Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.

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

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Wikipedia:Gravity no longer marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Gravity (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

THAT'S why I am floating right now! Gravity is no longer recognized by Wikipedia!Camelbinky (talk) 05:05, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

No gravity? It's been deleted for lack of content(!) Another one of life's axioms down the drain... B.Wind (talk) 04:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps there is consensus to leave it in at least as a guideline. If not, someone should at least write an essay. ^Bongo_matic 04:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Great. Gravity just got deleted. Any other laws of physics we want to abolish while we're at it? --Jayron32 05:35, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I nominate conservation of energy. It's just no fun. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 05:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

No, that's a useful one. At least once a week someone comes up with some bullshit perpetual motion machine over at WP:RDS and asks why it can't work... Conservation of Energy is far too useful. I'd nominate all of Special Relativity since it messes up my life; Relativity of simultaneity just has to go... --Jayron32 06:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, everyone knows that guidelines are just a suggestion, but you only really have to follow policies. This is much the same as "theories" and "laws" in the real world. The Law of conservation of energy is immutable fact, while the Theory of Evolution is just some old guy's crazy ideas. Likewise, the Theory of gravity was dreamed up by some English bloke who was all honked off about getting beaned in the head with an apple. Now where the heck is my anti-gravity car ... ? — Kralizec! (talk) 17:42, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems that the common people have lost their sense.Smallman12q (talk) 13:17, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

What did this page said? MBelgrano (talk) 18:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

{{Humorantipolicy}}
{{nutshell|Obey gravity. It's the law!}}

^ –xeno^talk 18:37, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to extend scope of WP:RfD to incorporate disambiguation pages & remove dab pages from the purview of WP:PROD

A year ago, deletion of disambiguation pages seemed to be a rare event, to the point of some admins not even knowing whether or not a dab page is subject to a prod. Some claimed that disambiguation pages are not articles (although, like redirects, they are usually in articlespace) and thus PROD would not be appropriate for them; others contend that they are articles and should be prodded (because of the controversy in the status, and WP:PROD explicitly states that it applies only to noncontroversial deletions, this needs to be addressed in a wider arena than the WT:PROD discussion page). Because a disambiguation page (and not a list article, which is an article with encyclopedic information) is essentially an extended redirect, a navigation tool and not intended to be a significangt source of encyclopedic information, I propose the following: since disambiguation pages are not encyclopedia articles, they are not subject to WP:Proposed deletion; furthermore, requests for deletion of disambiguation pages are to be posted and considered at WP:RfD (which can be renamed "Wikipedia:Redirects and disambiguation pages for discussion").

The reasons for treating dab pages and redirects in the same fashion should be rather obvious. In addition to both being purely navigational tools with very strict methods of style restricting the information and presentation of each of them, neither permit the inclusion of citations and other information required for WP:V and WP:RS. Redirects and dab pages cannot assert notability if properly formatted (one AfD of a disambiguation page was couched on an editor's objection that it did not have any cited evidence of notability of a particular name/phrase). The deletion of a dab page should be a deliberate process (Quite often the disambiguation page was proposed or nominated for deletion simply because it had two valid bluelinks. On more than one occasion, an AfD nomination was withdrawn after someone found a third, or even a fourth, bluelink. Had the prod process gone through, the otherwise-valid dab page would have been lost). Moving a deletion discussion of a disambiguation page from WP:AfD (which processes anywhere between 120 and 220 entries a day) to WP:RfD (which usually processes less than ten nominations a day) would give the community a better opportunity to improve its navigational tools.

