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, use the proposals section.

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

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communication = notification be phone [or even] eMail and at least Snailmail

why not ALERT a user that [at the worst] our 'TOPIC' is about to be deleted or [ the LEASTE] an important responce is in your Bit-Bucket ? ! ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by UNiRaC (talk • contribs)

Wait, what? Are you saying you want us to send you a postcard before AfDing "your" page? No. A talk page posting and maybe an e-mail is more than sufficient. --tjstrf talk 06:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

But most of the time, users don't even get a notification on their talkpage when an article is AfD'd. Admins just use their arbitrary powers to delete anything they don't like. Walton monarchist89 10:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Please (re)read WP:AGF - the view of most of us here, I believe, is that admins try their best (and usually succeed) in being objective about deletions.

Having said that, I do think that it could be a major improvement to have an automated system post a message on user talk pages (as is done, for example, with the Signpost), for, say, the person who created the article (but does NOT, as noted by someone else, own the article), and also post the same message on the talk pages of (say) the last ten editors (or, alternatively, anyone editing the page in the last 30 or 60 or 90 days). John Broughton | Talk 14:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

There are huge numbers of editors who fix typos, refine categories and DAB wikilinks on pages they have not made major content changes on. No bot could distinguish them from actual content editors. I would think most of them would be, uh, less than thrilled to start getting their Talk pages filled with notices like this. Fan-1967 14:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's keep things simple. Users want their page in good condition : they respect our policy and they put the page in their watchlist. They may use RSS too - see VP:Tech. -- DLL ^{.. T} 18:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

While a notification to primary contributors is nice and appreciated , no user is under any obligation to do so, because users don't own the pages they contribute to. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 22:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

• We have such an automated system, it's called a watchlist :) (Radiant) 13:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I personally always leave a message on the talk page of the user most active (if he is not the creator) if i have left an AFD on his article. Generally most articles to be AFD's are very recent in creation, so the creator will still see the tag or his talk page message. And if not, there are always other users who seem to get the word around, esp. with wikiprojects watching all of their own articles. I personally think the system works well. From articles I have seen AFD'd or AFD'd myself, if the user wants to contest it he has always found out pretty quickly and added the hang on template. SGGH 11:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I especially commend this when it is a newbie, and more stronly when it is the first article. Note {{Firstarticle|Page name}} is available so one doesn't need to come up with text, but I personally try to add a detailed discussion of the reason that we want to delete certain kinds of articles. Sometimes the newbie still accuses me of being stupid and arbitrary (and usually mistakes me for an admin), but sometimes it helps. Robert A.West (Talk) 23:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

As do I, usually giving a specific specific suggestion or two. Many articles are written on very worthy subjects, but in so great ignorance of our standards and practices that they will never survive deletion unless fixed. DGG 22:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Contacting users for academic surveys.

Should requests made to user_talk pages, article talk pages, and/or emailing editors be prohibited? Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Spam#Academic user surveys. -- Jeandré, 2006-12-17t10:36z

NPOV = mainstream only?

Not sure if this is the right place to post this... but we have two editors on the Kriss Donald article effectively claiming that NPOV=MPOV (mainstream point of view) and that only a mainstream adherent counts as a "prominent adherent" from the viewpoint of a news article (thus for instance, critical academics and even some mainstream journalists are excluded). The first user claims anything other than MPOV is "tiny minority" while the latter claims anything other than MPOV is "original research". I don't think this is Wikipedia policy, can't find either policy or precedent for it, and frankly the situation is past a joke - I'm well aware my edits required some work on style, removal of inadvertent weasel words etc., but this is different from claiming the kind of material I inserted (in particular, the actual sources I referred to) is inappropriate as such. It was things like: official trial defence reported in mainstream press, racial politics specialist writing in political magazine, BBC investigative journalist in special report, anti-racist group commenting on broader context.

Is there any chance an admin or someone familiar with NPOV disputes could have a look at this? If NPOV=MPOV really is Wikipedia policy then I'll bow out but I'm very concerned about what's going on. Please have a look at my edits, and my comments (on NPOV=MPOV and the summary of arguments), rather than just the latest version of the article.

-82.19.5.150 08:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

They are trying to intimidate you hoping that you don't know the rules. In most cases, mainstream sources should make up the thrust of the main premise, but non-mainstream sources are fully acceptable everywhere else (eg, don't use a non-MPOV for as your primary source, but it can be used either to agree with it or to dispute it)

(user did not sign)

Yes, I figured NPOV=MPOV was a very dodgy reading of policy. I raised it here because third-party contributors have not always been very supportive of me, including one who embraced the NPOV=MPOV position and several others who ignored that dispute and picked up on other flaws in what I'd written. The talk has got bogged down in nit-picking so it's hard for someone coming fresh to it to figure out the exact stakes.

