedia:NOT#NEWS, but it then directs people to another policy page (BLP) for the inclusion criteria, which is the purpose of the notability guidelines. Advice on discussions on the notability of a topic is the purpose of the guidelines. As with other notability guidelines, there are consensual requirements which are best discussed in the context of the relevant notability guideline - in this case WP:BIO is the relevant notability guideline. WP:BLP is the policy which should be consulted during the writing of the article, after discussions informed by WP:BIO have decided that the person is notable enough. The section in question is the only part of the BLP policy which advises on inclusion - the rest of the policy page deals with how the article should be written. SilkTork *^{What's YOUR point?} 16:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, no. Hillary Clinton said her parents were impressed by Edmund Hillary when he was a beekeeper, so he clearly was notable for more than his climbing ability. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability doesn't have a "one event" restriction, but does note that notability is not temporary (however, whether an event is notable might not be obvious at the time of the event). Related BLP notability issues are being proposed at User:Fritzpoll/Victims of crime guideline. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

BLP1E is policy, not a guideline. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to place it on a guideline page. How BLP1E is interpreted and applied is a subjective matter, like any of our policies, but that does not mean it is not policy. FCYTravis (talk) 18:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that there are many, many people in history who clearly need to be in the encyclopedia who are notable only for one event (John Wilkes Booth, Brutus, and many more) and hence it seems reasonable to move WP:BLP1E to a guideline since we don't actually behave as if it were a policy and we aren't actually willing to delete the articles we'd need to delete if we took its "policy" status seriously. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 19:08, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

John Wilkes Booth and Brutus are not living persons, last time I checked. BLP1E is policy. Like all of our policies, it is subject to interpretation. and proper application. But that does not change the fact that it is well-established policy. FCYTravis (talk) 19:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, but we have many examples who are living who would still meet it such as Charles Manson, Lynette Fromme, and others from the above list such as Mark David Chapman and Nick Leeson. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:34, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Charles Manson is encyclopedic not for one event, but for his involvement in a long series of crimes including serial murder, culminating in his life imprisonment. Had he merely killed one person and made one news cycle, it would be doubtful that he would be encyclopedic. Lynette Fromme was involved both with Manson and with a single event of undisputed encyclopedicity - an attempted assassination of a U.S. president. We also have in-depth, reliable secondary sources available which have chronicled the lives of these people, giving us the encyclopedic context necessary to write a biographical capsule rather than a scandal sheet. FCYTravis (talk) 19:44, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be a good example of how what constitutes one event is highly subjective and no one seems to agree on it. In any event, the other examples above such as Chapman are pretty clear cut. Or if you want, I could point to Yigal Amir as another. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:53, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Again, Chapman - he shot and killed one of the most popular music figures, ever. That's "one event" of extreme encyclopedicity. BLP1E does not say we *never* do these things - it says that "Where a person is mentioned by name in a Wikipedia article about a larger subject, but remains of essentially low profile themselves, we should generally avoid having an article on them" and "If reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted." These are not hard-and-fast proscriptions. They are rules that establish, in these cases, a rebuttable presumption that we should not have a biography. Like all of our policies, it is subject to interpretation and debate as to where and how it is applied. That does not mean it is not a policy. FCYTravis (talk) 19:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me a "rebuttable presumption" type situation is just what a guideline is intended for. A policy, on the other hand, is intended for a more clear-cut "always" or "almost always" situation. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 01:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Without researching any of the past debates, why can't it be in both? </stupid question> Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:28, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I would not object to it being stated in both. I vehemently object to any attempt to remove it from the realm of policy. FCYTravis (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you explain the basis for such opposition? I'm not sure I understand why it should be policy rather than a guideline. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:34, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you know the historical context here? The BLP1E policy evolved from the grand Internet memes wars, in which it was finally brought to a consensus that we should not write "biographies" of people like Brian Peppers because we cannot possibly hope to create a balanced, encyclopedic biography of the person; instead, what we get are "this guy was on the Interwebs here, and that made the news here and here, the end."

BLP1E is a bulwark against that ever happening again. It says we should not even attempt to write biographies of people who made one news cycle, then disappeared; because what we end up with is not a biography, but a scandal sheet.

The idea that we not become a scandal sheet for living persons, is an integral and vitally important part of our policy on the biographies of living persons. FCYTravis (talk) 19:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm aware of the history; I just don't see why it needs to be a policy matter rather than a general guideline (indeed the fact that we manifestly have many articles about people who are notable for only one event suggests it should be a guideline). Furthermore, Peppers was deleted because our general notability criteria were increased. Today he would be deleted under WP:NOTNEWS or for not really meeting WP:BIO. And frankly, the idea that we need to so strongly prevent having a tiny set of articles that we need to keep this in policy when the statements says merely "reliable sources only cover the person in the context of a particular event, then a separate biography is unlikely to be warranted" which is not very strong language. NOTNEWS does this more than well enough; it isn't at all clear to me why we need anything beyond that and it is certainly unclear why this needs to be policy. And Silk seems to make clear below that there wasn't any real consensus to make this policy anyways. (Personally I don't know whether this should be policy or not, but right now I haven't seen terribly good arguments in either direction). JoshuaZ (talk) 19:53, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I've just looked back at the history of this section. It was added in May last year after this discussion. The addition to policy appears to me to be incorrect, as there were more oppose statements than support. The section appears to have been contentious from the start and it looks like it has not had the widespread support of the community which would be required for policy. It appears that the section is there on a policy page because objections have been ignored or reverted and then protected. Policy shouldn't be made up by a handful of Wikipedians on talkpage during a wet Wednesday indoors - especially when there are other Wikipedians who are questioning the proposal. Negotiation and discussion is the way we do things so we can achieve consensus. Forcing through a proposal against consensus appears inappropriate. But there may be more to this than meets the eye. I may be missing some discussion that took place. SilkTork *^{What's YOUR point?} 19:38, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that it is, in general, a bad idea to draft policy on the basis of reactions to extreme circumstances (e.g. a "war" about Internet meme biographies). Policy should be drafted in a way that it takes into account the average article, and not just the best and worst ones. Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The BLP itself was drafted as a response to the 2005 Seigenthaler incident, in which a very blatant and disgusting libel of a public figure sat on Wikipedia for several months without anyone bothering to check or remove it. This is one case where it was a very, very good idea to draft policy in the wake of a disaster; to prevent that disaster from happening again, as much as we can possibly do so, anyway. It was a wake-up call to this community, that we can and do affect real people in a negative manner when we screw up their biographies. FCYTravis (talk) 20:09, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Right, that's because we realized we had a systematic problem; the existence of unsourced negative content. That's a straight BLP problem, not a BLP-penumbra issue. In general, adopting new policies to handle a small number of articles isn't a very good idea In fact I'd be inclined to sympathize with an argument that people have decided there is a similar general problem with BLP1E issues but that's a pretty hard argument to make since that's inherently a BLP-penumbra issue about reliably sourced content that is frequently easily googlable even aside from Wikipedia. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Last I checked, we, as an encyclopedia, hold to higher standards than "it is easily googlable." If we ever decide not to have those higher standards... well, that's where I and a lot of other people will get off the train. FCYTravis (talk) 20:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Given the circumstances surrounding BLP1E's creation and the frequent controversy regarding its interpretation, what exactly is wrong about stating that it is "a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception"? Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict with Falcon's remark above) Missing the point and not responding to most of the details; why do we care about BLP-penumbra issues? The entire logic is that we want to be careful not to add harm to people. Now, if content is already in reliable sources which one can obtain by a matter of seconds then the argument that having the content is harmful is pretty weak. Indeed, as I've argued elsewhere, having an NPOV description can actually help matters if most of the other descriptions are salacious or unflattering. So once the BLP-penumbra issue is weak, we need to use our general attitudes about content as to whether or not to include something. Indeed, we have a simple method for telling if someone is harmed; they can email OTRS or such. Once the content is reliably sourced there's not much more we can or should do. Sure, if someone says "this is the top google hit for my name, and it hurts me" there is a possible argument for changing matters so that it emphasizes an event rather than the person. Although even there, in the vast majority of cases, any details about an event that is relevant will be the most hurtful elements; so BLP1E can potentially make things worse rather than better than subjects. This is in general a very complicated issues. Let's not think that there's is some overarching harm issue at play here that having these articles is automatically harmful. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:26, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The "one event" criteria doesn't even have anything to do with Peppers, whose asserted notability was entirely based on internet documentation and comment upon his disfigurement and medical condition, not upon his criminal conviction. That, like all memes, is not an "event," so "one event" doesn't capture such problematic articles at all. And as demonstrated above, plenty of articles about which there is no dispute for inclusion are in fact about individuals notable for only one event (no matter how "extremely encyclopedic" such events may be). In other words, the "one event" criteria is simply too poorly targeted towards any real problem to function as anything more than a guideline. It covers too many valid articles and leaves out invalid or borderline ones. Postdlf (talk) 20:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