One of the questions that was mentioned at WT:PROD concerned those "half disambiguation pages, half articles" and where to delete them. If the page is tagged as a disambiguation page, the software recognizes it when someone edits it - these, for the purposes of this proposal, would be dab pages ineligible for prod and should be taken to RfD; those that are not (and thus would be list articles) would be considered articles for the purposes of WP:PROD and this proposal. I think that now is a good time to resolve the controversies regarding disambiguation pages and establish a policy of deletion consistent with that of other navigational aids. I thank the Wikipedia community for its consideration and feedback on my proposal. B.Wind (talk) 04:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree with this, personally. Disambig's are the same as redirects, really. Irbisgreif (talk) 05:30, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• Sounds like a reasonable proposal. DABs are basically just redirects with 3+ possible targets (or maybe a redirect is a dab with one target), so it stands to reason that the same process should deal with all of them. --Jayron32 05:34, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
• Support - a disambiguation page serves a similar purpose to a redirect, not to an article. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I too like this idea. Disambiguation pages are sort of a gray area, but I think it makes perfect sense given their use to treat them more akin to redirects than to articles given their content. It would probably be more beneficial to have dabs discussed in similar terms to redirects anyway. A difficulty I foresee is that RfD is supposed to be for "discussion" with default to delete, and I don't think that necessarily makes sense for disambguations. A "discussion" for a dab page will only ever be about deletion because anything else is a content/article issue; it's like a redirect with multiple targets, so there's no need for discussion outside the talk page regarding inclusion. Moreover, I don't think it really makes sense to default to delete for dab pages. That could pose some problems, in my mind. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 13:30, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Your concern is a valid one, Amory, but I think that, since RfDs tend to last at least seven days (except in WP:SNOW or WP:Speedy keep situations), any postings lasting that long without any support for keeping either can be deleted without anybody missing it or (in the purview of an admin) reposted for further review. This is already in place for RfD as there are some currently listed that have been around for two weeks or longer. Of course, the discussion time itself would give editors an opportunity to "fix the problem" (based on the spate of AfDs of dab pages, content - namely the number of bluelinks - is often a reason for the nomination), and if it's a problem that cannot be fixed, it should be deleted. B.Wind (talk) 18:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support. Makes good sense to me. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
• Support Neutral, as long as the speedy criteria for disambiguation pages are kept. This is in contrast to the stated "Quite often the disambiguation page was proposed or nominated for deletion simply because it had two valid bluelinks. On more than one occasion, an AfD nomination was withdrawn after someone found a third, or even a fourth, bluelink. Had the prod process gone through, the otherwise-valid dab page would have been lost" -- before someone found a third, or even an nth, blue link, the dab page was not a valid dab page and should have been deleted. Subsequent editors who find a valid need for a navigational page (such as a dab) can recreate it once they've identified the third or even the nth ambiguous article. Rename might be Wikipedia:Navigational pages for discussion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:29, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - I believe this was proposed solely to bypass the consensus of two previous discussions (1 & 2) where nearly every editor opining viewed the deletion of dabs with 2 entries as non-controversial. More to the point, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with using the PROD propose for disambiguation pages. The prod process gives anyone 7 days to add a third entry or even to remove the tag without adding one. Granted the prods aren't widely evaluated, but then again neither are RfD discussions. Essentially the end result will be the same via PROD or RfD - the page is evaluated by a small sample of the community and then deleted after 7 days if no one adds a third entry. As such, I see no reason to make this change. Additionally, dab pages deleted via PROD can be restored at any time without question. Thus if someone wants to add a third entry even 6 months or a year later the article can be restored. In short, this is a solution in search of a problem. --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:28, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - seems like another bureaucratic, difficult-to-remember rule that just adds another quirk to the process, and I also don't see what problem it solves. RfD is an obscure place with few regulars. The regular two-pronged article deletion system is just right for dab pages: just like with regular articles, there are routine cases, and I don't see why we shouldn't use prod for those, and there are difficult/controversial cases (like e.g. if the deletion necessitates a controversial decision about which of two uses is "primary"), and those should get all the community input they can get. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Seems unnecessary, prod works fine on disambiguation pages, as people do still have a week to object and, as has been stated, they can easily be reinstated. Boleyn2 (talk) 08:37, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
• Neutral but I second JHunterJ's sentiments. --Cybercobra (talk) 08:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
• Support moving dab's to RfD, possibly with a rename to navigational pages for discussion. Oppose disallowing prods for dab pages. Taemyr (talk) 08:59, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
• Support and support JHunterJ's proposal to rename to "Navigational pages for discussion". The arguments for and against deletion of a dab page have much more in common with those for redirects than with those for articles, and anything we can do to emphasize the distinction that dab pages are not articles will be a good thing. PRODs are simply not good enough for dab pages—too few people look at them, meaning many dab pages that could be improved are instead deleted. In response to Fit.Perf, this does not complicate the process—no new deletion process is being created, and we are actually consolidating all nav-page deletions in one place. Also, this will tend to correct the workload imbalance between AfD and Rfd (NfD?). » Swpb^{τ • ¢} 16:51, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

  Portals could be discussed at NPfD too... –xeno^talk 18:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

