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)

Types of Information

Can someone clarify this sentence please: "Although articles should begin with a good definition and description of one topic, they should provide other types of information about that topic as well". What is meant by other types of information or more specifically, "types of information"?--Alperen (talk) 08:20, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I could speculate, but I have no idea what that means as far as restricting or demanding article content. I guess it means that you can write an article about Ulysses S. Grant, POTUS, and still have content about him being a General who was allegedly fond of the firewater? Still, it's so vague that it's essentially meaningless. I'd recommend just cutting it out of the policy and seeing who objects. Once and if anyone does protest, they can probably explain what it was meant to say and we can rewrite it. SDY (talk) 16:29, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Absent evidence of a problem, we should be conservative about changes. Changing "types of information" to "information" would be OK, though. It means the same thing and saves two words. Would that help? Herostratus (talk) 17:40, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

The problem, as far as I can tell, is that it doesn't mean anything, and that removing the entire statement would have the same meaning as retaining it. SDY (talk) 21:24, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can see, it would make a lot more sense if we removed the "and description" from it. Once you "describe" something, you are already in the domain of the "other information" that an article ought to contain in addition to just defining what it's about. We should also remove the italics from "one topic". I don't know what that emphasis is trying to do there. Maybe somebody wanted to make a valid point with it, but whatever that point is, it seems to be orthogonal to what this whole passage is about. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:35, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I think it's clearer now, however I think that we should keep the wording "if possible". So it should go like: but if possible articles that contain... I suppose that "a good definition" is enough to start an encyclopedia article. Any views on that?--Alperen (talk) 17:59, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest normally is better & more flexible in both directions than if possible -- unless by definition is meant something as vague as saying what the article is about--which is any case is necessary to avoid speedy deletion as "no context". I do not think everyone here would accept a definition as sufficient for an article--it's enough to prevent speedy deletion as "no content", but that's a much weaker consideration. Myself, I think an article can be written about anything that can be called by a distinctive common noun, but I'm not sure about consensus on that. DGG ( talk ) 22:58, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not ... a social network

WP is not a social network like Twitter, Facebook, etc. But it is a social network in that articles are edited cooperatively and communally. Particularly in the case of disagreements or other contentious issues, WP talk pages are the forum where these issues are discussed. And what about the various WP projects? Don't those depend on the mutual communication/agreement/cooperation of participants? For these reasons, I would argue that Wikipedia is a social network, but one that is not like others. -- kosboot (talk) 20:57, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Communication such as on talk pages is absolutely necessary, but via social network, we're talking about things like blogs, keeping track of friends, etc. that are normally associated with Facebook and the like. --MASEM (t) 21:09, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

This isn't a semantic game. It's a statement that the purpose of Wikipedia is to build an article, not to socialize. Any socialization that happens here is for the purpose of building the encyclopedia. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:49, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a playing ground

I propose to add this very important information, for those who think they can use Wikipedia for entertainment. Note: this should be a serious encyclopedia, shouldn't it? Alex ^{discussion ★} 21:55, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

No. People read Wikipedia for entertainment all of the time. There are even games which involve following Wikipedia links between subjects looking for "degrees of separation" between seemingly unrelated topics. All of the editors here are volunteers, we do this because we want to. It is likely that many of our editors (including myself!) see contributing to Wikipedia as a form of recreation or "entertainment". That doesn't mean we are not serious about our contributions to the project. --Versageek 20:00, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

we normally do accept games to a certain extent, when they do not become so extensive as to detract from working on the encyclopedia. Personally,when on Wikipedia I prefer the game of chance that is our XfD processes, but that's just me. DGG ( talk ) 20:47, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

