Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not

Topic: Galleries (Nov 2005 – Jan 2006) Topic: Newspaper Articles (May - July 2007) Topic: "Unencyclopedic" (2003) Topic: Trivia (July 2007 - ongoing; partially archived)

Can an article be just a bibliography?

I don't see anything in WP:NOT to specifically prevent a Wikipedia article from being purely a bibliography. And yet, my first reaction was that it seems like a bibliography isn't an encyclopedia article, in the same way that a dictionary definition or a directory entry isn't. At any rate, since this policy doesn't disallow bibliographies I thought I'd ask here rather than nominate it for deletion. The article that prompted my concern is Holocaust (resources). --Sancho Mandoval (talk) 16:45, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I would think if it were a standalone topic, no, that would not be good. But this article is a compendium listing for a rather large subset of articles, and I really can't see the harm or the like about it, particularly if it is linked from all the other Holocaust-related articles. However, there's also something to be said that we're not a web directory, and in the same regard, we need to be careful on these types of lists. This could go either way. If there is a problem, I can see the article being reworked as "Media coverage of the Holocaust" or something, describing the notable books and works that have resulted. --MASEM (t) 13:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The article in question seems to be more of a "further reading" section that has developed into its own article. Angryapathy (talk) 14:07, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I would agree that Holocaust (resources) is not really suitable as a standalone article. It looks more like a linkfarm to me, as bald references to books, websites and related articles which would usually feature in a categroy is an unnecessary duplication of content. I have noted a similar problem with the article Accountancy which used to contain lots of bald links to related topics and websites. I deleted them all, since bald links on their own simply cluttered the article without adding any commentary, context or analysis relating to the article topic. Forgive the cosmetic reference, but as a rule of thumb when it comes to standalone references, links and bibliography, Bald is bad. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Related discussion: Talk:Phage_monographs --Cybercobra (talk) 17:34, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

1. It would be ideal if we err on the side of "Move to wikiproject subpage", rather than deleting whole articles, or large subsections. Preserve for later usage, if they're found to be unsuitable for mainspace.
2. See Category:Bibliographies by author (like a split-out discography List, and not a relevant part of this discussion),
   and Category:Bibliographies by subject (the primary set of examples for this discussion). -- Quiddity (talk) 17:59, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, especially Quiddity. I suppose there's more precedent for this than I'd realized. --Sancho Mandoval (talk) 18:05, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

The precedent is very shaky. Most of the members of Category:Bibliographies by subject seem to be original research. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:39, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Compiling sources for building the encyclopedia is a necessary and required amount of original research that we allow. --MASEM (t) 14:00, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I think not, as deciding which subject category each book fits into is a matter of personal opinion. Lists or bibliographies by subject are little more than collections of random stuff, and should be avoided. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:23, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree. A definitive list of a particular author's works is one thing; a listing of a subset of an unknown number of works on a particular topic is edging into indiscrimination in my book. Powers ^T 14:36, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

What's the difference between this, then, and say, if there was 50kb of article on top of it, referencing those sources?

I think if all the sources are those that are used common to all the groupings of the articles on that subject (on the individual article pages), it's less of a problem - its a global reference list pulled from sources actually used by the WP articles. But if there are sources being pulled in that are not being used in any of those pages, then you're getting to link farm territory. --MASEM (t) 15:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

It's kind of lucky we have a consensus making model which will allow us to define a bibliography on a given subject. Also, not all of these things are like each other, see for example Hamlet (bibliographies). Hiding T 15:18, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Selecting items for a bibliography is not OR, any nore than selectingthe content for any other type of article is. We normally choose the more significant examples, and people can challenge that item by item if they like. We can do OR to determine what the content of an article ought to be--we do this all the time in talk pages--though we cannot present OR in the article itself. . DGG ( talk ) 18:30, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Why is it so in the first place...