• The issue about BLP1E is that, even for people famous for one event, there exists reliable biographical material on those people outside of that event. If a person becomes famous for a single event, and then, as a result of that event, reliable extensive biographies are done of the person some time later, then there is extensive source material about the person. There is a difference between that and a person whose ONLY extensive coverage is the direct press coverage of the event itself. Essentially, once a person has been covered in a reliable source as a person of their own right, BLP1E no longer applies. However, if ALL of the coverage of a person is part of the coverage of the event, and that only, THAT is the type of coverage that BLP1E is meant to stop. If a person makes the news for a single event, and then receives no further coverage beyond that event, then BLP1E applies... If the single event leads to coverage of that person's life outside of the event BLP1E does not apply. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
  • If no reliable source has any information on an individual beyond their involvement in a particular event, then obviously their coverage in Wikipedia could extend no further. So how does this go beyond WP:RS, and why should it? Postdlf (talk) 20:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

• The problem is when someone is famous only for incident X, as with Crystal Gail Mangum. In such cases there is a clear presumption per WP:BLP that we cover the event, if it is truly notable, rather than the person. Most of the news stories on people who fall under WP:BLP1E (and it is almost exclusively news stories that are used as sources here) are about an event, not an individual. There is rarely any biographical coverage after the event, and none which is separate form the event, so rather than hang their necks about with a millstone of a Wikipedia entrye purporting to be a biography but in fact being solely a record of something they might rather forget, we have WP:BLP1E, as an application of common decency. I don't think it's a problem. Of course, some of the news events themselves turn out not to be especially notable other than as examples of tabloid sensationalism, per WP:TABLOID; we have a sister project for news stories so we don't need to cover news stories of no lasting cultural or historical significance. Guy (Help!) 22:39, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure why it matters that much, in terms of WP:BLP or Mangum's own interests, whether Mangum's employment history as an escort is documented under the article title "2006 Duke University lacrosse case" (as it is currently) or "Crystal Gail Mangum." Otherwise it's just a matter of editorial judgment as to whether a subject is substantial enough in its own right to merit an article or is just an element of another topic, which isn't a concern specific to people, living or not. Postdlf (talk) 23:12, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
• I strongly agree With FCYTRavis at 19:43, 11 March: It says we should not even attempt to write biographies of people who made one news cycle, then disappeared; because what we end up with is not a biography, but a scandal sheet. The idea that we not become a scandal sheet for living persons, is an integral and vitally important part of our policy on the biographies of living persons. And also: How BLP1E is interpreted and applied is a subjective matter, like any of our policies, but that does not mean it is not policy. (18:48, 11 March). It's an important principle -- so important that it should be part of a policy, not a guideline. It's written with enough flexibility for the occasional Oswald or Sirhan Sirhan. The policy also works with WP:NOT#NEWS in that we want articles only on people known for such important single events that they're recognized not just by news cycles but by historians. This also means we can get enough information for a full-fledged biography article. I will admit that there are plenty of AfDs where the majority, and then the closing admins, ignore policy without saying so. Noroton (talk) 00:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Note that in WP:BLP the subsection is part of the "Presumption in favor of privacy" section. It fits in well there because many of the parts reinforce the parts around them: WP:NPF for instance fits in well with this section. And there is such a strong tendency among Wikipedians to want to make ill-considered exceptions to this policy that we should keep it within the stronger strictures of a policy page rather than a guideline page. Noroton (talk) 01:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