The user who claims NPOV=MPOV is also edit-warring (both vs me and others) and repeatedly reverts to blank the contested section. He's just started doing so again today. I'm not sure what to do because if I revert back he just blanks again, requesting third opinions has so far been unproductive, the user is refusing compromises etc. -Ldxar1 23:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

What to do is to follow Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. Third opinions are a first step, then there is RfC and then mediation. If all those fail to get stop those who are disruptive editors, then the Arbitration Committee will deal with the issue. -- John Broughton | ^(♫♫) 19:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

While I would like to think that articles would be as unbiased as possible, I also don't think there is truly such a thing as NPOV. No point of view is truly neutral, as every point of view has its own biases built into it. So I think the key is to write articles that would generally be accepted as NPOV, even if they're technically not.Librarylefty 22:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying there's no such thing as NPOV, or that there's no such thing as "objectivity"? See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/FAQ for more information on this common concern. szyslak (t, c) 22:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Essay pages being mislabled.

There seems to be a growing trend in the WP namespace of late, to try and make the {{essay}} tag obsolete. Either by creating essays and putting them up mislabel as howtos or removing the essay tag and replacing it with a witty tag because this page doesn't need to follow convention.

The {{essay}} tag serves a pretty important use, as it makes sure new users can tell that not all pages in the WP namespace are official policy. Without it, anyone would be able to create pretty much anything in the WP namespace, and declare it 'The way we do things here' by fiat. While it's a good thing that the WP namespace is open for editing, it really needs to retain the use of essay tags so this doesn't happen.

Loosing the essay tag would lead to a flood of pseudo-policy pages, conflicting with each other, and all appearing to new editors to be 'official'. --Barberio 01:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Not all non-policy/guideline WP pages need the essay tag, and I'm quite happy with the one that's currently up on WP:SNOW. -- Steel 01:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Also worth noting is that this thread is only here because Barberio's attempts at getting rid of a page he doesn't like are failing (See MfD and talk page disussion). -- Steel 01:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh no! You have seen though my disguise, and now know I am the evil Doctor Smythe, and my aim is to Take Over The World via editing the Wiki. My five year plan to get one small essay deleted is Ruined! Quick, to the Escape Pods! --Barberio 13:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree that is is becoming a bit of a mess. Essays should remain essays, and these "witty" tags removed from the Wikipedia namespace. The WP namespace should be reserved for policies, guidelines, and help and FAQ pages. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:28, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I start to wonder if we might need an equivalent of notability requirements for the WP namespace. I think the WP namespace is where we really need to be deletionist, and right now there's just too much stuff that really belongs on userpages. --Barberio 13:02, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I think I should also draw the comunities attention to this edit [1] made to the Policies and Guidelines page without any apparent discussion, and seems to be intended to support those who want to abandon use of the {{essay}} tag on their essays. --Barberio 13:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oh no! You have seen though my disguise, and now know I am the evil Doctor Smythe, and my aim is to Take Over The World via editing ... well, anyway. No, you're missing the point entirely, which is that there are quite a lot of pages in Wikipedia namespace (over 80% if you must know) that are not policy, guideline or essay. So this is to counter the misguidedly bureaucratic effort to tag every page, including sticking essay tags on pages that aren't essays, or indeed proposal tags on pages that aren't proposals. Also, please do quit your forum shopping. >Radiant< 13:35, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • This isn't forum shopping,t his is consensus building. Take notes. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
    • LOL. You wouldn't know a consensus from a hole in the ground. >Radiant< 13:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
      • WP:KETTLE indeed! --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:52, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Um, most of the pages that are not Policy Guideline or Essay are... Process pages or Wikiprojects, or *purely informational* Help pages. If it's not a Policy or Guideline, if it's not a Process page or Wikiproject, and it's not a *purely informational* help page, then what is it?

Radiant, you haven't addressed the fundamental issue, that the Project namespace should not be cluttered with things a new editor could mistake as being 'Official Policy'. --Barberio 13:41, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, 'Forum Shopping'? Er... On the Pump? Er... Isn't this supposed to be where we discuss this stuff? --Barberio 13:43, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• Yep, forum shopping, since you've brought up the same issue in at least three different places already, and got disagreed with in all of them so far. The point is that not every page is going to fit into whatever neat classification you devise. But since Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, that problem lies in the classification, not in the page that doesn't fit.
• At any rate, I fully agree to an effort of clearing the Wikispace of some of the worst cruft. That seems to be a productive task that we both agree on, wouldn't it? But how exactly do you seek to accomplish that? MFD? >Radiant< 13:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we can have pages in the project name space which do not fit cleanly into the categories of process, wikiproject, help, policy, guideline and essay... However, the question is should we?

I think such quasi-policy pages would be a very bad thing for Wikipedia, creating extra bureaucracy and instruction creep and confusing new editors. Everything in the project space should be there for a reason, and be immediately identifiable into a category of project page.

