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)

Proposed WWIN section

Wikipedia will not crash the Internet (Draft 1)

Wikipedia is a fountain of knowledge. Neither we nor anyone who succeeds us can rightfully claim exclusive rights to that. Let additions and deletions continue according to our consensual guidelines. However, in the meantime we trust that our readers are smart enough to think for themselves.

Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 06:50, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

This doesn't seem helpful at all at content advice at NOT, if anything replicating things like NOTPAPER. --MASEM (t) 06:56, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOTPAPER is mealy-mouthed at best. No one really pays attention to it anyway. Clarification is in order. Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 07:06, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with Masem, maybe a good topic for a potential namespace essay, but putting this information here isn't the solution. WP:NOT mostly involves either articles, or userspace/user comments which this doesn't seem to be. Secret ^account 07:21, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, such is life. Hopefully it made someone out there think. Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 07:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposed addition to NOT Instruction manuals

I propose adding a sentence to the Instruction manuals section, to the following effect:

It is permissible, and useful to the reader, to cite one or two reliable instruction manuals or the like, either in the Further reading (for printed material) or External links (for online resources) sections.

Citing manuals in the manner proposed here complies with the Further reading and External links content guidelines. The best place for this sentence is immediately before the last sentence, in my opinion. —Finell 21:03, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems reasonable to mention that the use of manuals is not disallowed, jut that we should not become a manual ourselves. --MASEM (t) 21:30, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Irrelevant to the purpose of this guideline. @ Masem: I don't know what is your national background, but in most democracies the Law details what is disallowed, not what is not disallowed. (Hell what I was thinking; Wikipedia not democracy :-) Staszek Lem (talk) 18:49, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Propose adding guidance on etymology sections

Wikipedia is dying a slow death by cruftification. Part of this cruftification is the widespread proliferation of lengthy, mind-numbing (and often dubious) etymology sections. Etymology sections are certainly useful in many cases, for example, California or polka dot, but for the majority of articles, the etymology of the title simply isn't notable or encyclopedic. There is no reason we need to explain the etymology of matriarchy or prayer. This sort of material belongs on Wiktionary, not Wikipedia.

To help address this problem, I would like to propose adding the following guidance to the WP:NOT#DICT section:

Wikipedia articles are not:
...
4. Etymology guides. Wikipedia articles should not include lengthy information on etymology unless that information is notable in its own right, i.e. reliable sources other than dictionaries discuss the etymology. Non-notable etymology information should be put on Wiktionary instead.

Thoughts? Kaldari (talk) 23:31, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if these are necessarily bad, but I can see that including the etymology ala a traditional dictionary seems out of place. (eg your example of matriarcy actually seems ok, but the prayer one is just thrown in). If anything, I would simply group this concept with NOTDICT as opposed to a new point altogether. --MASEM (t) 23:52, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess matriarchy isn't a good example. I was mostly including it as an example of excessive length. I think a shorter etymology section for matriarchy might be appropriate per the sources that compare its usage with patriarchy. Kaldari (talk) 00:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I will agree, however, with the clarification that Binksternet notes below: if you are just pulling the etymology from a dictionary to include, with no other rationale, that's inappropriate. If secondary sources, however, call out to that specifically, then its probably okay. I still think this can be said within NOTDICT without adding an additional point. --MASEM (t) 00:09, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any suggested wording? I thought about trying to add it into the main wording, but it seemed overly specific. Kaldari (talk) 07:00, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Not sure, though it would fit as a sentence following what's in NOT#DICT #2, something like "furthermore, the etymology of a word should not be included unless it is covered by non-dictionary sources." but that's not 100%. --MASEM (t) 07:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I support this clarification or guidance. It is not a very high bar, that is, plenty of existing article etymologies will be able to stay in place because of discussion in non-dictionary sources. Binksternet (talk) 23:54, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The proposal as it stands is far too over-simplified. I would argue that there are fundamental differences to be observed between, for instance:

1. common English words, such as prayer (where etymology normally doesn't belong);
2. loanwords from other languages and technical terms formed from classical roots, such as matriarchy (where basic etymology should normally be included)
3. proper names such as placenames (where etymology very often is interesting).