• I also agree with FCYTravis about the scope of the policy, but note (with some concern) that there is a stunning lack of consistency. Lynette Fromme attempted to assassinate a president of the United States; that is encyclopedic. Vicki Iseman was accused by unnamed sources to have had a relationship of indeterminate nature with a US Senator eight years previously, which is considerably less notable and (due to the nature of the single source behind the allegation) would seemingly run afoul of the BLP issue. Are we going to discuss the names of the woman or women involved in the controversy surrounding Eliot Spitzer? We shouldn't, as per BLP1E, but following the lead of Vicki Iseman and John McCain lobbyist controversy and John McCain presidential campaign, 2008 and Alcalde and Fay and Homer City, Pennsylvania and Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Homer-Center School District and Criticism of The New York Times and any of the other 50 pages on Wikipedia that link to Iseman's biography here on Wikipedia, we should be working our fingers to make sure that the woman named in this news report (I'm not identifying her by name, because I feel it is a BLP1E/ONEEVENT violation just like Iseman) is all over Wikipedia, but Elliot Spitzer prostitution scandal has already been redirected, and I strongly suspect that this (which is likely to be far more noteworthy) will be flushed down the memory hole here. Why the double standard? Horologium (talk) 02:34, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Inconsistency is a problem we have throughout Wikipedia. It is an inevitable consequence of our decentralized structure. The Spitzer example is a bit different because a) so far it fits fine in his article and b) the names there haven't been widely discussed nor are they that relevant. If the Spitzer matter becomes larger we can always split that off to Elliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. These things often need to take time to settle down. JoshuaZ (talk) 02:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the Eliot Spitzer article is 100K long and the software flag recommends splitting it, and the redirect was proposed when the "article" was two sentences, with two references. That section in the Spitzer article is now seven paragraphs, plus a three-paragraph quote from Spitzer and 22 different references, which qualifies as enough to justify a separate article. You were strongly in favor of retaining both the Iseman article and the McCain lobbyist controversy article, but wish to merge the Spitzer article. I hate to give the appearance of failure to assume good faith, but why are they different? You state that the names of the women are not widely discussed, but I found one after about three seconds of searching; you say they are not relevant, but insisted that Iseman's name was relevant. Horologium (talk) 03:04, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, a few things; first, the Iseman name showed up in a lot more sources than the names connected to Spitzer and the old standby test for Iseman passes; we have enough info to write a decent biography of her. That isn't true in the cases you suggest. I also was not (and am still not) against a possible merge to of the Iseman article to the main controversy page there. Oh, and if it is already that long, yeah the Spitzer one should be clearly split off. I didn't realize it was that long. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

• This looks to me like one of those futile arguments based on applying absolutes to a situation which does not permit of an absolutist approach. Should we really can WP:BLP1E just because one biography sits at the margins between biography and event? I would think not. As it happens, I don't think Iseman's biography is ever going to be anything other than a coatrack, but maybe we will see some coverage in respect of something else one day. And if not, then we can revisit the issue after the election when people with deep-seated desires to keep or exclude the article as serving or damaging a political agenda, will have departed for the latest cause du jour. Guy (Help!) 14:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

• • This is not about removing the advice contained within WP:BLP1E, it's about whether that advice should be in the form of policy or guideline. That there has been a dispute about it being policy from the very beginning, and that there is no clear consensus emerging here leads me to feel that - despite individuals feeling strongly that they would like it to be policy - it should remain in BIO but be removed from BLP. People are using its position on a policy page as a trump card to bypass discussion. Indeed, this current discussion arose because some people had been using the WP:BLP1E shortcut as a trump card and were dismayed to find that the shortcut directed to a "mere" guideline. The point when one can rise above negotiation and discussion by using Wiki shorthand is when that shorthand is based on well established consensus. Until that time one has to keep using rational explanation and reasoned debate to get one's point across. It's tougher, but fairer that way, because then one isn't using fake currency, and the negotiations lead to the pure reduced gold of genuine currency. I see no evidence for consensus for One Event to be policy. There seems to be enough said in Wikipedia:NOT#NEWS, with these key sentences: "Even when an event is notable, individuals involved in it may not be. Unless news coverage of an individual goes beyond the context of a single event, our coverage of that individual should be limited to the article about that event, in proportion to their importance to the overall topic." That seems fair enough to me. While "Cover the event, not the person." in WP:BLP1E is a rallying call with no sense of perspective. The crusading charge of that call is unpleasant and rather than being in bold, it should be removed. It is not reflective and doesn't encourage consideration of the individual situation. It reads like there is a certain distaste to having articles on people in the news. Well, if we are covering the event, then we are already covering the people involved in the event - judgment on the point at which a break out article is justified needs more assistance than a cry to not do it! I like the advice given at WP:BIO1E, less bombast, and more guidance. SilkTork *^{What's YOUR point?} 16:34, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

"Agree to Disagree" section format?

Is this possible: setting up a section that divides into two columns, with one view in one column, and an opposing view in the other column? There are many areas of science where two hypotheses have equal support. For example, I read in The Economist last week that malaria scientists are strongly divided on a certain issue (which the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation got tangled in).

There could be a poll at the bottom of the section for readers to vote for which view is more convincing. Sometimes the poll might make it clear that one statement has "won" and the losing statement could be removed. But an "agree to disagree" section could be left up indefinetly; I can imagine that many users will enjoy clicking on a list of "Articles With 'Agree to Disagree' Sections," reading the controversies, and voting. I can't wait to give my opinion on controversial subjects I know nothing about! Oh, wait, I already do that whenever I edit Wikipedia. :-)

This would also reduce "wiki-lawyering." Considering Wikipedia's contradictory policies, instead of "wiki-lawyers" citing policies to justify reverting each other's edits, each could have his or her own section, supported by his or her favorite Wikipedia policies.

I heard that this idea was suggested some time in the past, hotly debated, and no agreement could be reached. :-) Was another website built with this feature? I searched the archives but the phrase "agree to disagree" has appeared only twice in Village pump: Policy discussions.--TDKehoe (talk) 20:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know the background of the issue, but it immediately brought to mind Truthiness#Colbert ascribes truthiness to Wikipedia... :) Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

User talk pages guideline

The user talk pages guideline says in one section that removing comments on user talk pages by other editors "without any reason is generally regarded as uncivil", and then in a later section, says, "users may freely remove comments from their own talk pages." I think this could be seen as contradictory and confusing. The guideline should be clarified to resolve the issue one way or another. I have posted a proposal. Please would any interested editors comment over at WT:TPG to keep the discussion with the guideline. Thanks, - Neparis (talk) 00:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Foreign military operational names (part 2)

I didn't get much response over at naming conventions, so I'm hoping to get a bit more here. As mentioned above, we've run into a snag at WP:Military History and I think we're content to let it be resolved here.

Basically, the question comes down to what level of translation to use for the article name of foreign military operations. Below is an example table.

Original name	Transliteration	Partial translation	Full translation
Fall Weiß	Fall Weiss	Case Weiss	Case White
Операция Искра	Operatsia Iskra	Operation Iskra	Operation Spark
捷号作戦	Sho-gō sakusen	Operation Sho-Go	Operation Victory
ケ号作戦	Ke-gō sakusen	Operation Ke-Go	Operation Ke
Unternehmen Barbarossa		Operation Barbarossa

For note, operations named after proper nouns (such as Barbarossa being named after Frederick Barbarossa) would not be translated (though potentially transliterated). Same goes for names like "Operation Ke"; since ke is a simple letter of the Japanese "alphabet" and thus has no meaning to translate.