The project namespace is not somewhere you can just put anything in, and too many people have been using it as such. It may be time for a review of what should and should not be allowed in the project namespace. --Barberio 17:20, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, that's what you want, but how do you seek to accomplish that? Besides, you're pretty much wrong. The project namespace is somewhere you can just put (almost) anything in. You may not like that fact (I surely don't) but nevertheless it is fact. Everything in project space is there for a reason, it's just not always a good reason (e.g. disgruntled people writing an essay may not be a good reason, but it happens all the time). "Quasi-policy" doesn't exist, and is only a problem because you assume it does. Also, nearly everything in project space is identifiable into a category of project page (in large part because I actually read through all of project space and added a lot of categories); the problem appears to be that you don't like some of the categorizations. >Radiant< 10:21, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• First off, I'd like to object to the term forum-shopping in this context. This implies that these different places that Barberio has used to discuss this matter are fundamentally separate in some way. I do not agree. All of Wikipedia is, and should be, one common forum. Just think about it like the original Roman forum (or was it Greek?...doesn't matter). It's all one big place, but there are various clusters of people gathered at different corners. Think about it more like running to different clusters of people to try to gain a consensus of the larger group, rather than as going to different places that will produce different decisions.

• As for Barberio's concern about confusing the newbies, however, I think this is pretty much unfounded. Newbies are much more likely to run across actual policies and guidelines before they run across the random essays and cruft that are scattered throughout the project namespace. Personally, I really like some of the essays, including WP:SNOW, and I think there should be a systematic gathering of consensus on whether to promote them to guidelines, even if this is not the original intent of the author.

• I also agree that there is a trend towards trying to over-categorize and over-tag these articles, and I think that this part of a general worrisome trend on Wikipedia towards trying to put everything in a "box". Not everything belongs in a box. "Think outside the box", after all, right? (Yes, I know this could be read to partly conflict with my second comment. Hush, you! I'm ranting.)

• I will stop babbling now. :-D --Aervanath 03:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I just want to say that after reading that hilarious edit summary I had to pop in and see what was going on. --Ideogram 04:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I live to please. :) --Aervanath 02:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Cleanup

I've created Category:Wikipedia Cleanup and associated template as a way to identify and clean-up problematic pages in the project namespace. No idea why we didn't have this before. --Barberio 18:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

• Because that doesn't actually help. It just encourages people to stick it on pages they don't like (which incidentally is precisely what you've been doing). We have a process that does help, and it's WP:RFC. >Radiant< 09:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The category description says It may be for any of the following reasons:

• Confusingly written, and in need of clarification.
• Obsoleted and no longer used.
• Incorrectly identified. ie, help page that contains actionable recommendations more suitable to an essay or guideline.

Or other unresolved issues.

• Bad, bad idea. We have already have variety of templates that specifically identify a problem. This new category basically calls for mind-reading, which is in scarce supply here. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 04:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Seaking opinion on use of Essay Tags

Since {{essay}} is getting considerable opposition in it's use, I'm going to raise this issue to try and get some general measure of the opinions on it here.

Is the essay template ...

1. mandatory on project space articles which are not consensus supported, but read like policy or guideline.
2. highly recommended on project space articles which are not consensus supported, but read like policy or guideline.
3. optional, not everything that reads like policy, but isn't consensus supported, is an essay.
4. should be avoided all together.

--Barberio 01:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Most of what you propose here is instruction creep, and "read like policy or guideline" is somebody's opinion. Actual policy or guideline is obviously identified by the presence of {{policy}} or {{guideline}}. There is probably something to be said for deleting {{essay}}. As I said before, the solution to ignorance (about p/g) is education, not forcing all of Wikipedia to change their behavior to accomodate the ignorant. >Radiant< 09:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Barberio, I would disagree that {{essay}} is getting "considerable opposition." From what I can see, it's a vocal minority who are simply objecting to having {{essay}} forced upon them. This is OK by me. I would go with your third alternative above: {{essay}} is completely optional, which I believe is already established practice. If the author wants to put it on there, fine. If not, fine. I don't think it's worth worrying about.--Aervanath 04:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• • Why should what the author wants matter? Anyway, I think there is a question that hasn't been answered any of the places this has been brought up - what is an {{essay}}? If it's a purely optional categorization what's the point in having it at all? --Random832(tc) 14:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Assume good faith. Perhaps -as the person on the ground- they realize that the categorisation scheme might be broken? :-P --Kim Bruning 14:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
    • User:Ta bu shi da yu has written an essay about essays: WP:EANP, which gives a great explanation of essays, and what they are for. Personally, I think that anything in the WP namespace that isn't an official policy or guideline is an essay. As for the categorization scheme being broken, is it really? --Aervanath 02:13, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

It's time to tag.

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Fair use#It's time to tag.

Featured Article Cabal

Hello Wikipedia.

I am a sysop, checkuser, bot operator, bot writer, toolserver programmer and contributor on Wiktionary, another Wikimedia Foundation Project similar to Wikipedia. I am also a bot operator and bot writer here on Wikipedia.

A matter recently came to my attention on Wiktionary, which ultimately led me here. Trying to assess a particular class of vandalism on Wiktionary, I have found a direct link to "dodgy" featured articles here on Wikipedia. After asking some questions about Wikipedia and some aspects of it I obviously am unfamiliar with, I found myself at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. To my shock and dismay, I found a tight knot of dedicated Wikipedians there who vehemently promote bad article topics and immediately deride any coherent objection that does not match their point of view.