This whole page lists what is canon, but nowhere is there written why (=for what purpose) it aims to be encyclopedic and not a compendium of all knowledge worth knowing. I am aware that the sister projects, which are often linked (albeit quite small and hidden), may contain the unencyclopedic information, but why the decentralization in the first place? Pros: adds on wikias and neater (more targeted). Cons: less information (to be honest, nobody actually transfer how-tos to wikibooks before deleting them), information is written twice or more, edit wars between pedantic bureaucrats etc. --Squidonius (talk) 16:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

• Wikipedia was originally thought of as a way of drafting encyclopedia articles for another project, nupedia. So the idea of the encyclopedia pre-dates the idea of the wiki-method of article creation. The encyclopedia idea is hot-wired into the creation. See Wikipedia, and more especially History of Wikipedia#Formulation of the concept. The idea was to create encyclopedia articles for nupedia, which would place ads next to the articles. The latter stage never quite came off the way it was initially envisioned, and Wikipedia seems to have become more popular than any of the commercial mirrors. You're kind of asking the wrong question, or perhaps you're kind of prompting a different answer. Hiding T 15:25, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
  

I believe wikipedia would server its customers better if it didn't create artificial boundaries and moved from encyclopedia mentality to knowledge base. Jimmy Wales are you o.k. with this?   :-)   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:09, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:INDISCRIMINATE. The criteria for inclusion prevent Wikipedia from become a useless mashing of information. --King Öomie 19:18, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying you like the artificial boundaries? Is someone suggesting it should become useless? Are you agreeing that not allowing examples, dictionary terms, how-to's, etc.. makes wikipedia more useful? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:25, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Rules aren't just there to restrict us in what we can do. They also serve as inspiration. Few pupils will be able to write something reasonable when just asked to "Write an essay!" Ask them to "Write an essay about the most interesting experience in your life!" and you will get much better results. It's a strength of Wikipedia that it's focused on an encyclopedia, not a weakness. There are sister projects for writing dictionaries, or books. And there are other projects like Project Gutenberg or the Internet Archive. There is no need for Wikipedia to do all these things at the same time, and in fact trying to do so might well destroy Wikipedia. The English language Wikipedia has already reached a monstrous size in terms of content and contributors. It's not clear how long it can continue to grow without some kind of restructuring, e.g. by spawning off special-purpose encyclopedias. Hans Adler 19:35, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

It can maintain the encyclopedia focus. Need is one thing, what is best for users is another. We should ask what is best, rather than what is needed. I'm not in favor of worrying that the sky might fall, by worring about what might happen. It clear to me that the monstrous size is an advantage and I don't see significant issues with it getting bigger. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:40, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

You're free to your opinion, but this is an encyclopedia, and it's going to stay an encyclopedia. I'm not a fan of progress for the sake of progress. If this site expands to include a bunch of random garbage, we'll have even less credibility than we currently do- and you can forget ever being usable as a reliable source in the academic community. --King Öomie 19:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

No one is suggesting it become a site that includes a bunch of random garbage. No one suggest that measures to insure credibility be lessened. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:50, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Not explicitly. They are, however, inextricable from the concept of having a site you can just add anything to. See Uncyclopedia. --King Öomie 20:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In this case, the term "artificial boundary" is a nonsense term. It's a website with rules- by the same criteria, WP:U and WP:VAND are "artificial boundaries" between you and doing whatever you want. The inclusion criteria allow this to remain a useful ENCYCLOPEDIA. As opposed to a dictionary, a how-to manual, or some other WP:OR-fest. I could see absorbing Wiktionary, but not ask.com, or yahoo answers, or facebook... all the other crap people want Wikipedia to be. --King Öomie 19:38, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Addendum: Any content added must be very verifiable and very noteworthy. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see what the issue is here. There are no artificial boundaries that I am aware of. This project has standards that attempt to ensure that content is worthwhile, reliable, neutral (not favoring one point of view over another), etc. There isn't anything artificial about Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines, including What Wikipedia is not. Boundaries? Yes. Artificial? No. Problem? I don't see one. Of course we are concerned about what is best for our readers, not just what they "need". And volunteers here donate lots of hours trying to deliver useful information to readers. This discussion seems to be wandering aimlessly because there is no concrete proposal to discuss, just a loaded question based on a false premise. Finell (Talk) 22:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Towards a concrete proposal, is there something we can do to make it more seamless with Wiktionary? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 22:12, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Here is an example where wiktionary seems to be inside of wikipedia: pedant . Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:44, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

To answer the original question about "why" what do you think about adding something like the following to the intro?

Keeping this scope helps wikipedia maintain its focus on wp:verifiability and wp:notable and consequently a reputation of credibility.

Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 00:58, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I think what Daniel.Cardenas plans to add is good although I would add that it is there in the first place for historical reasons, which it is (truth before reputation). say:

• this scope predates wikipedia and keeping it helps wikipedia maintain its focus on wp:verifiability and wp:notable and consequently a reputation of credibility.
  