Any opinions? Oberiko (talk) 23:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Quite a "snag". I read as far as the first break and didn't have the energy to continue. My choice is a full translation unless it is well-known as a partial translation (e.g. Operation Barbarossa). I assume that there would be redirects from other names and that the article would mention other names. Sbowers3 (talk) 21:30, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I vote for the "partial" translation, though I think we will need redirects from the transliterated version. As this is the English Wikipedia I am opposed to articles in non-Latin alphabets anyway. A bit of checking seems to show that the partial version is more common; however there is sure to be some hardhead searching under the transliteration. Mangoe (talk) 03:17, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

English Wikipedia, so use as full a translation as possible for the article title. Other names can be listed in the article. If the translation is wrong, someone will fix it. If you can't get it translated then start with what you've got. -- SEWilco (talk) 05:32, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

You may want to read Talk:Iaşi-Chişinău Offensive before making any suggestions.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 09:01, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I would have suggested the partial translation, for instance keep 'Operation' in English (or whatever the corresponding first word is, battle or, or whatever) but have the actual name in the original language, often they are named for places or so on that have the biggest impact in the original language. SGGH ^speak! 11:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Having looked at the case mentioned, there's a strong note of Romanian partisans trying to own an article about a Russian offensive. If it has to be in the original language, that original language is Russian in this case, since it was after all their offensive; the Romanian should be dismissed out of hand. However, the other problem is that the transliteration from Russian into Latin characters is a little uncertain. The whole Yassy/Jassy ambiguity arises because of a longstanding Latinism that is wont to use an initial "J" to represent a "Y" consonant sound. I personally think this is an archaism and that we should stick to the phonetically obvious "Yassy", redirecting from "Jassy". As for Iassy", that's for the Italian Wikipedia. Mangoe (talk) 14:08, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

If you can find a standard English-language reference to the operation, I would go for that. For non-Roman alphabets, my inclination would go for the full translation. For the Roman alphabet, it's more tricky... Bluap (talk) 04:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

My advice would be to go for a guideline that is both straightforward and subtle... if there is an overwhelmingly consistent form used in English-language publications, use that. If there's more than one, choose between them on the basis of the following:

1. expert advice
2. "trends" in the literature
3. fuller translations

If there is no real English-Language usage, or a wide variety, go for fuller translations. However, in both cases of fuller translations, stop at whatever point makes most sense; always transliterate, translate non-proper-nouns (don't translate proper nouns even if you can), unless there is no clean, concise translation, or if the foreign word is attested in English. Some care should be taken where a phrase may be translated cleanly, but the phrase has special significance in the original language that may be neglected by the translation. I can't think of a specific example of that right now. So, blitzkrieg would never be translated unless there was a strong indication of it being translated in the literature (which I'm fairly sure there isn't), because it's well attested in English, for example. SamBC(talk) 12:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm partial to agree myself. I should note that since the "boom" of code names happened as late as World War II, it's very common to have the same operation referred to (in English histories) as any of the latter three in roughly equal measure. We're not really looking at the "almost-always-referred-to-as" operations, but instead the "sometimes-X-sometimes-Y" situations. Oberiko (talk) 13:19, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

In those situations, I think my above comments are good guidance (well, I would, wouldn't I?), but another very important one is to follow the pattern of WP:ENGVAR—mention all of them, but pick one and stick with it otherwise, for the title and (mostly) every mention in the article. There should be a discussion of the different versions if relevant. A good acid test for this is if there's such a discussion at all in the literature. Alternatives to the "chosen" version can also be used in contexts (individual sections, captions, etc) where they are more appropriate. That's the sort of guidance I'd pick, anyway. SamBC(talk) 13:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I've started a rough tally below. If I've placed people correctly, it looks rather like the trend is towards full translation. Still, six people is hardly enough to get a meaningful consensus. Any one else have an opinion one way or the other? Oberiko (talk) 00:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that the guidance to use the name that is most recognisable to English-speakers and most commonly used in English-language sources is the most reasonable. Sometimes it calls for full translation, sometimes for partial translation, and sometimes for no translation (e.g. blietzkrieg). Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:21, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Tally

• Original: 0
• Transliteration: 0
• Partial translation: 2 (Mangoe, SGGH)
• Full translation: 4 (Sbowers3, SEWilco, Bluap, SamBC)

Is this biting the newbies?

I noticed this repeated removal of an anon's comment at Talk:Homeopathy [5][6][7] and the subsequent blocking of the anon. [8] This raised my eyebrows a bit, as it seemed against the spirit of WP:BITE and WP:AGF. Some editors justified the removal, accusing the anon of ranting or violating WP:SOAP and WP:TALK guidelines. Nevertheless, I feel there are very limited cases where a user's comments on talk pages should be removed, e.g. personal attacks or simple vandalism. I would like to know if there is an established consensus on how the policies apply to situations like this. It seems to be a dangerous trend to remove a user's comments on the basis they are ranting.

N.B. I am not presently involved in this discussion, but it was on my watchlist as I have made some minor contributions in the past. Dforest (talk) 08:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The user was also editing the article. [9] I don't know where the discussion about the user took place. -- SEWilco (talk) 14:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I was referring to the article discussion. Yes, I'm aware the user was editing the article. The user was duly warned for adding controversial content without discussion. So he/she moved it to talk, and then had his/her comments repeatedly deleted, and a subsequent block was placed. This seemed rather brash to me, and the comment deletion did not appear to be justified. It seems to give the message that anons' comments are not welcome here.Dforest (talk) 08:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Notability (criminal acts) proposed guideline.

Per discussion above, and further discussion in my user space, a proposed guideline has been posted at User:Fritzpoll/Notability (criminal acts) in an effort to achieve wider community consensus through debate and editing on the associated talk page. I am hopeful that the outcome of this will be useful guidance in the creation and administration of articles that have proven so contentious at AfD debates. Fritzpoll (talk) 16:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm loathe to suggest expanding any of the sprawling notability subguidelines. However, if such a topic truly needs additional clarification, why not simply propose an additional section to WP:BIO instead of creating yet-another-notability-guideline? Vassyana (talk) 17:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

That's an option, in which case the above can just be a discussion on the content of that additional section. Fritzpoll (talk) 17:18, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators has been marked as a policy

Wikipedia:Administrators (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Wiki spirit

This line which appeared in the 2002 policy guidelines page has been dropped. "Our goal with Wikipedia is to create a free encyclopedia--indeed, the largest encyclopedia in history, both in terms of breadth and in terms of depth. We also want Wikipedia to become a reliable resource." I believe it should be re-added to reflect the goals of this project. WP should be reflected on goals and social norms, and thus this line is needed.Thright (talk) 18:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)thright

Opting in to canvassing

We are discussing the wisdom of allowing consensual canvassing via user talk pages. Of course, I am taking the wikilibertarian viewpoint on this issue. My view is that if people specifically opt-in to receiving certain notices, e.g. using Template:Canvassing, then the community should not punish another user for giving that person the notices that they have indicated an interest in receiving. As "spam," by definition, is "unsolicited messages," this does not even count as internal spam, any more than weekly Signpost delivery to those who have signed up for it counts as spam.