We also should keep in mind that editors will often be less than well-informed what the term "etymology" means in the first place, so the proposal may have chaotic effects if applied in an equally poorly-informed fashion. Many sections labelled "etymology" in articles simply aren't etymology at all.

Another point of objection: while I can see the thinking behind the "coverage in sources other than dictionaries" idea as a notability criterion, this wording may easily be misunderstood as if it were meant to discourage the use of dictionaries as sources. That would be disastrous, because dictionaries are very often the only truly reliable source available. In many domains, such as placenames, horribly bad amateur pseudo-etymologies abound in what would otherwise be more or less decent sources. Encouraging users to seek out those at the expense of specialized dictionaries would be extremely counter-productive. Our problem is not really that we have too many etymology sections; it's that we have too many bad etymology sections. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:28, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The point of trying to find other sources outside a dictionary is to show that there is interest in the origin of the word when talking about the topic. Or, and perhaps too simply: the etymology of a word or term is effectively trivia, but as with trivia, if it is discussed by other sources, that makes it useful to include (avoids the undue weight nature of trivia). I agree that using, say, OED, to support etymology when it is appropriate to include should not be discouraged, we just don't want people to include it just because other articles include it. --MASEM (t) 14:42, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

If we start delineating which types of words should have etymology and which ones shouldn't, we will end up with a very long list, and of course each of the items on that list would probably have exceptions. Besides, who can agree on what constitutes a 'common word' vs a 'loanword' or 'technical word'? For example, is oxygen a common word or a technical word? Having a simple test—is the etymology discussed outside of dictionaries—should cover all the cases fairly well and minimize arguments. As to the concern that the implementation would be chaotic, it couldn't possibly be more chaotic than our current practice, which is all over the map since we have no guidance on it at all. Regarding the concern that we might discourage editors from citing dictionaries, what if we added the following note to the proposed guideline: "This guideline is not intended in any way to discourage the citation of dictionaries for etymology information."? Kaldari (talk) 18:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with this, and now I think it's better to have a new bullet to address the fact that "Entymologies that have gained noticed from sources other than dictionaries are appropriate to include." in addition to recommending Wikitionary for where best to place them. --MASEM (t) 18:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say we should "start delineating which types of words should have etymology" on this policy page. What I am saying is that there are such differences between types of topics, and determining which articles ought to have etymology info is a complex content decision that must be handled on a case-by-case basis. It needs to be left to content editors and decided on individual article talk pages, and is just not suitable for such an over-simplifying top-down regulation on a central top-level policy page. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:01, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Does not belong here. Please find place to discuss your suggestion in WP:MOS pages. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
  • As best I know, no MOS even approaches talking about inclusion/exclusion of etymologies. WP:NOT#DICT is the right place for the discussion. --MASEM (t) 18:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
    • This isn't really a style issue, it's a content issue, which is exactly what this guideline is supposed to cover. Would it help if I removed the word 'lengthy' from the proposed wording. That seems to be the only thing that is stylistic. Kaldari (talk) 18:53, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
      • I struck the term 'lengthy' from the proposal. Does this address your concern? Kaldari (talk) 19:00, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
      • This is not the content issue; this is the amount of content and its presentation issue. Please see a randomly-clicked topic-specific MOS: "Plot summary sections should be concise and an integral part of the article. Three or four paragraphs are usually sufficient for a full-length work, although very complex and lengthy novels may need a bit more. Shorter novels and short stories should have shorter summaries." - this just begs rephrasing to fit 'Etymilogy' section. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
      • @re: "no MOS even approaches talking " - a good time to start, then. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
        • No, this is not about presentation of information. This is about whether to include information, period. I fail to see what relation this has to article style. Kaldari (talk) 22:16, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
          • OK, Sorry I was not clear enough. I oppose it as content issue; on the other hand I see it as a reasonable issue to cover un MoS. After you stroke out a single word it became even worse for me: wiktionary and wikipedia are different wikis with different rules. It particular, wikt lacks consitent referencing. Also, please present an evidence of grave abuse and harm for wikipedia coming from etymology so that we have to heap in a yet another law. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:19, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose I. Cruft is a POV term. What is one person's cruft is another person's essential information, and "unencyclopedic" is a circular and subjective argument. II. Etimologies are just another type of relevant information about a subject. Provided it is well sourced and the etimology section is not given excessive weight in the article, there are no reason for them not to stay III. In any case, it has to be discussed on WP:MOS, as correctly pointed above. It has nothing to do with NOT policy. --Cyclopia^talk 22:06, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I. Yes 'cruft' is POV, as is my entire argument. I think it's pretty normal for talk page discussions to include people's point of view. Unencyclopedic is not a 'circular and subjective argument'. Wikipedia is not the world's first encyclopedia. Show me a single encyclopedia on earth that commonly includes etymology for regular English terms. II. Then why don't we include dictionary definitions as well (and everything else listed on WP:NOT)? It sounds like you are arguing to delete this guideline page entirely. III. This has absolutely nothing to do with style. Just because people are misusing the style guides to add content guidance doesn't make it correct. This proposal is appropriate for WP:NOT#DICT because we are explaining that Wikipedia is not an etymology dictionary. Why do you feel this is related to style? Kaldari (talk) 22:12, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