It does not explain why the no How-tos policy which are directly verifiable and are applied knowledge (which in the 21st century is considered par with theoretical: Engineering is as important as science, but it was not so when 3 centuries ago they started making encyclopaedias) hence notable, and word definition, which is both verifiable and notable.
On a tragico-comical side of things: the fact wikipedia is split into multitude of sub-par wikias complies with itslef (Wikipedia:Splitting)!
I think the sister-project/wikia interlinking is very poor and may require improving:

• I find wiktionary links too hidden
• links to pages which have longer articles in wikias are at the bottom as external links!
• links to jimbo-independant wiki pages which fill the gaps in policy are shun (as are unreliable) --Squidonius (talk) 13:07, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with this addition. "verifiability" and "notability" are different concepts, with different purposes, both purposes being not directly related to WP:NOT. Take the rule "not a dictionary". The opposite, "is a dictionary", has no conflict with WP:V and WP:NOTE whatsoever. The same is in many other cases, such as "repository", "memorial", "journal"... I am not even saying that the wording is poor: WP:V and WP:NOTE is not the focus of wikipedia; they are the core principles: WP:V is the only criteria for truth (unlike expert-authorship encyclopedias, where verification is based on experts' authority), while WP:NOTE is to separate random trivia from things that many would like to know.

As it occurs to me now, WP:NOT must be restructured to reflect major sources of content-related "NOT" in "WP":

• Major content policies, such as WP:V & WP:NOTE;
• Basic decisions that other sister projects suit better to hold particular info. Eg. wiktionary is best suited for dicdefs, with translations, lists, categories, etymological connections, etc.
• Whatever else.

This will shed more light on the logic under the decisions what to exclude. I will find a spare minute and come with a concrete suggestion (if someone else does not beat me to it). - Altenmann >t 17:59, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Talking of Wiktionary, we could use some deeply considered feedback at the ever-ongoing debate, currently (summarized?) at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is not a dictionary#Copasetic example. I think Angr explains it best, but I'm wondering what the wider-consensus is. Much thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:08, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikiversity

The only discussion I know of about September's addition of "transwiki OR to Wikiversity" is at Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not/Archive_31#Transwiki_to_Wikiversity. AFAIK, Wikiversity doesn't want all of Wikipedia's OR transwikied there. Anyone mind if I revert that edit? - Dank (push to talk) 06:47, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

• Why don't you think Wikiversity wants Wikipedia's OR? I am very active on Wikiversity, which was created in part as a repository for original research that would not be accepted on Wikipedia. Wikiversity is a much younger project than Wikipedia and two of its goals are to gain what content it can, and to be better connected to Wikipedia through links such as this. When I see a valuable article outside the scope of Wikipedia, I strongly feel transwiki is the most appropriate option. See, for example, Letter to the Falashas, an article that was nominated for deletion but resolved as an article that should be transwikied to Wikisource. So I don't think you should have deleted the text. --AFriedman (talk) 07:13, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
  • The word "valuable" wasn't in the text I deleted, and even if you insert it, the problem is that everyone thinks their own OR is valuable, so this would create a lot of extra work for little gain. Still, I've asked at Wikiversity for their input. - Dank (push to talk) 14:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikiversity hasn't been checking OR for value and I don't think that's been a problem as of now. We have more than enough space to go around and OR doesn't tend to disrupt maintainer time or pages that are not about OR. Online communities of researchers don't really filter the researchers for their value, either. If we gain the expertise on WV and we need or want to, it should certainly be possible to introduce some type of rating system for OR just as we've got rating systems here. However, OR tends to be in good faith and it's very important this Foundation has a wiki for the purpose, especially if OR is ending up on Wikipedia by mistake. --AFriedman (talk) 16:02, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I responded at the Wikiversity link, I'll copy it here:

Okay, the two categories that are most likely to contain the pages we're talking about here are new promotional pages for speedy deletion and New non-notable pages for speedy deletion. We delete a lot of those every day. Original research sometimes shows up on established pages, but it's not as much and harder to find. Please let us know at Wikipedia_talk:What Wikipedia is not if you see pages that you like. If you can give us a clear enough idea what it is we should be looking for, then we can take the conversation further. - Dank (push to talk) 16:06, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