• Confused. 1) I don't see any reason for prohibiting the use of prod with disambiguation pages, but that's not such a big deal. 2) So long as speedy deletion of disambiguation pages as specified by {{db-disambig}} continue to be accepted, it makes little difference if the prod option is removed. 3) It makes little difference to me where the deletion discussions occur, but there is a slight preference for AfD simply because that has more robust mechanisms both for notification and for archiving of old discussions. older ≠ wiser 21:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
• I don't believe that excluding dab pages from PROD on the basis that it doesn't fit into some defined class of article is a bad idea, and overly bureaucratic (which is also why I feel that the qualifications on A7 are unnecessarily restrictive) - the nature of a dab page does not in and of itself suggest why PROD would not be appropriate. I have no opinion on the AfD vs. RfD issue at this time. 81.110.104.91 (talk) 22:09, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - A discussion of this matter was brought up on WT:PROD and it was agreed that it is fine to delete dab pages through prod. The numerous reasons for this are given there. There are many cases where uncontroversial dab pages have their deletion proposed and they are properly deleted. Prodding these pages is done all the time, and it works. The premise that a prod might cause a dab page to be "lost forever" shows a fundamental lack of knowledge regarding the proposed deletion process. Anyone who wants that dab page restored can request it, and it will be restored without question, as is the case with any other page that can have its deletion requested. Frankly I don't see why we need to force uncontroversial dab page deletions through an RfD discussion. -- Atama頭 21:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
• Support proposal to move dab deletion discussions from AfD to RfD and rename to "Navigational pages for discussion". Oppose proposal to remove dabs from the scope of PROD, based on the many arguments raised above and the previous discussion at WT:PROD. —Zach425 ^talk/contribs 16:33, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Article has a few problems

Things had gotten a bit heated in the past and now the situation is clear. Everyone else has to back off and allow another editor to stretch basic guidlines and ignore official policy. It is not about the editor......it's bout the fair use images. Most of which are good enough to use but not if they are being used against policy to overwieght a subject or or take advantage of fair use.

Carmel-by-the-Sea seems to have a problem with it's arts section being basically about two theatres and nearly nothing else. Too many images of the Golden Bough Theatre, two of which are Fair Use and are basically the same subject; a fire that destroyed the original building in 1949. I have communicated this on the talk page but I think this may simply be an editor trying to push the envelope on guidelines. He has a conflict of interest that consensus seems to allow, but regardless of consensus, we have to report the founder of a theatre who insists on emphasising theatre arts in Carmel (especially those theatres he is directly involved in) and no expansion of Visual arts in a town that is world famous for painters and paintings. I will continue to try and work in good faith and with the editor, but with every subject I bring up he just pushes back and rallies others to back him up. Fine, consensus will allow many things but not overuse of inappropriate use of images.--Amadscientist (talk) 01:51, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

The situation is simply not as described. The only editor that was asked to "back off" was Amadscientist and it was an administrator who made the request following a case of wiki-stalking that was reported against Amadscientist, who was also edit-warring, forum-shopping and mounting personal attacks, among other offenses. To address the specifics of the above accusation, it is absolutely untrue that expansion of the Visual Arts section has been prevented. The fact is that Amadscientist has never even tried to expand that section! Further, Amadscientist asserts that two images are of the same subject - the Golden Bough fire of 1949. This is also completely inaccurate. In actually, one image is of the fire of 1935 and one image is of the fire of 1949, both of which were historic events in the town's history. He also asserts that the arts section is basically about 2 theaters and "nearly nothing else". This is also a complete fabrication, as a quick perusal of the article can attest. In fact, the sub-section on Theatre is no longer than the sub-section on Literary arts. And this does not include the sections on Visual arts or Music, both of which do need expansion (but again, Amadscientist has not made any effort to expand these sections). I'm afraid that the above report is simply an escalation of Amadscientist's continued efforts to defy consensus and harass any editor that does not support him. Sorry about this, everyone. Smatprt (talk) 16:01, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

No....those are your accusations against me, sir. Your claim of Wikistalking was not agreed on by Admin. They felt it might be boarderline, but you gave out your personal information on the image you uploaded to the article...actualy more than one. You gave away the information that you are an artistic director/manager and founder of a few theatres in Carmel and created and edit your own wiki article.

Admin requested that I voluntarily step back for two weeks and also asked Smartpat;

Smatprt, on your side, please avoid edits in the hot-button issues that Amadscientist identified while they are staying away from the articles, and please do what you can to disengage as well for that informal cool down period. Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:17, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

He too was asked to disengage, but refused, and kept going while making these same false accusations about me as well as my not being able to edit the page. He has also posted on the talk page of Carmel-by-the-Sea, an attack on me for bringing this to the village pump. That seems to be harrassive if you ask me. Fair use being used for public domain images from the turn of the centry and far too many fair use images of the Golden Bough Plyhouse. There are free images that can be used. The editor has files full of images that he can not attribute to the copyright owner and is using fair use around the issue innappropriatly.