People are not "misusing" style guides. People are not wanting to split hair into 3 different manuals whenever unnecessary. Did you notice how striking a single word from you suggestion changed it from style guideline to content guideline? Staszek Lem (talk) 23:19, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• "Yes 'cruft' is POV, as is my entire argument." You don't get it. Points of view on how to build the encyclopedia are fine. But you're not supposed to decide arbitrarily what goes in and goes out of the encyclopedia, that is, you're not supposed to do it only according to your own personal tastes. That would be non neutral, and we are neutral. You are supposed to make those editorial decisions with some objective criteria. That you personally think etymologies are "cruft" is not such a criteria. What if tomorrow I decide that all brachiopods are cruft, because well, I don't like their silly shells? Now, one of the sane things of this place is that we have roughly objective criteria for deciding what should stay in this place, and it is WP:N for articles, and WP:V for content, with WP:UNDUE for relative weight. That's the gist of it. WP:DICDEF only means that we shouldn't have articles made only of dictionary-like definitions, not that we should remove everything which can conceivably be in a vocabulary.
• Unencyclopedic is not a 'circular and subjective argument' . Yes it is. Why is X unencyclopedic? Because it's not on an encyclopedia. Why is not there? Because it's unencyclopedic. You see the circle? Now, the point is that we don't follow the judgement of other encyclopedias to make WP: show me another general encyclopedia that commonly includes Simpsons episodes, for example. We follow sources: we are not made of dead trees but of electrons, so we don't need to make too tough decisions on that.
• It sounds like you are arguing to delete this guideline page entirely. It sounds like you are fond of slippery slope logical fallacies. No, the page makes sense and it should stay: but it's not a proxy for "WP is not what I personally think is silly".
• This has absolutely nothing to do with style. Yes it has. It's about content balance. --Cyclopia^talk 23:54, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• Content balance falls under WP:UNDUE which is NPOV, which is part of policy and nothing to do with style. (The stlye issues would be, if inclusion of etymology was a standard thing, about where to include it on the article and formatting and styling issues related to its presentation). --MASEM (t) 00:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
  • You are overstretching WP:UNDUE. "Etymology In/Out" has nothing to do with NPOV, which UNDUE is part of. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• If no source, except a dictionary, discusses the etymology, it is undue for us to include it. It is akin to trivia - factual information but with little relevance to the encyclopedic topic. --MASEM (t) 01:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
  • First, you are making a yet another logical fallacy. Of course if a single obscure "a dictionary" defines it then it may or may not be undue. However etymologies are found in the dictionaries, indicating importance, hence quite due. Second, again, you are misinterpreting UNDUE. UNDUE is about a balance of conflicting viewpoints on the same issue, not about importance of a single undisputable fact. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:58, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• The circular arguments a bit unfair here, as we actually have an associated dictionary project that is much better suited for the content without any concern about inclusion requirements. --MASEM (t) 00:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
  • No it is not much better. It is different. In fact, it is worse about etymologies in many respects. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Masem, I suspect you did not notice my request which sits at the root of the origin near the source of all our policies, so I am bulletting it out:

• Please present an evidence of grave abuse and harm for wikipedia coming from etymology sections so that we have to heap in a yet another law. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:04, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• As I see it, a dictionary is a subset of an encyclopedia with a different manner of presentation. WP is supposed to be more than a dictionary, and it should discuss the subject of the article. But the way something is named & the reasons for it are relevant enough to understanding the subject--it's sometimes the basic part, or it in some cases as national epithets can be the main point of a controversial article. We want to understand all facets of a subject, including where the word for it comes from. A dictionary is oriented exactly the opposite: it wants to present the information about the word, including just enough about the meaning that people will understand what the word is used for. In some case, as my example of national epithets, that can be quite lengthy.
  • If you believe a dictionary is a subset of an encyclopedia, I'm clearly wasting my breathe. Dictionaries and encyclopedias are completely different beasts. Dictionaries are about words. Encyclopedias are about the concepts those words represent. If you believe a dictionary is a subset of an encyclopedia, does that mean you oppose all of the wording under WP:NOT#DICT? Kaldari (talk) 04:30, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

But more than theoretical considerations, there is practice. English Wiktionary's word of the day is mango. Compare the etymology there with the etymology in our article on mango. The enWP does it immensely better. Of course, there are many more words in Wiktionary. Many of them are synonyms or near synonyms, like virgule correspond to see also's in WP. Many of them are concepts or other non-concrete things which are very hard to write articles about, such as vociferation. But when we have a full article that devotes some effort to the etymology, it's almost always better. I'd encourage all articles to include one when it makes sense to do so and require it of FACs. They could normally use the wiktionary entry as a starting point; but only a starting point. DGG ( talk ) 03:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia does things better than all of the sister projects since it has hundreds of times more editors. That doesn't mean we should just move all of the content here and close all the sister projects. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It should consist of concise summaries of information about a given topic. It shouldn't be a random collection of information and trivia. What we keep out is just as important as what we include. Kaldari (talk) 04:35, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The point is that calling etymologies "trivia" is your own personal POV. Many scholars, since Plato (cfr. Cratylus) maintain that the etymological roots of words often, instead, have immense importance to understanding the information about the topic these words represent. If an etymology is well sourced, there is no objective reason to leave it out completely. --Cyclopia^talk 11:49, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I understand the desire/perspective of keeping a separation between the content that "belongs" in Wiktionary vs Wikipedia, but the edge cases are too diverse and abundant for it to be simple. There are a number of different parts to the disagreements, all of which have gradients, and not fine-lines.

1. Ease of reading/etymology in lead sentences - See insightful (from both perspectives) examples and discussion at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is not a dictionary/Draft RfC on words#Etymology in lead. I'm still very frustrated by that "herpeton" example, which remains unfixed...
2. Etymology as main content - We have a few well-written articles that are entirely about etymology, eg Wicca (etymology), Etymology of Edinburgh, Etymology of Denmark, Chemistry (etymology), Hippie (etymology), and a few dozen more. Most of those are articles that were split-out of the primary topic, for reasons of Size. It's a case of the abundant sources&information being reflected in correspondingly dense articles.
3. Utter separation/Subsets/overlapping content - For raw historic/citable evidence, see a draft-list at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is not a dictionary/Draft RfC on words#Table of evidence. Practically/philosophically, it's...
4. Why Wiktionary was made - I drafted this response to someone at WT:NOTDIC, a few months ago, but didn't end up posting it anywhere. [I've followed this disagreement for too many years, so that's a very condensed summary of certain longrunning aspects.] It needs to be understood, to see where we all agree.