The history of featured articles is not clear. Certainly, the process used for selection is flawed. The lack of transparency, the subjective criteria of a single individual and the disregard of certain subsequent vandalism is baffling.

As I understand it, now, Wikipedia featured articles currently are skewed towards promoting non-encyclopedic topics. I now understand that a certain element has won out (to date) at Wikipedia, holding that any article that is not deleted can (and should) be a featured article. I also understand that the current Wikipedia criteria does not pose any limitations on topics that do not appear in any other general-use encyclopedias, instead allowing "specialty" encyclopedias as well.

To me, this represents a massive flaw in reasoning. When questionable, non-encyclopedic topics are featured on the main page of a website with over two million visitors per day, each of those visitors learns that Wikipedia is about writing featured articles on games, obscure trivia, movies, pop songs and TV shows. As a direct result, contributors who have encyclopedic knowledge to add to Wikipedia (and other WMF projects) are implicitly discouraged from doing so. At the same time, it encourages further "gaming of the system" with non-encyclopedic topics. Useless trivia suddenly becomes the primary focus, instead of useful facts. Ironically, "video games" (as a topic) seem to be a primary subject for "gaming the system" in this manner.

While I do have admiration for the dedication required to organize the current featured article efforts, there obviously are some changes needed. The lack of transparency in the decision-process must be addressed. The disregard for other WikiMedia projects needs to be eliminated. And the effects of featuring non-encyclopedic topics cannot be ignored.

I do not understand what it will take, to break this knot of Wikipedians out of their current mindset, which considers all other concerns as irrelevant. Particularly, the effect on other WikiMedia projects is currently ignored. Yet the overall negative effect on other projects is undeniable.

So, in summary, I have some questions:

1. Can the featured articles process be reformed to something more wiki-like, such as the voting process used elsewhere on Wikipedia? The current featured articles process gives the strong impression that such a thing is possible, yet is currently overrun by an element that irrationally promotes trivial topics, based only on the prose and how well referenced an entry is. Worse still, that tight knot of contributors expends enormous energy on protecting their fiefdom/cabal, especially in the face of reasonable objections.
2. Can the featured article criteria be changed to emphasize general-encyclopedia topics? I understand the compromise of allowing such topics to be entered, but featuring, advertising and promoting them is quite a different thing. Such promotion directly results in vandalism to other WikiMedia projects.

Thanks in advance,

--Connel MacKenzie - wikt 20:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the Featured Article process doesn't discriminate against any specific topic. The problem is that those with the desire to write featured articles (such as myself) don't really have an interest in those so-called "encyclopedic" articles, the essentials, or what have you. I'm not entirely sure what you're promoting here, so I'm struggling a little bit, but are you saying that our crop of FAs are discouraging people from contributing? How so? If not, are you saying that level of importance should be a criteria? If so, importance to what? Is there some systematic bias in the FA process? Sure. But the answer is more to the point of working on those "important" articles, not what you appear to be suggesting. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) 1: Voting is evil. Plus, on what criteria should it than be based besides references and prose. How worthy a topic is? Some editors find the newest Pokemon way more interesting than Einstein. You can't force editors to work on 'general-encyclopedia' topics. Garion96 (talk) 20:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, there is no cabal. This is the discussion that sparked this, if anyone wants to have a look. Trebor 20:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for that link. I don't know why I thought that wasn't relevant. It is a good example, but then, so is today's FA. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That article is getting shot down for its problems with encyclopedic quality. Wikipedia doesn't care about subject importance, we care about article quality. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe he was referring to the user above who is proposing this policy, who opposed based on the subject of the candidate.— Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

That is a poor reason to exclude it. It should be excluded from consideration for being non-encyclopedic, and the remaining article improved (or removed.) --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Any article that is notable enough for inclsuion and includes enough information/sources can become a featured article. There is no "bias"; there are just a lot of quality articles coming out of the pop culture subjects. Nothing is stopping the other topics from becoming featured; heck, I believe it serves as a way to motivate enhanced quality for core topics, because they'll see the benchmark being set. — Deckiller 21:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, that is what needs to change. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a bias at Wikipedia, but it is not in the Featured Article process. It is simply easier and more fun to write articles on trivial subjects like videogames and pop stars because one person can master all the details and does not have to fight with a bunch of editors with different views to reach a consensus version. I am a generalist, and all the "important" articles I have worked on, programming language, relational database, operating system, china, were in terrible shape when I found them and exhausting to work on. --Ideogram 21:15, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, but I obviously disagree. The overflow vandalism to other projects whenever a dodgy article is featured is too problematic to ignore any longer. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

May you elabote on how featured articles result in vandalism to other projects? I'm confused. — Deckiller 21:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to second this request for an example. You're saying there was a rash of star wars related vandalism on wiktionary or other wikis today? --Milo H Minderbinder 21:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The flurry of additions of "fictional characters" entries that do not meet wikt:WT:CFI actually started yesterday, and hasn't yet been addressed. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't sound like "vandalism" to me; that sounds like a couple of misguided, but good faith users who don't understand the policies on that wiki. Moreover, it doesn't really show and direct relation to the FAs over here, because we've been featuring fictional topics for years. — Deckiller 22:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Could you provide an example, or point us to a page where we might see some of these? Thanks. --Milo H Minderbinder 22:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