No action has been taken against me by any admin over anything I have done in this situation. Claims of harrasment and stalking were false. I discoverd his conflict of interest though his own uploads and posts. He admited who he was and now has removed all identyfication, but he still has a conflict of interest. Maybe consensus is allowing it and maybe it is not. It's a case by case matter with an editor that refuses to lighten up or take it easy on article he has been identyfied with having COI. When something new happens...I will report each one.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the fact that Amadscientist, in the above post, failed to address any of the particulars that were outlined in his original posting, is an indication that his charges are without merit. The complaints originally listed have been shown to be inaccurate, so they were ignored and replaced with a collection of rehashed material. Excuses such as admitting that his wiki-stalking was only "borderline" (like borderline stalking is OK?), truly boggles the mind. I really have nothing more to add here. Smatprt (talk) 22:29, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the fact that all you can do is accuse others (I am not the only one) and twist posts around is actualy the true indication. The "concerns" have not been shown to be inaccurate. You are simply stating things that are without any merit and unfactual. I never admitted to boarderline stalking. This is a perfect example of how you work with others that disagree with your contributions. I will repeat what I posted, that Admin felt it might be boarderline, not myself. He also said there was nothing he felt required any official bans, blocks or other administrative action. In fact you seem to get pretty confused as to who is an Admin and who is just another member. You have twice stated that an Admin has admonished me, when it was just another regular member.

You are attempting to blurr the subject and keep the discussion on your complaints about me for raising issues with you.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:11, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

There you go again. On Sept 8th you wrote above "It is not about the editor......it's bout the fair use images". But the majority of your posts are, indeed, about "the editor" (me). Odd that on Sept 7, on the article talk page, you wrote: "But the images are too nice to see get deleted. I support your contributions and will help where I can to add additional rationals and where needed add to prose to meet guidelines I will try to defer to you in regards to deleting from an article though". Then, within 24 hours you come here complaining about the images without even the courtesy of leaving a note on the article talk page about your sudden... change of heart. Ah well. Smatprt (talk) 16:35, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

accessdate format

Quick (hopefully) question as things seem to have changed or become unclear: Should the |accessdate= parameter in {{cite}} templates be given as in ISO (2009-09-16) format, or to match the format in the prose (16 September 2009)? OrangeDog (talk • edits) 00:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The "{{CITE}}" button in the editing interface uses ISO, FWIW. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Use the |dateformat=dmy parameter (presuming that still works)? –Whitehorse1 02:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Just put them in a {{#dateformat:16 September 2009}} parser function wrapper, and then you don't need to guess what everyone would prefer (which is a pointless game anyway, since everyone has different preferences).
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 03:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that yyyy-mm-dd was preferred for automation purposes, though practices seem to have changed. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 09:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

...for what automation, exactly? I'm not sure what you're referring to, although you've piqued my curiosity.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 14:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Neither am I... OrangeDog (talk • edits) 15:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

lol OK, in that case: don't worry about it. Any program worth using should be able to deal with templates, magic words, and multiple formats anyway. If they don't, and they break... well, to bad. The programmer needs to deal with that. As a programmer myself I'm just not sympathetic to the idea of ensuring that what we do as people doesn't break some program. That's a backwords relationship to have with software. :)

Incidentally, the core MediaWiki/parserfunctions.php handling of dates is piss poor in general as well, which is something that should be addressed. That's a somewhat different topic, however.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 16:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Straight answer to the original question: write the month out in full. There is no need to use all-numeric dates in footnotes, we aren't that short of space. A majority at MOSNUM currently think that the YYYY-MM-DD format is user-hostile; some don't even regard it as completely unambiguous. -- Alarics (talk) 10:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, a number of people consider MOSNUM scorched earth, particularly after Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking. Anomie⚔ 11:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Lick my decals off, baby

How about if on BLPs we get rid of all category listings that aren't concrete, factual information? American President, University Provost, Persons Born in 1942, Licensed Mole Drainer, ok; Bad Person, Stupid Conservative, Fascist Liberal, not ok. That sort of thing. (OK, a little exaggeration for effect but you get the point.) Listing people in these categories is an endless source of drama, can negatively affect the individuals in question, and often cannot be conclusively verified one way or the other. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

If they aren't concrete, then I would suggest WP:CfD for them. Rich Farmbrough, 14:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC).