I hope that helps, and hope that you read everything, including at least a glance at every linked item in #4. –Quiddity (talk) 05:40, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose If you want to go after cruft be my guest, but I'm baffled how anyone can believe that etymology sections are cruft. They aren't extraneous junk sections, they are deeply connected with the heart of the subject. A reader cannot fully understand a word without knowledge of the history and origin of it. An encyclopedia can explore etymology much more deeply than a dictionary can. In the two articles you link, Prayer and Matriarchy, the etymology sections are not appropriate in a dictionary, they are too long and detailed. They are appropriate for an encyclopedia and we should welcome them.

• I also note you're misapplying the notability guidelines by using them to judge material within articles. ThemFromSpace 03:29, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Corporate headquarters telephone numbers

I just spent three hours on the phone with a corporate behemoth and didn't get any satisfaction from their so-called customer service until I called the phone number on the first page of their latest Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10-K report and asked for the CEO's office. Then my issue was resolved in under ten minutes. Since {{Infobox company}} and {{Company template tagline}} already include website and stock symbol information which can only serve a directory purpose, and are therefore nominally contravening WP:NOTADIRECTORY, I propose that we explicitly allow for the inclusion of corporate headquarters telephone numbers. JS Uralia (talk) 21:36, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

No. Too much potential for accidents (one number swapped can be a problem for the person on the typo'd number), abuse, and privacy problems. --MASEM (t) 22:28, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

What is the chance people will swap numbers when copying from SEC filings? If that's a real problem with examples which have occurred, we can have a bot populate all the public companies because the Form 10-Ks are in xml too. I'm not sure what abuse and privacy problems you foresee. I wish we were more WP:COMPREHENSIVE with this information which is so much more demonstrably useful than the websites in cases where the corporate interests are not aligned with our readers'. JS Uralia (talk) 01:57, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Let's take your case - you wanted to contact someone in corporate for a customer service issue. While I know I've read plenty of people that have done this approach before, the fact that the corporate HQ number isn't listed means that this is not considered the main line of contacting the company about general inquires; that's what numbers on their website are for. Sure, the number was public on the SEC listing, but that at least takes some work to find and not everyone is going to spend that effort. But by making that number public, we're now making it easier for users to "bypass" the intended line of communication. Now in a more extreme case, I can see a user that happened to have access to a corporate number that isn't publically available (not even on SEC reports) putting that in place, and that would be even more of a problem.

It is not WP's job to create more comprehensive coverage of a topic where it does not exist before. Companies purposely publish specific numbers that they expect contact through, it is not our "job" to work around that. --MASEM (t) 03:02, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Who should we serve, our readers or the corporate desires to keep customers with issues from the people with the authority to solve them? Is the encyclopedia intended to help readers solve problems or to maximize the profits of shareholders? If someone posting a secret phone number is a problem, then require sources just like we do for any other questionable information. I don't think we're going to have a lot of people posting secret phone numbers, when the SEC-listed phone numbers, which are required by law to be available to reach corporate executives or their staff during business hours, are easily available. JS Uralia (talk) 14:10, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I imagine most of us here are intelligent enough to know that pinging the corporate office can help us get past intransigent customer service, but I would agree that since this is in most cases not a widely published number, we should follow suit and not publish it, unless of course it appears in multiple reliable sources. Wikipedia's goal is not to help anyone "stick it to the man", it is to provide already widely reported information, not to do original research from SEC filings. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:17, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

"Original research from SEC filings"? Really?!? They are multiple because the same numbers are required to appear Form 10-Q every three months. Since they come out in XML format, it would be easy to make a bot that updates any changes automatically for all 30,000+ SEC registered company. It's not about sticking it to the man, it's about preventing the man from sticking it to our readers. 70.59.14.20 (talk) 15:42, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Neither, at least as you put it. We're supposed to be summarizing information. We are not a consumer service to help readers find ways to contact a company. To that end, we don't publish details that are not encyclopedic, one being telephone numbers as those can and will change. (Web sites appear to have more permanence, and are meant as the company's public front display). --MASEM (t) 15:18, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Then why do we include stock symbols which can and will change? Is it more important to raise money for corporations than to help readers obtain reasonable service from them? 70.59.14.20 (talk) 15:42, 27 December 2012 (UTC)