• Text that attempts to create an original synthesis of information about an established topic, even if imperfectly referenced, could perhaps be used to start or continue an essay on Wikiversity. A specific example of this may be the section about whether Aaron ben Moses ben Asher belonged to Karaite Judaism and the possible implications of this in understanding the historical influence of Karaite Judaism. Similar text is found in both the ben Asher biography article and the article about Karaite Judaism.
• Pages that seem to be educational materials, rather than encyclopedic articles, are some of the materials explicitly welcomed in Wikiversity.
• Text that seems explicitly written to perform "original research" are also explicitly welcomed in Wikiversity. My own Wikiversity Userpage (there is a link to it from my Wikipedia userpage) is a fairly extreme example of explicit original research. --AFriedman (talk) 17:42, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, for these kinds of pages, you might also want to search current and past WP:AfD pages for "original research" or "WP:OR", and the Incubator is another place to look. If there are enough volunteers who want to do this and who can agree on how to do it, great. If not, one of the important principles about Wikipedia policy is that policy pages are supposed to describe what actually happens, not what we want to happen; see WT:POLICY, which is very active this month. - Dank (push to talk) 18:02, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

In general, there is not enough communication and linkage between Wikipedia and its sister projects. This is not only my opinion--it is one of Wikimedia Foundation's top priorities for what to improve about the projects. Many of Wikipedia's sister projects have been hurt by the lack of information about them in Wikipedia, a statement that seems supported by a previous comment that seemed to misunderstand Wikiversity's scope. When I changed the Wikipedia page about what it is not, I was describing what my own editorial policy is. I would like to know why more editors aren't aware of the transwiki option, if such is the case, and what to do about that. --AFriedman (talk) 19:35, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The relationship between en.wikipedia and the WMF is a happy, bigamous marriage. (I'll explain more in one of my Signpost columns.) En.Wikipedians are willing to live with WMF constraints, within reason, and the WMF learned a long time ago that consensus on Wikipedia isn't something that can be "managed" in a top-down way (not even by Wikipedians). Yes, the WMF would like to see En.Wikipedia sharing more of its power and prestige with sibling projects, but it's not going to happen by royal decree or by an arbitrary change to a policy page, you're going to have to woo us. If you want to do that, I'd suggest getting Wikiversity people to help us at CAT:CSD, WP:AfD and the WP:INCUBATOR; that's where you'll find this OR you're looking for that we can't use but maybe you guys can. If you guys work on building a relationship with Wikipedians, I think your efforts will be reciprocated. - Dank (push to talk) 14:56, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, most of the Custodians (=sysops) at WV are very much "part timers", and as far as I know I'm currently the only Custodian who is also an admin here (and I'm very much a part timer during the growing season...farming takes precedence).

If any admins on WP would be interested in getting tools on WV (especially Special:Import, which comes with the other ones), just let us know and I or someone else will "mentor" you (we do RfA a bit differently). Just make a request on v:WV:RFC and we can set you up.

The more important issue is to make sure that the contributors adding the content don't feel alienated or banished to a ghetto... let them know that their contributions are welcomed and appreciated, but they simply added them to the wrong part of the Wikimedia project. Transwiki to WV shouldn't be a scarlet letter. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 15:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi SB. I appreciate that you do fabulous work at Wikiversity, but this invitation doesn't give us what we need. Which contributions, exactly, do you guys want? Even if we know what you want, will we be able to get general agreement in places where the nuts and bolts of deletion are discussed (such as individual RFAs, WP:AfD and WT:CSD) on your suggested guidelines? And even if we can get a clear description and general agreement, who's going to train the taggers and/or admins, deal with disputes involving interpretation, and handle the increased workload? If people from Wikiversity want to jump in, participate in discussions, and help do the work to make it happen, I'll be happy to participate in the discussions. - Dank (push to talk) 19:18, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if it was already mentioned, but some effort to connect/move OR research from WP to WV was already discussed at v:Wikiversity:What shall we do with Wikipedia? So maybe this could be a starting point? --Gbaor (talk) 14:00, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

The last date stamp on the page is June 2008, but sure. - Dank (push to talk) 14:36, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Just a comment on the date stamp: I began as a Wikipedian, then moved to WV. And this is entirely different experience. The community is relatively small (very small compared to WP active members) and it is very much in the process of evolution. This is also related to "part timer" editors, mentioned by SB_Johnny. The page mentioned is one example from many good ideas on WV, unfortunatelly often burried in the hidden corners of the site. --Gbaor (talk) 16:47, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Make shortcuts to section headers instead of specific points

As the title suggests, I would like to propose that the shortcuts link to their section header, instead of the specific point that they refer to. Reason: When a user clicks a shortcut, he is basically thrown into the middle of the page, with little context what page he is on. For new users, we would want them to first see the "Wikipedia is not a ..." and only then read the specific point. Thoughts? Rami R 11:28, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

So no one opposes me changing the shortcuts locations? Rami R 15:31, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Moving the "<span id..." into the subsection headers? I'd agree with that.