Categories are just as subject to the WP:BLP policy as anything else; if a category were added to an article claiming a person was a Category:Mass murderers or something like that, and they clearly are not, then the category should be removed with extreme prejudice, and if anyone wars to re-add it, they should be blocked for BLP violations. --Jayron32 01:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

At WP:CFD, we've routinely deleted categories for people that aren't concrete, even where they may not be explicitly pejorative, such as vague political labels the original poster suggests. One may be able to find reliable sources calling this or that politician a liberal, but because of the nature of such labels it's still that source just making a characterization rather than stating what is or isn't an objective fact (and in our reliance on reliable sources, we as Wikipedia contributors are not slavish copyists just parroting whatever we find).

Other people categories that are problematic are ones based on accusations, such as the "accused spies" category scheme that was deleted recently. Accusations are far too easy to make for it to be the threshold for category inclusion, and the circumstances under which one may be accused of something heinous would vary too much from individual to individual to merit lumping them together in a category. Narrowing it to "people indicted of spying" or whatever may go some length towards solving such a problem, but still may be unworkable.

Any such problematic classifications or characterizations of people may still be properly handled in article text, because it can be directly sourced and explained for that individual; categories can't do that and so should be limited to concrete and non-controversial classifications. Postdlf (talk) 17:44, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Hand drawn diagrams

I'm looking for advice; maybe I am missing something in WP:IUP. A IP user has added a couple of diagrams to an article; they are useful and accurate, and I've got no problem with having the info in the article since it improves it. But, they are (good quality) scans of hand-drawn notes, possibly taken in a class, or created while researching the topic. I'm not 100% about the handwriting, it's quite stylised and to me a bit unclear in a couple of cases.

There used to be a policy page for diagrams WP:DIAGRAM, but it indicates it is no longer active. Is there any current MOS policy on diagrams that illustrate articles? Is this sort of diagram generally acceptable? I like what the IP user did and want to encourage them, but am also concerned with style etc.. EasyTarget (talk) 09:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The diagrams should really be vectorised, to improve readability and scaling. The people at the WP:Graphic Lab will be able to do this for you. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 10:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Request made. I note the policy/guideline question remains outstanding. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:29, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Wow.. I didn't realise you could do that, wikipedia continues to amaze me :-)

The policy issue is still outstanding; I was rather surprised when I could not find something about this topic, Ideally I'd like to see WP:DIAGRAM made active and brought up to date, eg. giving the Graphics Lab as a resource for improving and vectorising diagrams, reducing the mapmaking references, would be useful.. EasyTarget (talk) 14:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Do we need a policy for everything? A better diagram is better, so replacing a diagram with a better one is good. A non-perfect diagram may still be better than nothing. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:12, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Well we probably need a policy to establish what constitutes a "better" diagram. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 06:01, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm always a supporter of more policies, but I am in the minority here in Wikipedia concerning that. BUT in this case, would a policy saying what a better diagram is be proper? It needs to be worded very carefully, and even then it might discourage people from adding things like their hand drawn diagram in the first place, which while it isnt the preferred method it at least adds useful information and then can be vectorized by the graphics lab by someone more familar with Wikipedia. If we discourage any home-made diagrams in anyway there will be editors who go around with the intent to remove all home-made diagrams saying they arent up to Wikipedia standards and they will cite this policy as their reasoning; they will not simply send the diagram to the Graphics Lab to improve it. We see the same thing with uncited material, it simply gets deleted instead of someone just doing a two second search on Google to find a source and verify it. I think if a policy is instituted it needs to be worded carefully and not discourage newbies from adding less-than-preferred diagrams, and it needs to not encourage editors from going around and removing diagrams.Camelbinky (talk) 21:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

People are always encouraged to think for themselves of course. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 18:54, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Attribution to translated Wikipedia material on Article page

I have a question regarding the consistency of two Wikipedia practices of attribution to free content.

In the case of material from the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica, Template:1911 is placed on the main page of the article. In case of material translated from another language version of wikipedia, Template:Translated page is used and it is placed in the Discussion page. Why not on the main Article page?