Some might argue that this could change the course of Wikipedia decisionmaking. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Some Wikipedians already have gained an advantage that might be regarded as undesirable under that logic, through social networks they have established in which they coordinate action on pending discussions through emails, IRC, etc. At least talk page communication is more transparent. There are also ways in which it could be made minimally obnoxious, e.g. through "Show - Hide" messages similar to what we see in the ubiquitous RFA thankspam. Caucusing is a normal part of decisionmaking is large assemblies, and we should allow it. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 07:15, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Against, because once one group opts to receive canvassing notices, everyone else will feel the need to include themselves as well, lest the people who have agreed to canvassing get to push their POV more easily. Allowing this for those who want it may seem like a good idea since it's limited, of course, to those who specifically asked for it, but it will spread to everyone eventually, purely out of fear. Equazcion •✗/C • 07:18, 13 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Might it not be helpful in finding users with similar interests to work with? If someone canvasses you about a subject you're interested in, perhaps you've gained a new colleague to work with on that subject. On the other hand, if you get canvassed on something you're not interested in, you can revise the restrictions to exclude that kind of topic, and keep tweaking so you're only getting the stuff you want.

We can already work through some fora, such as WikiProjects, to try to influence the results of discussions. What if there is no active WikiProject covering something? Canvassing can help fill the gap.

We can speculate about potential pitfalls till the cows come home, but we know from centuries of experience with deliberative assemblies that caucusing is a natural and beneficial occurrence. I'm not sure why it would be different here. Wikipedia:PARL#Allowability_of_caucuses Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 07:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't Wikipedia:Wikiprojects and Wikipedia:Portals and the various AfD topic lists and sitenotices for Big Things cover the legitimate uses of canvassing pretty well? MBisanz ^talk 07:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Do they? What about when it's a subject presently unknown to Wikipedia, that doesn't have a WikiProject yet? Or there are not enough interested users in that WikiProject to keep it active? Those would tend to be the subjects that are most likely to get AfD'ed, I would think, because no one here has ever heard of it. I suppose m:AIW could serve that purpose, but that site is pretty generalist. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 14:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with it being universally beneficial. As I said, it would have to spread by default. If I (for example) know that other people are being informed of things that I'm not, I will want to be informed too -- just in case someone who disagrees with me is informed of it and can therefore take action, while I can't. That's how this would have to play out, 'cause it's human nature. It would turn Wikipedia too political, in my opinion. Wait'll RfA candidates start taking part in the canvassing, and see how painfully similar to the real world this place will get. Not a good idea. Equazcion •✗/C • 14:44, 13 Mar 2008 (UTC)

I 100% agree with Equazcion here. Too political. Too easily abused. Too difficult to maintain. And completely unnecessary. If subjects are getting AfD-ed because "no one has ever heard of it" there are two possible reasons. 1. It isn't notable and shouldn't be here and an editor has made a good faith nomination of a bad article. (this is where AGF comes in, Obuibo Mbstpo). Or 2. An editor has made a bad faith nomination of a good article. Those nominations and discussions get nipped pretty quickly and shut down at AfD without canvassing. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 14:50, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with Equazcion as well. AFD and other processes seem to get by just fine with their current level of participation. Also, from my experience, the more users who take part in a discussion, the more likely it will become off-topic, people will start to attack each other, and it will not gain consensus. This doesn't happen all the time in large discussions, but its much more likely than in small discussions. Also, you say "Some Wikipedians already have gained an advantage that might be regarded as undesirable under that logic, through social networks ..." If its undesirable, why would we want to increase it, but with slightly more transparency? Mr.Z-man 19:07, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying use of IRC, etc. for such purposes is undesirable – just that it's undesirable according to the logic that Equazcion uses in arguing against opt-in canvassing. If the theory were true, that creating such lines of communication makes everyone want to do it, then everyone would be wanting to go on IRC in order to level the playing field with others who are going on IRC. But empirically that's not correct, because people aren't doing that. Instead, some people are getting fed up with the unfairness of things and leaving. It's just not good to set up artificial constraints on consensual behavior. Opt-in canvassing might make it a bit easier for the more casual users, who don't have these outside social networks set up, to stay involved in decisions that affect them. And that's a good thing. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 20:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

IRC is not a passive medium. You're suggesting we allow people to make a one-time slap-on of a tag to their userspace, which allows them to be informed of all manner of things at any point in the future without having to do anything themselves ever again. Those are two very different things. Plenty of people sign in to IRC once in a while, or even leave themselves signed in for extended periods of time -- but its real-time nature means that it still requires active participation in order to get most of the benefit, unless you want to check it once a day and read through 24 hours' worth of real-time discussion. If IRC and other communication lines are a problem, your solution would be the ultimate problem. And the fact that a problem even exists is questionable. If there were a problem as you suggest, we'd be seeing a lot more XfD participation than we do now, in my opinion. It doesn't look to me like anyone is currently canvassing outside Wikipedia means. Equazcion •✗/C • 20:07, 13 Mar 2008 (UTC)

IRC only becomes problematic when it's not sufficiently balanced by on-wiki methods of caucusing. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 20:09, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no proof of that, it is conjecture. Equazcion has this right. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I do think that some XFD debates do need more attention. Some articles are nominated at off-peak times, get few or no comments and end up getting relisted, sometimes multiple times. But any sort of targeted canvassing or any list updated by users should be avoided. I would suggest something like a {{XFD attention}} template, using a list updated by a bot that adds any debate that has gone for 4 days with fewer than 3 comments. Just a list with links to the debates, no additional commentary, no sorting or targeting based on topic, no expansion to other types of discussion. Mr.Z-man 20:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