Examples: Currently WP:NOTPAPER works correctly, but WP:NOTMEMORIAL works incorrectly (links to point #4, instead of the heading). -- Quiddity (talk) 18:37, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Not a bureaucracy

I tend to look things up on Wikipedia about as much as any other typical denizen of the web, and every time I do, I check the talk page out of curiosity. The claim in this article that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy seems to me like little but wishful thinking. The way this encyclopedia is managed is with an incredibly complex system of rules. Even though the rules were created by "community consensus," isn't it true that, due to the nature of requiring a consensus among a giant group, higher-ranked users are given much more consideration in this consensus? Don't get me wrong, I'm not here just to criticize. This is pretty much a necessity for a project this large to have any degree of cohesiveness. But very little that is said in the "not a bureaucracy" section is true in practice. 149.175.167.210 (talk) 03:18, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I just reread WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY, and I can't see the problem. You are right that "higher-ranked" users are given much more consideration; that's because "rank" in Wikipedia is basically measured by an editor's ability to convince other editors. In this sense a lot of admins rank much higher than most users with even more rights (i.e. the so-called "bureaucrats" and oversighters), often a non-admin will rank higher in this sense than an admin, or a relatively new but active user will rank higher than an even more active user who has been around for ages. Such a pecking order arises naturally, and has nothing to do with bureaucracy.

This rule is a statement of intent: We don't want to be a bureaucracy. It's important to remind ourselves of this fact because there are good reasons why we are always in danger of becoming one. E.g. the following scenario seems to be quite common:

New editor X appears at the article on widgets and tries to insert "original research". (According to him, widgets are really an alien technology that is secretly in the possession of the US government.) Other editors try to keep this nonsense out of the article. But how? We don't ban users for believing in nonsense. It's not likely that we can convince X that he is wrong. So we have to find a formal reason why the "information" cannot be included in the article, e.g. WP:RS and WP:BURDEN. Without this formal reason even admins would not be able to do anything to keep the article in a sane state. But X absolutely believes he is right (see WP:TRUTH); to him his "evidence" is so convincing that the only reason someone can't follow him is that they are stupid or part of the conspiracy to cover up this powerful technology. So for him the fact that the others eventually "win" (aliens remain unmentioned in widget (economics) and he gets a topic ban) is proof that Wikipedia is a bureaucracy and values arcane details of process over truth.

It's unlikely, but X may become a more or less constructive editor on other topics. But he has learned the lesson that Wikipedia is a bureaucracy, and will try to spread it. Whenever he gets into an argument with other editors he will argue on a purely formal level, because he "knows" that nobody actually cares about the quality of the encyclopedia; only the rules count.

There is also another class of editors who are completely unable to write an encylopedic article on their own, assume that that's also true for everybody else, and come to the conclusion that the encyclopedia emerges magically from lots of tiny ants just following the rules. They tend to get angry when an expert argues the quality/correctness of an article rather than the rules. E.g. they will insist that a number such as 1,554,347 (number of inhabitants of Y City in 2005) must not be rounded because we have no rules telling us to do so, and how. They are not worried at all that this number gives the illusion of an impossible precision (the same number of inhabitants throughout the year???) They will claim that it's "original research" to round the number to 1,554,000, since you could just as well round to 1,554,300 or 1.6 million.

But once an argument with one of these people gets more exposure, the more "high-ranking" users will appear and WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY will be applied. Hans Adler 09:44, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Very nice, thanks. I hope you save this somewhere. Johnuniq (talk) 11:33, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

But very little that is said in the "not a bureaucracy" section is true in practice - Yes that's correct. Wikipedia is a bit odd in that because something is written down on a policy or guideline page it is presumed to be true, so your attempts to get people to realise this is likely trying to talk down cult members - it's very difficult. I've never had the patiences for it. You are best off accepting that this is a bureaucracy and simply (virtually) nodding when people tell you it isn't. --Cameron Scott (talk) 10:58, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I can see where Wikipedia is seen as a bureaucracy. People make rules, and thus are followed. What WP different than a bureaucracy is that rules can be ignored. There are many things that the rules do not cover, and even if a topic is not covered in the guidelines/policies, people are hesitant to add a new rule to the guidelines. I've seen many policy suggestions vetoed through consensus, that for all intents and purposes is a rule most people follow, because the addition of that rule borders on WP:CREEP. I've learned over time that the "holes" in the guidelines can be filled in by common sense/consensus. And even when an article seems to violate a policy, that policy can be overridden if the "rule breaking" helps the article. So does WP have a bureaucratic system? Yes. But it isn't anarchy, either. We are probably closer to bureaucracy than anarchy, but you don't always have to follow the rules. Angryapathy (talk) 13:22, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