True, and I don't believe users should be punished for enjoying to work and improve pop culture (a lot of it is in poor shape due to fancruft and whatnot, which is even worse than most of the core topics); if we take this subject away, people won't be interested in editing the more difficult articles. We focus on articles that have the least amount of controversy, and good things result. It will help us build to the point where everyone is experienced enough to crack the tough nuts. — Deckiller 21:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I would never suggest punishment or otherwise trying to prevent people from working on what they enjoy. But our dismal coverage of important topics makes us look bad as an encyclopedia, and I don't see any easy solution. --Ideogram 21:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

If the purpose of including "fancruft" is to help people learn how to practice editing on trivial subjects, that might be relevant. But the topic here, is not directly about inclusion, rather, the focus is on the inordinate promotion of things you can't find in a traditional general-use encyclopedia. While my personal opinion is that the trivia topics should be removed, I understand that is but a pipe-dream. But the FA abuses (advertising/promoting trivia) cannot be ignored. I clearly am not exaggerating the problem; I am obviously understating it. Over two million per day are assaulted with these trivia topics. It is by far, the most prominent aspect of Wikipedia (and WikiMedia) that shapes the world's opinion of this project, and all related projects. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

So do you propose a stop to promoting so-called "trivial" articles, even though the "Featured" status only has to do with article quality? I mean, do you really consider Star Wars: The Phantom Menace to be a trivial subject? --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Stop promoting them by fixing the illogical notion that typography alone is a reason for FA status and "democratize" the voting practice of main page featured articles. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a massive misrepresentation of the featured article criteria. The requirements that an article be "well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and stable" amount to far more than "typography alone". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

And yes, I think today's featured article is completely inappropriate for something calling itself an encyclopedia. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 21:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The FA articles on fiction aren't exactly fancruft, they take an outside universe view on the subject, just like any other encyclopedia. And Badlydrawnjeff is right, FA is about article quality, not what the article is written about. But could you explain how it is promoting trivia and advertisement? George Lucas isn't exactly paying us to have that on the front page, and Wikipedia isn't promoting his work as an advertisement for Star Wars or any of the other articles that have been up. In theory, any article that is placed on the front page could be considered advertising then. But that's not what FA is about. Wiki goes for a consensus based on what's best for the project, not a yes or no vote on what looks cool or is popular. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 22:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

No it doesn't. It goes off the subjective criteria of one individual, instead of a yes/no vote by the contributors of this project. At what point did I say George Lucas was paying for placement? --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You didn't, and I never said that he was paying for it, which is the point, for us to be advertising, we would tell you to watch Star Wars, or something along those lines for what ever article is featured. As for the nomination process, it involves much more than one person's opinion. In the FA process, any editor can go through and criticize the heck out of the article to make sure it is what a Wikipedia article should be. This is the purpose of FA, to show that the article at that point in time is what we are looking for in a Wikipedia article. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 22:19, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• The only thing I agree with in this proposal is that there should be a balance of subjects on the main page. And there already is; Raul picks featured articles very carefully, and pop culture FAs do not outbalance others in terms of main page inclusion. — Deckiller 22:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The suggestion being made that there is a cabal on WP:FAC whose goal is to promote trivial articles on the grounds that they are well-referenced is, to put it mildly, laughable. However, I believe that more care should be taken in the choice of the Featured Article of the Day. Not enough people realize that the image of Wikipedia suffers when the article of the day is (I'm sure I'm going to get ripped for saying that) Torchic, Half-Life 2, Maraba Coffee or Stephen Colbert's performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Now that doesn't mean that these are not very high quality articles but I think we might want to rethink the idea of letting fairly trivial subjects (or, as in the above examples, entirely trivial subjects, no matter how fun they might be) become the day's example of the best we can do. Pascal.Tesson 22:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

In January there were eight pop/entertainment/sport articles featured on the main page. 8 out of 31, not bad at all. I think Raul makes a nice balance there. Garion96 (talk) 22:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

One per year might be a better balance. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the pokemon and colbert, but one of the most successful games of the last few years and a type of coffee. How are they not "encyclopaedic" (even in a fairly traditional sense)? But even so, this is all supposition; how do we know what happens to the image? Trebor 22:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide references to other general-use encyclopedias that have these articles? As to what happens to the image, that is measurable, by the Wikipedia-related news articles and the number of times comedians pick Wikipedia as an easy target. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we need to focus on the most notable featured articles for inclusion on the main page. However, we cannot just exclude pop culture, because Final Fantasy VII and the current FA are certainly notable enough, as is illustrated in their respective articles. — Deckiller 22:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Those are both excellent examples of items that do not belong on the main page. Notable, but trivia oriented. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Deckiller, the notion that pop-culture trivia is relevant to a general-use encyclopedia, is false. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not "trivia", it's a part of life, just like everything else. Something purchased by 6+ million people certainly is not trivia, nor is an item that has influenced countless forms of literature and films and brought its own influences into the light. By your logic, shouldn't books and whatnot also be "trivia"? Moreover, the consensus on Wikipedia certainly does not believe that pop culture is trivia. — Deckiller 22:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Trivia is not always trivial. But articles that focus only on pop-culture trivia have no place in an encyclopedia. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Surely everything is relevant to a general-use encyclopaedia. Trebor 22:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Then why are the topics in question only covered in "specialty" niche-segment encyclopedias? --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia and definitely also many niche encyclopedia's in one. Garion96 (talk) 22:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Precicely. That's why it's called general :) — Deckiller 22:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