We also have competitions for editors to improve Wikipedia. Competitions are a form of game.∞陣内Jinnai 21:47, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Primarily, I meant using editing privileges (especially for users who have increased access level, eg. rollback) for fun. (Some of users might get rollback right – reverting all edits in a roll by last editor of the page in a single click as fun, and therefore they could start playing with that. But, that text can be added in WP:ROLLBACK.) This category can contain those edits that are kind useless, but don't meet WP:TEST or WP:VAN criteria. Alex ^{discussion ★} 19:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't see this as adding anything that WP:BATTLEGROUND doesn't already deal with. A little competition and fun can be helpful. Used in the wrong way it's an aggressive move or a nuisance. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:48, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Changelogs

KelleyCook (talk · contribs) removed the bullet point about changelogs earlier today, about three hours after one of his/her articles was nominated for deletion. Personally, I think this is a no-brainer, as the spirit would violate NOT's ideas about cataloguing and indiscriminate information anyway, but there are a worrying amount of glorified changelog articles (see, the AfDed articles)... Sceptre ^(talk) 20:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Without commenting directly on the AFDs, this was something that was spun out of the guidelines that have been used by the gaming wikiproject for a while now. In some instances it might be reason to remove an article. You might also consider reducing the coverage of the versions down to something more like a summary than a complete changelog. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:46, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

To describe the history of a piece of software you have to have some description of how it has changed over time. For commercial reasons the release dates of software and the introduction of features have become quite significant, and such milestones in the software's history can be notable and are worth documenting. Major, complex pieces of software like operating systems usually have thousands of changes between versions, and obviously listing every single change is inappropriate, but a condensed list selected by editors is worthwhile and provides a valuable reference by showing a condensed history that is (ideally) free from marketing gloss and hype.

The only past discussion I could find about changelogs is here, and I agree with the editor who said "A brief summary of versions is appropriate. Listing individual bugfixes as they appeared in v2.08 build 1037 is obviously over the top." I suggest a tighter definition of "changelog" along these lines.

I think the previous wording, "avoid a complete step-by-step record of every release or update", was too broad. The current wording, which was incorrectly tagged as an Undo, is slightly better, but should be more explicit about the suggested level of detail, giving examples. The wording "violates other precepts of this policy" is too vague, if it is indiscriminate say so. Dcxf (talk) 00:04, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

It's actually still pretty indiscriminate to include bulk text of changelogs even if you are selectively pulling only the biggest changes. I would almost argue that the better way to look at these articles is that they should be changelogs as viewed from the standpoint of third-party/secondary sources. A new feature introduced to an OS update that is caught on by sources is appropriate to include. A significant bug fix that can only be sourced by pointing to the change log is not. We're an encyclopedia, and we should be summarizing the changelogs over time, examining it as a history/timeline, than a routine "version number and here's what changed" role. --MASEM (t) 00:17, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

For example, looking at the iOS version history article, for example, 4.1, the important changes, such as Game Center and HDR for the iPhone 4, it's lost in all stuff about iPhone 3G bugfixes. Same for iOS 5: there's a lot of stuff no-one really uses given equal prominence to the Notification Center and Siri; indeed, background changes to Safari get more bullet points than the introduction of a groundbreaking voice control app. Hence, the proposed text:

Release notes and changelogs: An article about a product should only discuss changes that have likewise been discussed in reliable secondary sources. New features and functionality should be discussed in the abstract rather than the specifics, and bug fixes, unless notable in themselves for fixing a major software flaw, should not be discussed.

Sceptre ^(talk) 01:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this approach--the excessive detail has concerned me, and without a rule, it's been difficult to get rid of it consistently. DGG ( talk ) 01:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Also strongly agree with this approach. This also reflects best practices on good/featured articles. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, but there should not be a need to differentiate between features and bug fixes in the guide: WP:DUE weight applies in both cases. Uniplex (talk) 05:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll put in two cents: I really like being able to see changelogs on wikipedia in the well known, easy to read wikipedia format. The deletion note on the iOS page is what brought me here. I agree that the level of detail might be inappropriate, but deletion would be a shame and, I think, against the principle of the site. To me the contents on that page is relevant information. Glaux (talk) 10:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