If a Wikipedia article is used by another media outlet, we do require the Wikipedia attribution to be part of the copied material, why not do the same for our translation between Wikipedia projects? --İnfoCan (talk) 14:49, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Because it's all Wikipedia content? I don't really know, I'm just guessing here, but that seems logical to me. We don't, and probably shouldn't, attribute ourselves.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 15:31, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

There is {{iw-ref}} but I'd prefer we did away with it. Attribution to another language should be done in the edit history, or we should import the history. I've actually got a bugzilla open for that, not sure what's going on with it. Good reminder... bugzilla:20280 if anyone is interested and wants to bribe a dev to look at it. –xeno^talk 18:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Blocking for posting on an external website?

My question is on the existing policy on Wkipedia forks. We had the following story on ru.wp. User A runs an external website. He copied over there several templates from Russian Wikipedia failing to credit the source. When reminded he refused to credit Wikipedia as the source. Then sysop B blocked A for copyright violations. The copyright violation policies we have are ambiguously formulated, but have been previously applied only when smbody posted copyrighted materials from external sites (aka copyvio) to Wikipedia, not vice versa. C asked B to unblock A, and B refused. Then C filed n arbitration request, which we have to consider. Have you encountered smth similar on en.wp previously? Do you have any policies about such situations? We have to decide it anyway according to our policies, but if such policies exist in any Wikipedia, this would help us a lot. Thanks in advance.--Yaroslav Blanter (talk) 23:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure someone is going to say English Wikipedia can't advise Russian Wikipedia on its policies, regardless of whether there has been a similar situation here. A few comments from a non-admin person: I don't see how a user can be blocked for violating an unwritten policy, presuming no policy actually exists for this infraction. We usually don't say someone is blocked for "copyright violations" (as a general category), but refer to a specific subsection of the rules. I would also question whether a template is copyrightable, assuming it's just a list of things. We would need to see (and be able to understand) the template to give an opinion. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 06:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. We are not actually seeking an advise, I am just trying to see what policies exist in other Wikipedias and how they are implemented. Looks like we have a policy which is open to too broad interpretations--Yaroslav Blanter (talk) 08:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Majority of copied templates is quite simple, however, wikificator is more problematic, because it is clearly copyrightable. Ruslik_Zero 19:15, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Cite youtube template

moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Cite youtube template 18:59, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Public domain images in UK/EU

Is there any clarification on when an image becomes public domain if it had corporate authorship in the UK/EU? Our current templates do not apply. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It's {{PD-old-50}} if it had any publication in the USA. The only possible problem with historic images is 'right of first publication' - which resets the copyright clock. That's my understanding, I'm sure someone will be along to correct me. Cheers Kbthompson (talk) 18:50, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Brussels naming conventions has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:WikiProject Belgium/Brussels naming conventions (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Help, I had more than one account

In the past I had more than one account because I thought it wasn't against the Wikipedia rules. I had two other accounts: one has about 5 edits and the other one has about 20. They were last used in 2008. I am afraid someone will find out and get me banned or blocked. Now I wrote on those other accounts that they were mine (with a link to my main account) and wouldn't be used again. Will this be enough? What must I do? If an admin finds out he/she will ban me for sure. They weren't used for vandalism, nor have I had warnings or bannings.

Justanaccount4 (talk) 13:01, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

See Switching usernames#Using multiple accounts. In short, if you have identified the links between the accounts, and as long as you are not engaging in nefarious practises, then you'll be fine, and no further action on your part is required. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:12, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I note, btw, that nothing at all links to your Justanaccount4 page ... you might want to add {{User Alternate Acct|Justanaccount4}} to the user pages of each of the other accounts. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:57, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

When are blogs acceptable as sources?

[1] was a recent addition. I don't know that it adds anything to what was there. The other source may have had sufficient information.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:34, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's acceptable there. –xeno^talk 20:36, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Short answer? Never. Long answer : There may be instances of what started as a humble blog but has evolved into a well-known and (mostly) reputable source of information, such as The Huffington Post. Even these sources should be used with a grain of salt and a lot of caution, IMHO. Random blogs like the one linked? No, no, no. Shereth 20:37, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:SPS:Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.