People can already look through XfD pages and see which discussions need attention, but I suppose having a centralized list for all the various types of deletion processes would make that easier. So I'd be for this. It would also be pretty easy to have a bot handle such tagging. Equazcion •✗/C • 21:01, 13 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Now that, Z-man, I'd be ok with. "inclusionists" and "deletionists" alike could see the template and participate. As neutral as neutral can be around here. The problem, of course, is getting people to actually find, read, and react to the "list" of non-participated discussions. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

This could be delivered to userspace via an opt-in subscription list, and not be canvassing. It would be similar to signpost or suggestbot -- simply an auto-generated list of deletion discussions that meet certain criteria, ie. over 4 days old with less than 3 comments, as Z-man suggests. Equazcion •✗/C • 21:54, 13 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Other alternatives to canvassing

I went ahead and added this text to WP:CANVASS:

As an alternative to canvassing, one might establish a user subpage listing Articles for Deletion, for instance, that he wishes to draw other editors' attention to. He can then, over time, form relationships with editors he believes will be sympathetic to his general views, letting the existence of that user subpage spread through word of mouth. Other editors can watchlist it or transclude it to their own userspace (perhaps even their talk page), providing the advantages of canvassing without disruption. Patience is the key to making this work. Of course, opponents can watch that page as well, so the effect is balanced.

This seems in keeping with the spirit of the page, and I believe is sufficiently different from my previous rejected proposal that it is acceptable to be bold and introduce it there. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 18:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not - get consensus here. --Fredrick day (talk) 18:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

There needs to be a substantive objection to the text, rather than just a procedural objection. Otherwise I am allowed to place it back on the page after waiting a suitable period of time. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 18:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I've decided to begin implementing this via User:Obuibo Mbstpo/Discussions in progress. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 18:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

There's no procedural objection. It's just an objection. As much as you're allowed to be bold, anyone else is allowed to revert you. And in the case of policies especially, noting an exception that nobody's ever discussed before will definitely garner a quick revert. Equazcion •✗/C • 20:20, 14 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Short of an objection being from a SPA or a banned user, an objection is an objection. Outside of BAG Technical v. Policy objections, there is no difference in objections or their weight. Users can and already do keep their own transclude-based lists of such things, but without the purpose of forming relationships with like-minded people to watch them. That is my objection to this change. MBisanz ^talk 20:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that it isn't significantly different from the proposal that was soundly rejected above. Mr.Z-man 22:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Just for the sake of clarification of how WP:BRD works, a procedural objection would be to say "This needs to get consensus first." Unless followed up with an objection that addresses the merits, it's meaningless because it's a conversation non-starter. Thus, the initial bold edit can be restored after a reasonable amount of time passes. You can't have BRD without the D. But now we've had some objections that address the merits so the question of whether the initial objection was procedural or substantive is moot. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 22:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

what's wiki policy to someone plagiarisng wiki articles and printing them as their own?

I have found a self published internet book for sale that consists entirely of two plagiarised wikipedia articles. what should i do about this? it doesn't appear to be covered under mirrors and forks section

You should probably raise it at Wikipedia talk:GFDL Compliance, pointing out the specific work. Vassyana (talk) 19:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

thanksJameselmo (talk) 22:48, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

it seems that this is ok to do as no one is interested, i'll maybe just print my own book using just wiki work, seems easy enough.Jameselmo (talk) 22:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

You didn't post at the GFDL compliance talk page, so I'm unsure of why you're saying no one is interested in reviewing the potential violation. Additionally, you did not specify what work is a problem, so it's impossible for any of us here at the pump to evaluate your claim. Vassyana (talk) 23:04, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

RfB consensus poll

The Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/RfB bar will end March 15. If you haven't already, please consider participating. Kingturtle (talk) 13:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Block threats

I notice this block threat at Waterboarding:

• Prior to making _any_ edits to this page, please make yourself familiar with the new rules that have been implemented for this article (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Waterboarding/Archive_6#New_rules_for_this_article). Failure to abide by these rules will result in an immediate block. Thanks!

This seems draconian to me. What do others think? Lightmouse (talk) 14:32, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

It is what it is because a large portion of the editors that worked on that article couldn't play nice on the playground. (and I have no comment about whether watching all of that unfold was torture or simply a "procedure"). It's not the first or last article/area of the wiki that goes "all the way to ArbComm" and ends up in that fashion. Unfortunate. Yes. Deserved? Yes. Draconian? Probably. Going away? No, not likely. One man's opinion. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 14:43, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mediation has been marked as a policy

Wikipedia:Mediation (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

The page has been marked as policy since March 2007, it just hasn't been categorized as such (nor listed at Wikipedia:List of policies). An editor just added this category to the page (and added it to the list) but otherwise didn't change the page. (Nothing to see here, folks; you can just move on.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Time to effect the merger of Academics with BIO

Absent strong objections at the talk page for WP:Academics I think that it is time to merge this page into WP:BIO. The better parts of this process have been incorporated into BIO for some time and this is now just a redundant page. Perhaps further ideas in clarification of BIO could be included in an essay. --Kevin Murray (talk) 18:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Throwing several consensus-gathering projects into one basket

Several discussions (such as the ones at WT:Layout and WT:CITE) have dragged on a bit and seem to get stuck in some of the same places. The fact that we unfortunately let some of the style guidelines contradict each other (but we're working on that) is part of the problem, but there's a bigger issue. Every other day, I see a new question along the lines of "Encyclopedias generally look like this, why don't we?". And the fact that the printed Wikipedia Version 1.0 is approaching means we can't be certain that consensus hasn't changed or won't change on look-and-feel issues. Is there consensus to put See also first and External links last in end sections, how should quotations be handled, where should lines and pages break, should every book cite name the publisher? Except for that last bit, which just came up today, these are long-running discussions. People tend to care more about the appearance of printed material, and take it more seriously. Even Wikipedia policy takes printed material more seriously; see WP:V. (Btw, I've read everything I could find at WP:1, including the archived discussion from 2003, Thread on Wikipedia 1.0 Paper plus, including lots of input from Jimbo, and I don't see where any of these look-and-feel issues have ever come up in the context of Wikipedia Version 1.0. I've only seen them come up as off-hand remarks in current discussions. I'd be very happy to find out that I'm wrong.)

There's disagreement over the extent to which these issues should be discussed on policy pages vs. guideline pages. Stylistic choices follow guidelines, but if there really is consensus that, for instance, if the External links section exists, it should always be the last section (especially in the paper Wikipedia ... printed encyclopedias rarely allow authors discretion in look-and-feel issues), then are we talking about policy? Assuming that no one wants to go through a huge number of articles by hand looking for irregularities, how do we use bots appropriately, and aren't bots more suitable for policy issues than guidelines? You can see why we get stuck.