So why are the Beatles relevant to Encyclopedia Britannica? [2]. They certainly seem to feel that pop culture should be included. --Milo H Minderbinder 22:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

One single band of historic importance is not all garage bands ever. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Not all garage bands are included in Wikipedia. We have notability guidelines, and I, among other admins, have deleted numerous articles that don't comply to WP:BAND. — Deckiller 22:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Just typing bands off the top of my head, it has articles on the Clash, Sex Pistols, Talking Heads, the Ramones, Devo, Springsteen. It seems like as long as you don't get recent, you can find most famous groups. Not to mention Pacman and Zelda (video games? how dare they??). The claim that encyclopedias don't cover pop culture is patently false. And once you admit that it's good to cover some pop culture, you turn the site into a popularity contest and end up arguing over which is more important instead of writing articles. While it is true that wikipedia covers more bands than EB, part of the reason is that WP has no space limitations and covers more of many topics - there are many "important" topics that WP gets that other encyclopedias either cover in less detail or miss completely. If pop culture is not encyclopedic, why does wiktionary have a bunch of entries that only appear in star wars (apparently in violation of the inclusion policies there)? --Milo H Minderbinder 22:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break 1

Wikipedia differs in important ways from a traditional encyclopedia. I have much more to say on this subject but not here and now. --Ideogram 22:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• I agree, Wikipedia is anything but a normal encyclopedia. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 22:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Moreover, we have the ability to cover more topics and in a more comprehensive manner because of our larger edit base. We don't have a small group of hired editors, who have to focus on only the most important topics. — Deckiller 22:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
    • That is a fallacy. The ability to create articles has no bearing whatsoever, on what is promoted. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes it does, because like was said earlier, we should be promoting all subjects included. Consequently, we should get more core topics featured, but that is no reason to dock pop culture FAs. — Deckiller 22:40, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I gather, Connel, that you are suggesting that pop-culture topics should be excluded from becoming Featured Articles. This means incorporating either a subject-matter exclusion or some form of determination of "worthiness" into the featured article criteria. Either of these is problematic. Saying "no pop-culture articles" assumes that there's a clear line between pop culture and high culture — but that line was blurry long before Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol pointed the tension out. Is Jaws pop culture, or high culture, or both? It's been widely praised by notable critics, but also condemned as the first of many disposable blockbuster summer "popcorn" movies. There are many other cases that are legitimately part of both "pop" and "high" culture. We can't use Potter Stewart's pornography test ("I know it when I see it"), because every Wikipedian will have different opinions about what should or shouldn't be excluded.

That leaves us with the attempt to determine what subjects are "worthy" and what are "trivial". But how can we possibly determine what's too "trivial" to merit inclusion as a Featured Article? Some people would say that comic books as a genre are intrinisically trivial, and that the inclusion of Superman and Batman as featured articles diminishes Wikipedia. But does that mean that a comic with more literary aspirations, such as Watchmen, should be demoted? What about the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus — should that be excluded from ever becoming a Featured Article? If not, where can we draw the line?

The impossibility of making these determinations shows the wisdom of Wikipedia's inclusionism. Right now, the only bias is towards the inclinations of contributors. If we tried to use criteria of "worth", or exclude particular subjects from consideration, we would open the door to many more troublesome biases. It's a bad idea. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Limiting the decision to a single individual is worse. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That's not a logical follow-on. There is currently no decision on "worthiness", due to the difficulties explained by Josiah. One individual will judge if there is community consensus to promote an article or not, based on quality. Trebor 22:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You can't grasp the meaning logical statements? There is no current decision on sysop "worthiness" due to even greater difficulties, yet WP:RfA is not run by a single individual. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

And neither is WP:FAC. Connel, you're conflating the process of promoting articles to FA status and the process of placing them on the front page. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

(after conflict, in response to mackenzie) Eh? I don't think I'm following you. But to make sure I got my point across: we have featured articles. They are judged against the featured article criteria. Any article can become featured; there is no judgement as to whether an article is significant or important enough. Being featured does not make them appear on the main page, although to appear on the main page an article must be featured. People add comments in support or opposition of an article being featured. These comments should be based on the criteria, and opposition must include actionable improvements which can be made. After a consensus has formed, one person judges that consensus and features (or not) the article. If you don't feel that this system is correct and that it leads to too many supposedly trivial articles being featured, I'd advise finding a different project. Trebor 23:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Please go elsewhere yourself. As I stated at the start, I'm here only because the FA has such enormous secondary effects. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:14, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a suggestion. And I'll ask again how you know that us featuring certain articles has an effect on sister projects? The link seems very tenuous. Trebor 23:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I still haven't seen those "enormous secondary effects". Could you point to a diff or history page showing them? --Milo H Minderbinder 23:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not conflating anything. There is no separation between the two processes, and there should be. Currently, when trying to express one such comment, I was immediately attached by this cabal. If no place exists to express such comments, there should be one. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