Self-published sources should never be used as third-party sources about living persons, even if the author is a well-known professional researcher or writer; see WP:BLP#Reliable sources. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:45, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Though they are reliable sources for direct quotes ("Foobar Smith said on his blog that he hates Marmite"). 21:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I also think that "blogs" from what are otherwise reliable news sources are usually acceptable (i.e. New York Times blogs, etc) as long as they aren't being used to support an extraordinary claim or something. –xeno^talk 20:47, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Also, developers blogs for software (Such as MSN messenger) can sometimes give out upcoming features ahead of release. The posts by the developers of the software could be considered reliable, although I'm uncertain where policy stands on this. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 20:54, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure, that's covered by the notes at WP:SELFPUB. –xeno^talk 20:55, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the general answer "never" will have to be revisited over time. On a case by case basis at first. For example, Volokh Conspiracy and other legal blogs have been cited multiple times in court cases.--SPhilbrickT 15:06, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics/Style has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics/Style (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (video games) has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (video games) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines/Naming no longer marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines/Naming (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The Curse of interwiki bots

Recently getting into an edit war with interwiki bots on pages Lichfield and Worcester, it strikes me that there is something fundamentally unsound in letting these beasts roam free, propagating errors as they go. I appreciate that there appears to be a consensus that these bots are a "good thing", so I would like to propose a way of mitigating the problems. I propose a set of Laws of botics, as follows.

1. No bot shall reapply a change that it or any other bot has previously made, and that has been reverted by a human. Period. Full-stop. Never.
2. (Stronger version). No bot shall reapply a change of any kind that has previously been reverted.
3. (Interwiki bots only). An interwiki bot shall monitor all reverts that have been applied to its changes. If it detects a revert it shall automatically revert the corresponding changes it made in any other wikis as part of that amendment.

Jan1nad (talk) 19:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The interwiki bots, for the most part, use interwiki.py. I don't think it's smart enough to follow your laws. However, I do think the whole interwiki process should receive an overhaul. Why don't we assign each subject a unique global ID and have some way of noting at meta that a project has an article on the subject and then build the list of interwiki links from there? –xeno^talk 19:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Xeno. The real solution here is to create an actual interwiki system, rather then using the current cobbled together mess.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 20:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

There's no remotely efficient way for bots to implement the first 2 of these. Mr.Z-man 20:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there is a serious problem here. Basically the interwiki bots are broken at the design level -- they assume that the ideal solution is that there should be the same set of articles in each language, with a one-one mapping between them.

That, however, is never going to happen. The semantic space covered by two articles in one language may be covered by three in a different language, with partial overlaps, and you just have to choose the best map between those two languages. But then when you bring in a third language, which has three articles distributing the material a bit differently, it may be impossible to make the best solution "consistent" in the sense that if you follow the interwiki links around in a circle, you get back to the article you started with.

I appreciate that the solution proposed by Jan1nad may not be feasible from an implementation standpoint. But how about this?

• If an interwiki link contains the HTML comment <!-- NOBOT -->, no interwiki bot shall change it.

Surely that can be implemented? And we would then at least have a way of preventing the bots from overriding a human-crafted solution in difficult cases. --Trovatore (talk) 21:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

{{nobot}} exists... although, I'm not sure if the pywiki framework is aware of it. We could start using some sort of template for interwikis ({{interwiki}}?), if there is a real issue here...
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 21:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

There absolutely is a real issue, and it's a fundamental problem. Look at the history of, say, the vitamin A and retinol articles. We have two articles (retinol is a specific chemical; vitamin A is any of a number of chemicals that serve a similar function in the body). Many languages have only one article, sometimes called by a word cognate to vitamin A, and sometimes by a word cognate to retinol; that's a defensible choice as well. Naturally, if language X has only one article, and it's called retinol, that article will iwlink to the article called vitamin A in language Y, which also has only one article. So the bots are going to follow that link, and then try to reconcile them with the distribution between en.wiki's vitamin A and retinol, and are never going to come up with any sensible solution.

Note that Xeno's proposal does not help at all here. That proposal starts with the same wrong assumption that there can be a centralized list of articles, which only need different translations in the different languages. Never going to happen — it's hard enough to hash out the number of articles required for a particular collection of material, and the distribution of material among those articles, in a single language. Imagine trying to do it globally across however many languages we've got now, when many of the participants can't even find a common language to discuss it. --Trovatore (talk) 21:37, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I was with you right up until the last paragraph, where it sounds as though you're saying "It's too difficult of a problem, we should do nothing". You'll never see consensus to scrap language interwiki linking completely, as far as I can tell (don't let me stop you from trying though!). Xeno's skeleton of an idea is at least a step in the right direction. That it may suffer from similar inadequacies as the current (non)system of language related interwiki linking may be true, but it would at least be something that could be discreetly improved upon and maintained.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm certainly not saying we should stop interwiki linking! If that's what came across, then obviously I expressed myself badly.

What I am saying is, we need to recognize that different WPs are free to distribute content differently, and that therefore the graph of interwiki links is not going to have some property that we might like it to have in the abstract, like being able to navigate a cycle of languages and necessarily getting back to the article you started from.