We have to get consensus before we do anything about any of this, but so far, everyone has been hesitant to post a narrow style question on a lot of wikiproject talk pages, for fear of looking spammy. But if we don't get wide consensus, we'll get flamed for that too. I'm wondering if the best way to proceed would be to generally get the word out (widely, but I'm agnostic on how widely) that certain look-and-feel issues need to be discussed, especially in the context of Version 1.0, so that we can figure out which things fall in the category of being so widely supported that standardization would be appropriate. So, you guys tell me, because I really don't know: which questions here are policy questions, and should those policy questions be dealt with here first, or would it be better just to create a page somewhere where people could nominate issues to be discussed, and then come back here with the results? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Questions... This seems to be about conforming articles that will be placed in Version 1.0 to a uniform format style... a desire which I can understand... but does 1.0 have to conform to the online version of Wikipedia and vise/versa? Do we need to have the article match exactly what goes to print? And is it really important that all our articles follow the same format style? Blueboar (talk) 13:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

There are a number of topics, particularly layout and look-and-feel topics, where it's perfectly reasonable to assume that consensus might change for a printed Wikipedia, so the presumption against re-opening discussion on already-settled consensus dies. I don't know if this answers your questions, but there's a principal of database design that storing two different versions of roughly the same information in two different places is a Very Bad Thing: people think they're referring to one when they meant the other, the data gets out of sync and therefore pulls down the credibility of both, it's an order of magnitude more work to update the data both places and continually check the two lists against each other ... the list goes on. For all these reasons, it would be a bad idea to "fork" Wikipedia Version 1.0 before it's really, really necessary, and you'll see support for that from Jimbo and others at the link I cited ... I'll pull out one of the messages from Jimbo if anyone is interested. And, really, how many people would have a cow if the External links in their favorite article moved to the end? These are just not the kinds of issues that inspire heated debate, generally. The debates that have dragged on have been more in the nature of "What gives YOU the right?", which is a perfectly valid objection. So, my proposal is to get everyone together who cares (which may not be all that many people), throw issues on the table that might be affected by Version 1.0, brainstorm them, come back here to get permission for anything that involves standardization, bots or policy, as opposed to all the little things that are pleasurable to style wonks like me, update policy and guidelines to reflect a world where we're trying to look good on paper as well as on the web, (as long as that doesn't unduly burden anyone) making sure that, through a combination of good design, clear guidelines, and helpful bots, it's not any harder for anyone to function under the new guidelines, and deploy. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I did the strikeout because I'm fairly confident that there's no need for this to be a struggle between conflicting desires; I don't have any Machiavellian plans to turn this into anything other than a way to find out those printed-encyclopedia style issues that almost everyone already agrees on, which aren't going to be very different from what we've got already, and we've already got years of consensus to give us a pretty good idea what those are. The new part of this is thinking about deploying bots to standardize, and I'm agnostic on whether bots should make any actual changes or simply alert people of changes that should be made. It seems to me it would work either way, simply because if bots or software aren't working, people will holler and we'll stop. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

P.P.S. I'm being deliberately vague about the topics because I want to be very careful not to "control" the process. We open a page, anyone who thinks they can get consensus for a look-and-feel or layout issue concerning Wikipedia 1.0 throws it on the table; we conduct a large poll saying "is there really consensus for this?" (stating the arguments pro and con, but without too much clever argumentation ... none of the stuff I've seen is breathtakingly important, even to style wonks), we ask if there's also consensus for using a bot to help flag irregularities, and if we can get a reliable bot running (or help from MediaWiki, if the techs decide they like that approach better than a bot), we do it. Simple, in theory, and hopefully in practice. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this issue, it is certainly interesting to those of us working on Wikipedia 1.0. FYI, we now have a test selection (around 15,000 articles) put together for Version 0.7, and once we have have some minor bugs resolved this will be ready for all to take a look at. At present the immediate plans are for a DVD version, but we would very much like to get a paper project going once the DVD is organised (are you interested in helping?). Our system is to create a dump of articles on a given day, and that becomes the snapshot we release, and there is always a lot of cleanup on this static dump - removing unwanted tags, unlinking redlinks, etc. We could re-organise the order of sections at that stage if needed, but that is an extra bit of work we'd rather not do.

As I see it, the problem you describe breaks down into two parts, formatting of articles online and formatting of articles in offline releases. Clearly the latter is influenced by the former, but there are quite a few things we change in going from one form to the other. I think standardization of format for the online version is a good end in itself, which will of course benefit WP1.0 as well. Must dash now, Walkerma (talk) 15:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Linking to Old Book resources

There are a number of internet projects to scan old & out of copyright books and make them available as online resource. E.g. project guttenburg, and the internet archive.

I cannot find any policy or recommendation on how this resource might or even should be linking to. E.g. Consider the Joseph Malet Lambert wrote a book called Two thousand years of gild life, which is available from the http://www.archive.org/details/twothousandyears00lambuoft The book it's self is probably not notable enough for it's own page, and none exists. However a link from the existing Joseph Malet Lambert page to the book probably would be justified. Some books in these archives might be notable enough for pages with a link E.g The Works of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Volume 1 which can be downloaded from http://www.archive.org/details/theworksoflordby08901gut

Some policy or guidence on how this should be handled is required. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.238.27 (talk) 13:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

We don't link to online resources merely because they exist. If the resource is used as a source for an encyclopedia article, WP:CITE covers such citation of the source. If a book is notable enough that an article needs to be created for the book, then the online copy might get linked to, but not every book is notable. -- SEWilco (talk) 20:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

That said, I think linking to an online copy of a writer's book in an article about a writer is appropriate per WP:EL (assuming, of course, that the online copy is not a copyvio). Sarcasticidealist (talk) 20:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it is appropriate eg. in a bibliography section. DuncanHill (talk) 20:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I think those uses are allowed per WP:External links. -- SEWilco (talk) 20:47, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Where a title in PG is suitable for linking from a specific article, Template:Gutenberg can be useful in implementing that link.LeadSongDog (talk) 21:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for remedies - possible solution to dispute resolution scaling problems

Please review and tweak: Wikipedia:Requests for remedies. A very simple three-step system that can make trusted, final decisions on very tricky or complex matters, based on evaluations from trusted, uninvolved users on a given case in the dispute resolution process. It does add new process, but not many layers, or particularly complex layers by any stretch of the imagination. It's built entirely around consensus and the idea of certification, and is the opposite of Votes For Banning. Please weigh in at Wikipedia talk:Requests for remedies. The community needs a way to move forward in a trusted, fair manner on high-end, complex problems that are either unworkable for normal WP:AN, WP:ANI, or WP:RFC to handle, or that the Arbitration Committee can't take on, or that the Arbitration Committee relegates back to the Community. Lawrence § t/e 22:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure what problems exactly cannot be covered by WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:RFC, WP:MC, and WP:ARBCOM (feel free to edit my comment and add more). I don't know about you, but I think the number of problems those 5 proccesses cannot handle seems pretty small to me. Parent5446^{(Murder me for my actions)} 01:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

None of those scale. That's why.