The thing is that the policy doesn't actually say it's not a bureaucracy; it says something more like that it's not a kafkaesque bureaucracy where unless you've filled in form 283 subsection 53.b correctly you can't do something. The wikipedia is to a certain extent a bureaucracy, it's just not that kind of bureaucracy.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:13, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Application of IINFO in FAs

I'm currently involved in a discussion with another user (see Talk:Inchon (film)) and the issue of the level of detail in the article Battlefield Earth (film) came up. This currently enjoys featured article status but to me the article has too much detail considering that the movie is chiefly notable for its connection to Scientology and for it being a critical and box office flop. For example, the "Critical reception" section is more that 2 screen pages long and seems to include a quote from everyone who reviewed the movie, notable or not. My interpretation of IINFO in this case, and I think this is how MOS:FILM interprets it, is that a sampling of reviews to indicate the general trend is sufficient and using 2 pages to say that most critics didn't like it is excessive and unencyclopedic. Normally when someone tries to use the WP:Other stuff exists argument it's easy to refute by pointing to that link. But in this case I'm getting "Other stuff exists in a FA" which is more difficult. So the issue I'm trying to get at is whether it's just me or is IINFO not being applied as it should be in this case. And more generally, are the guidelines in IINFO being taken into account sufficiently when FA status is being considered?--RDBury (talk) 16:17, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

If I had to guess, I'd say that the Battlefield Earth "Reception" section has probably expanded a bit since it was promoted to FA status. It could stand to be pared down a bit to reduce redundancy. Barring that, though, the level of detail on the Inchon article appears comparable, except in the lead (which is far too long). But that's just from a cursory review. Powers ^T 17:11, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

merge dictionary

I think it is a shame that people come here for knowledge and instead get confused. For example if I want to know what sown is, I find a page about a worthless to most people user group. Would be better if we had a page that explained the common meaning. What do you think? Thx, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:30, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

So do you go to the library, go to the encyclopedias, take out the "S" volume, and complain when it doesn't have an entry for "sown"? Or do you just go straight for the dictionary? If the latter, then you need to visit http://en.wiktionary.org Powers ^T 14:23, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't live in the past, invent a better future. When you want to know what sown means, ask your computer and your computer should tell you without you having to figure out what category it is in. People will look first in an encyclopedia who don't know what it means and be dissapointed. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 15:19, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Who looks in an encyclopedia to find out a definition? Seriously? Who goes to Britannica to find out the past participle of "sow"? Powers ^T 16:51, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

If you want to know what a word means you need to go to a dictionary. Always.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:18, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

If you want to know about a topic then that's what the encyclopedia does. Encyclopedia articles are not about a word.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:18, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately merging doesn't work. In an encyclopedia things with different names that mean the same thing are found in the same article, whereas in a dictionary, they end up in different articles. You can't put the same thing in a merged article and in a separate article; that's just unnecessary duplication, in some cases you would duplicate exactly the same thing dozens of times, and it becomes impossible to correct and update all the duplicates. Dictionaries and encyclopedias are radically different even though at first glance they look similar.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 17:18, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Can external links be included in Lists (as an exception to WP:LINKFARM)?

When constructing a list it can be helpful to readers to include external links for listed items, especially if there is not yet a Wikipedia page for that item. Is there a consensus to allow modification of the WP:LINKFARM policy as follows?

Wikipedia is neither a mirror nor a repository of links, images, or media files. Wikipedia articles are not:

1. Mere collections of external links or Internet directories. There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. On articles about topics with many fansites, for example, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate. See Wikipedia:External links for some guidelines. (Exception: WP:Lists, which may contain external links for items on which there is not yet a Wikipedia article, in compliance with other WP:List policies.)
2. Mere collections of internal links, except for disambiguation pages when an article title is ambiguous, and for lists to assist with article organisation and navigation; for these, please follow the guidelines outlined at Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Lead and selection criteria.

Here is an example of a List (in progress) with links. Here is the same list without links. Scroll down in each; it seems that the former list (with external links) is much more useful to Wikipedia readers than the latter. Thanks for your input! DaleMurphy (talk) 19:10, 1 November 2009 (UTC)