What is "well known easy to read wikipedia format"? By default, Wikipedia generally formats into prose, not tables. And like on that iOS page (which you note people are not saying should be deleted but should be radically rewritten) there's a lot of people arguing usefulness and the like, but "usefulness" or "utility" are not reasons to break the nature of WP as a tertiary, summarizing source. --MASEM (t) 12:36, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

"New features and functionality should be discussed in the abstract rather than the specifics": this seems too vague and could be interpreted in any number of ways. If I say that a new feature was added am I being abstract or specific? I suggest something like "Briefly summarize notable new features rather than describing every detail of their implementation". Also I don't think the requirement for secondary sources will help much for major packages like iOS as there are reliable sources that will happily list all the changes in great detail, e.g. [1]. I think a determined editor could source almost everything on the current list, so this policy would entrench the current version rather than shortening it. Dcxf (talk) 19:15, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

The intention is that we say something like "Siri is a natural language processor for the iPhone 4S which replaces the Voice Control app in previous versions and is integrated into most of the device's stock software", instead of going all the way down the feature list (it can text people, make appointments... and tell you where to hide a dead body). Sceptre ^(talk) 08:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that is the best example. As a major feature in a major OS, it probably would warrant more detail, but not everything. (I was about to say we could probably justify an article on it, but there is one already, though I think it could use more detail. ) DGG ( talk ) 01:53, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a debate forum

That needs to be added. There are several articles, many of them about religious subjects, that end up documenting a debate. It starts with providing various opinions on a subject, which may or not be appropriate for the article. But then there will be responses to those opinions from some given perspective, and then possibly responses to the responses. This is completely inappropriate. If it makes sense to document referenceable opinions on a topic, then do so, but it is inappropriate to then describe how one can shoot those opinions down. If a debate on some subject is well known then create an article such as "History of the Quran Debate" or something. I see the value in documenting the facts of a debate, but not in an article that is supposed to be documenting facts about some topic that is not related to debate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.167.49.116 (talk) 10:24, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Articles on highly contentious topics (religion, global warming, evolution vs creationism) are nearly always going to have a debate-style of approach, though I agree that documenting as statement, response, counter-response is bad form, and instead better to group the opinions of one side into one larger section. However, nearly all the same sources would be used. I don't know, however, if this is a persistently large enough problem to be a "NOT" statement, and more a guideline of how to write on topics that are subject to large volumes of sourced opinions from each side. Arguably, I would see people mistreating this to also apply to talk pages where most consensus discussions are debates by necessity. --MASEM (t) 12:58, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Self-promotion of academics on Wikipedia

Greetings. I received an interesting email at the end of the summer from Sage Publishing, who produce many top-tier journals (at least in my area of Communication and Media). On their "10 Ways to Increase Usage and Citations of Your Article", the first suggestion is to "Contribute to Wikipedia". They write:

"We recognize that many students are increasingly using Wikipedia as the starting point for their research. If there are pages that relate to themes, subjects or research that your article covers, add your article as a reference, with a link to it on SAGE Journals Online. If there isn’t a page in existence, why not create one? You can find out how here."

This seems a little dicey to me. Sure, published journal articles make good citations for Wikipedia articles and add credibility to content, but it just seems to me a bit too close to home for academics to be, in essence, using Wikipedia for professional self-promotion. I'm interested in hearing what others think? UOJComm (talk) 18:04, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I like it, and am always glad to see academic interest in editing Wikipedia. Since the articles should be reliable(being published in Academic journals) and since no particular point of view is being expressed I think this has more potential to bring in new editors, activity, and sources the encyclopedia than it does harm. If someone is self promoting in a harmful way then we have current methods for handling that.AerobicFox (talk) 19:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Im good with it as well- so long as the new editors are up to date on policy and Coin. Id certaintly like to see more enduring science articles than all the video game related ones that flood wiki. Ottawa4ever (talk) 20:48, 20 October 2011 (UTC)