To put it another way, each individual interwiki link should express the best judgment of the editors from both languages, as to which articles from the two WPs best correspond. There should be a way to prevent bots from interfering with this human judgment once it's made, in a futile effort to enforce a chimerical "consistency".

As to whether we should stop striving for consistency because "it's too hard", that's not the point. Consistency is the wrong goal entirely. It should simply be dropped from the interwiki scheme, because it doesn't make sense in the first place. --Trovatore (talk) 00:25, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

That makes much more sense. I'm still with the idea that Xeno expressed, where the real long-term solution is to move language interwiki linking into it's own space somehow (essentially). In the meantime, I could, and certainly do, support some change which causes bots to leave links that are somehow tagged by people alone. Editors > bots is generally true, and should remain so (I dispute that we're getting anywhere near the point where bots are even equal to editors, but that's a different subject really). Bots are supposed to give way to human editors anyway, by long standing policy, so imposing some sort of "bots can't touch this link" is actually un-controversial. The only real question is "how", and that's best addressed by getting some change made to the interwiki.py framework. Therefore, my recommendation is to those of you with an interest in this subject need to go and start a conversation with the developers.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 00:58, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki links are not meant to be an interlanguage "see also" list, they are only meant to indicate when the very same topic has been covered by another language project. So "best correspond" is not the right concept here. If one wiki has an article on Für Elise and another only has an article on Beethoven, the article on the song should not have an interwiki to an article on the composer, even if this is the best corresponding article. The concept should be: are these articles covering the same concept? If they are, there should be an interwiki link; if not, there should not. Different wikis are always free to organize things how they like, with the result that sometimes there will not be any appropriate interwiki link from a particular article in one language to any article in another particular language. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:09, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not about whether there should be a see-also list. Of course if there's no article that corresponds closely, then you just make no link. The judgment call comes in when there's more than one possibility for a close correspondence -- like in the retinol/vitamin A case, or the question of which of our Boolean algebra articles should link to simple:Boolean algebra (the answer in the latter case is not canonical, but the bots for a while were trying to enforce a link between the simple article and Boolean algebra (structure), which made no sense at all). --Trovatore (talk) 01:13, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

RFC: Editing-while-discussing of a policy document @ WP:Naming conventions

I have opened a request for comment at Wikipedia:Naming conventions. This is the second RFC at WP:NC in a little over a week. My concerns is that since September 6 the page has undergone on-going and substantial revision while discussion for such change take place on the talk page.

I'm worried that such a manner of editing a policy page brings instability to policy pages - and reduce their worthiness as reference points for other editors. I am also concerned as to the degree of community involvement in the changes taking place. Several of the editors involved say they "know" what a "new consensus" for the policy is. I am concerned that while they may be well-intentioned, if that was the case they would not still be wrangling over the page nearly three weeks later. --rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid (coṁrá) 21:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Bing Linking/References

When an article is mentioned on bing such as in this reference do we use the {{press}} or {{high traffic}} template? Is Bing using a cached version of wikipedia's page, or is it simply serving it up in a frame?(If its cached, then perhaps press is best).65.51.38.194 (talk) 23:18, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

BAG and Bots

The Wikipedia request for bot approval board has gone unanswered by BAG members for a couple of weeks now. When I pointed this out, a BAG member came by, and, in 28 seconds approved most outstanding requests without reading any of the discussions.

BAG is self-selected, self-directed, self-elected entity foisted onto en.wikipedia. If they select themselves and direct themselves to oversee the approval of bots, but are not up to spending the time necessary to oversee approval, and ignore (by simply not reading, it appears) all community input into discussing bots according to the rules for bots, why are they the group doing this?

--69.225.3.119 (talk) 01:16, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you have possibly assumed any more bad faith in your comment?

It appears the BRFA page has been ignored because the bot updating the status template is broken. I was actually working on a replacement when I noticed the rude comment on my talk page directing me here.

It was 28 minutes, not 28 seconds.

I actually approved 3 bots, the others I only commented on or approved for trial. Of the 2 approved bots, 1 had no objections at all, 2 had only trivial formatting concerns. Given that User:Rich Farmbrough is one of the most active bot operators, I trust that he'll review the comments.

Mr.Z-man 01:26, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I apologize for that. Still, it appears you did not read or acknowledge any of the outstanding comments. Since the most discussion was about one bot and you ignored ALL comments about it. --69.225.3.119 (talk) 01:42, 24 September 2009 (UTC)