Examples of scaling systems are Mediation Cabal (originated as an emergency measure when Mediation Committee stalled, and the Arbitration Committee almost followed), third opinion (similar to MEDCAB... actually predates it slightly IIRC), and Editor Assistence (created when the non-scaling Association of Members Advocates finally failed)

A scaling supplement/replacement/backup for Arbcom would be kind of nice. I've bookmarked the page. --Kim Bruning (talk) 02:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay then: I am not sure what problems exactly cannot be covered by WP:MEDCAB, WP:MC, WP:ARBCOM, WP:3O, and WP:EA (feel free to edit my comment and add more). I don't know about you, but I think the number of problems those 5 proccesses cannot handle seems pretty small to me. Parent5446^{(Murder me for my actions)} 02:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is specifically the Arbitration Committee, which is not designed to scale. Lawrence Cohen is trying to think of a drop-in-replacement/backup/supplement to precisely the arbitration committee; and his objective is to come up with something that does scale. His proposal may or may not be it, but it's interesting nevertheless. --Kim Bruning (talk) 03:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC) the reason why scalability is the holy grail is a topic too large to fit in this margin. ;-)

(outdent) And anything, at all, that will do any kind of role AND scale as we require like this will require new process. I'm keeping it deliberately simple on the proposal as much as possible. Everyone please read the talk page there. It's really a very, very simple process: you ask for Remedies to be generated--a Request for Remedies. A consensus of uninvolved users has to certify your request as valid. The team of the elected/trusted Remedy Committee then--but only the uninvolved Committee members, recusal is compulsory!--drafts up a set of "suggested" remedies based on the certified request (all this by the way needs no "clerks" or anything like that--its not like anyone here is above hitting "copy/paste" once a week). They post the suggested remedies then go to the RfR, and the wider community, *all* users, weigh in and certify any valid suggestions. Certified/supported consensus remedies go into effect. It's basically an attempt to leash and focus mob rule into something that works, is scalable, is fair (the limitations on involved users), and will have the benefit of simple, rigorous consensus checks to go into effect so no one can complain about getting railroaded. Lawrence § t/e 05:12, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Good summary posted

This was added to the WP:REMEDY proposal today:

Request for remedies as a part of dispute resolution

The RfR process comes after venues such as mediation (formal, or informal), third opinion, administrator noticeboards (any), and requests for comment, but before the Arbitration Committee. It is a framework for generating an unbiased, neutral, and fair solution to a dispute. The committee will take a complaint certified by the community. It will provide a suggested solutions, based on policy, precedent and good practice.

Request for remedies is intended to complement the existing dispute resolution process by addressing three basic points:

1. Are the issues portrayed valid and accurately portrayed?
2. What are the best solutions and remedies to these problems, if they are valid?
3. Does the community support these suggested remedies?

Lawrence § t/e 16:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Image licensing prohibition

Wikimedia:Resolution:Licensing policy will be celebrating its first birthday in two weeks. Is anyone still trying to fight against it? — Omegatron 14:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Last notification for a while on this....

On the back of a few threads above, a proposed policy now exists in project space at Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts). Comments, criticisms, etc. would be most appreciated. Fritzpoll (talk) 16:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

CSD Coverage

Is there a CSD that covers New Directions in Interactive Art & Entertainment - A New Fairy Tale -. I marked it as vandalism but I believe it is otherwise. The article is a supposed project started by students at York University and is meant for people on Wikipedia to add to a new fairy tale story they are creating. It is completely ridiculous, but I am not sure which CSD to mark it as. Parent5446^{(Murder me for my actions)} 17:56, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Irishguy deleted it as a test page, which is probably about as close as CSD can come. I could also see an argument for vandalism. If I had seen it I would have PRODed it. Even though it was ridiculous, it didn't really fir any of the CSD. Not every thing that doesn't belong in an encyclopedia needs to be speedied. Dsmdgold (talk) 18:32, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Video Game developer information

I have found numerous video game articles that while they might give good converage as to the company, engine, etc. that developed it, they do not list any of the lead designers. As similar forms of media, such as movies, list actors, directors, etc. I believe video game articles should be required to list the lead developers, preferably in an infobox. They do not need to list every Tom, Dick and Jane that worked on it, but I find the lack of any names even for semi-popular series such as Star Ocean distubing, yet articles for other media of similar note, such as the movie Dragonheart is able to list actors, directors, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jinnai (talk • contribs) 20:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

"Required..."? Article writers are not required to include any particular piece of information beyond the demonstration of the subject's notability. Go talk to the video games Wikiproject and suggest an addition to their infobox if necessary. Adrian M. H. 21:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Bilingual Periodic Table

Hi,

I created a Hebrew-English periodic table, but dont know where to put it. Should it be in the mainspace, or maybe in wikisource, or perhaps somewhere else? Currently, its in my userspace, here. With some tweaking of the template, which I would be willing to do, this model could be adapted for any two languages.

Thanks, -Reuvenk_{T C} 23:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Policy (Suicide threats, threats of violence, et cetera)

Could a few editors come over and take a look at Wikipedia:Threats of violence, see what you think, and if inclined, comment on the talk page at Wikipedia talk:Threats of violence. Thanks bunches, NonvocalScream (talk) 02:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

An issue of civiliity...

Noted that wikipedia has a policy of civility and explains why uncivility is wrong:

"Because it makes people unhappy, resulting in discouragement and departure from Wikipedia"

Why then does the article on Baha'u'llah below note the sensivity of Baha'is using of the Photograph of Baha'u'llah

There are two known photographs of Bahá'u'lláh. This photo was taken while he was in Adrianople (reproduced in William Miller's book on the Bahá'í Faith). Copies of both pictures are at the Bahá'í World Centre, and one is on display in the International Archives building, where the Bahá'ís view it as part of an organized pilgrimage. Outside of this experience Bahá'ís prefer not to view this photo in public, or even to display it in their private homes,[30] and Bahá'í institutions have requested the press not to publish the image in the media.[31] Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baha%27u%27llah

and then includes it anyway?

It would seem to violate the policy on civility..

- Arthur Gregory