With respect, Connel, you are conflating when you make reference to "a single individual" making decisions about what is featured. WP:FAC is open to all Wikipedians. It is true that one individual — currently Raul654 — makes the decisions about which featured articles will be included in Wikipedia:Today's featured article on the front page. (Incidentally, if you follow that link, you'll see the statement "Raul654 maintains a very small, unofficial list of featured articles that he does not intend to appear on the main page." This should slightly alleviate your concerns about unworthy topics being featured on the front page, and thus attracting unwelcome spillover to other Wikimedia projects.)

There is a distinction between which articles become featured and which featured articles are included on the front page. For the reasons I have stated, I think that subject-based or "worthiness"-based restrictions on the creation of featured articles are a bad idea; however, I can see the arguments for restricting which featured articles are placed on the front page. Wikipedians will differ on the merits of articles like Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, but the suggestion that merely because of its subject matter it should not have become a featured article is a non-starter, I'm afraid. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:19, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Please omit the cabal references. I see a lot of editors in this discussion that I've never seen before. We are users discussing why we feel that your idea would not be beneficial or work out, not a mob. — Deckiller 23:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Please stop behaving in a mob-like manner, then. I presented a thoughtful presentation of a very real problem, and have been set on, by a pack of FA contributors who wish to protect themselves and their POV. I've seen one thoughtful response so far, in opposition to my original proposal, two thoughtful responses in support, and innumerable misplaced or misguided defenses of the current practice. On one hand, I am partly responsible for "feeding the trolls" but on the other, the absurd statements defending the current practice need to be refuted immediately. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Once again, I'll remind you to assume good faith and be civil. Describing editors as mobs and trolls isn't helping your cause. I can't find any of the responses in support of your proposal; I think the majority of the community think it unworkable, and reflective of a very traditionalist view of an encyclopaedia. The current practice has been pretty successful in most people's eyes, and you've yet to substantiate any statement claiming it has caused increased vandalism to any other WM projects. Trebor 23:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You are telling me to be WP:CIVIL after essentially telling me to go to hell? WTF? --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Point me to where I said anything like that; if I did, I apologise. I'd still like an answer as to how you know that the vandalism is connected to the featuring of "less serious" articles. Trebor 23:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm dying to see this "go to hell" comment as well. --Milo H Minderbinder 23:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the "go to hell" issue is referring to the good-faith suggestion above: "If you don't feel that this system is correct and that it leads to too many supposedly trivial articles being featured, I'd advise finding a different project". — Deckiller 00:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, but I feel that paraphrasing that to "go to hell" is a misinterpretation of my comments. I was saying that the overwhelming consensus that FAs can be on any topic is unlikely to be changed, and if he was so diametrically opposed to this idea then perhaps Wikipedia wasn't a good project for him. I consider that slightly more measured (and subtle) than a simple "go to hell". Trebor 00:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, unless it was a way for him to say that Wikipedia = Heaven :) — Deckiller 00:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

If you want to test the strength of your argument, then this is the place. I tried it very recently, and found my proposal wanting. While I still believe in my concept I realise that it needs better arguing or simply a stronger argument. If everyone who responds is against your point of view then it is better to accept the opposing view as currently valid and attempt either (and or) refine your argument or accept the status quo. You (and I, separately) may well be right. It is for us to find the proof that will convince, and not complain about the trial. LessHeard vanU 23:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break 2

Maybe I should be clearer about my concern with Half-Life 2 as the article of the day. I think it's great that Wikipedia has quality articles on fairly trivial topics or on pop-culture. In fact, it's a (small) part of what makes Wikipedia so nice. But I think it's just silly to let articles on video-games, no matter how popular, be the article we show off with pride to the world. I really would have no interest in Wikipedia if it wasn't also creating fantastic articles on subjects where it is in direct competition with classical encyclopedias. Featured articles are supposed to exemplify our best work and I doubt that anyone can say without giggling that Torchic should be given the nod. It's great to impose the same stringent standards on pop-culture articles that we apply to top-priority topics but at some point we have to be honest and realize that Pokemon, Half-Life 2 articles and whatnot are ephemeral little things whose place on the front page should be secondary. Pascal.Tesson 22:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

But you do agree that they should be given the ability to become featured, right? Also, I somewhat disagree with excluding all video games; Mario, Final Fantasy, game consoles, and whatnot are not bad things to include on the main page, because they were well known and not too narrow. — Deckiller 22:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

(after edit conflict and database lock)I'm still not sure where this worry about what we "show-off" is coming from. If we didn't include our pop culture and niche articles, it wouldn't be a reflection of where a lot of the quality of Wikipedia is; we certainly don't want to mispresent ourselves to the world. Wikipedia is one of the best places to go for information on pop culture. It isn't (yet) perhaps, the best place to go for consistently detailed overviews of core topics for traditional encyclopaedias, but then traditional encyclopaedias don't allow anyone to edit and aren't staffed by volunteers. I certainly don't think there's any need to be embarrassed by Wikipedia. Trebor 22:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. — Deckiller 22:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Pascal, I completely agree. The only ones not giggling are the same contributors gaming the FA system with items that will be long-forgotten in ten year's time. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Final Fantasy VII certainly hasn't been forgotten (and it was released ten years ago); Star Wars hasn't been forgotten, and it's 25+ years old; and I'm fairly certain that people remember Donkey Kong (video game), Pac-Man, and Jaws (film), as the articles explain. Nevertheless, I rarely, if ever, put FAs I work on in the FA request; attaining featured status is enough for me, unless I feel that the topic is notable enough to be placed on the main page (like the New England Patriots, or Rush (band)).

I do feel that, for topics to be featured and/or placed on the main page, there should be at least a 2 year history so that there can be some historical context and reception information to make the article comprehensive. That include non-pop culture topics, as well. — Deckiller 23:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Please assume good faith with the contributors. Whether or not you personally find the articles interesting, a lot of work goes into every featured article so I don't think describing them as "gaming the FA system" is particularly civil. Trebor 23:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

There is no good faith left to be assumed, when I was set-upon immediately for expressing an opinion. And I never said that improvements to those FAs were bad. But the gaming of the FA system is self-evident. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

You weren't set upon; we explained why your opinion wouldn't be regarded in the closing decision because it wasn't actionable or addressing the criteria. And I don't think the gaming is self-evident, or perhaps other people would be agreeing with you. Trebor 23:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes; I found that comment (like the cabal comments) offensive. I improve the quality of articles that interest me. It's not because I want to game the system and try to churn out a lot of "easy" featured articles (I haven't worked on one from scratch in a while, although Woonsocket, Rhode Island is on queue and I made a visit to the library), it's because I want to enhance quality where I can enhance it best. — Deckiller 23:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit confilct] FA articles are about comprehensive citations and overall quality of prose. The subject matter is unimportant. As you say, nobody may care about Half-Life 2 in 10 years time, but the argument could be made that nobody cares about Regulamentul Organic or History of saffron right now. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Precicely. The point of an encyclopedia is to inform, and if people are interested and obsessed with everything in an encyclopedia, what would be its point? — Deckiller 23:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Point of (minor) dispute: "good citations and prose" are qualities of an FA, but not really what it's 'about'; comprehensiveness of coverage of the subject is what's critical, regardless of what the subject is. Opabinia regalis 03:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Bah, keep your sound logic to yourself. :P I was just trying to make a succinct summary with a comment about content, though I admit it was perhaps a bit too succinct... EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but can you determine what will be forgotten in 10 years time? Perhaps a learned article on particle physics (surely a 'proper' encyclopedic subject) may be rendered obsolete by some discovery or theory which negates/supercedes current thinking, yet the music of a once popular band is still being enjoyed (and discovered) by a few. Which subject then still has relevance? The front page of Wikipedia serves much the same function as a newspaper, it is an advertisment for the contents. As such the breadth of subject must try to reach as many potential editors as possible, the only criteria being the quality of the presentation. What may appear to be a frivolous subject to some may be the item that gets people hooked into Wikipedia. Surely we cannot determine the suitability of potential editors by what it is that enthuses them? LessHeard vanU 23:19, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, I think everyone will agree that we already have plenty of editors willing to contribute to the pop-culture articles. What we are often lacking are editors who take the time to contribute to core topics. In the same sort of spirit, Wikipedia is already widely recognized as a great source for pop-culture information but no so much as a quality provider of content on core encyclopedic topics so it would make most sense to put these on the front page. Of course, no one can say what will be relevant in ten years but let's not kid ourselves: nobody in their right mind would bet any money that Half-Life 2 will be viewed as having more value than particle physics in a few years time. (Of course, an overwhelming majority would agree that the latter already has way more value) Pascal.Tesson 23:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

While it might not necessarily show why we should omit those articles from the main page every now and then, it does show why more attention needs to be paid to core topics by those who are willing and have the ability to contribute to those topics. I don't believe that pop culture topics are a pitfall for good editors; I'm no scientist, therefore, I rarely contribute to science topics. As I take more business classes, I'm sure I'll focus more on our business coverage. — Deckiller 23:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

This seems to be stemming from an underlying belief that we need to prove ourselves to be "good" at covering these core topics. But I don't think that's representative of our overall coverage; we don't want to dress ourselves up as something we're not. Trebor 00:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Having read through this thread, I'm still not seeing any specific evidence on how Wikipedia's choice of featured articles relate to higher levels of vandalism and nonsense posting on other Wikimedia projects. I'm not seeing the typical bored-schoolkid vandal noticing that the main page article is about Star Wars and thinking, 'Hm, I think I'll go screw around with the dictionary project that's linked at the very bottom of the main page!' Maybe Connel can point us to a non-WP:BEANSy summary of the results of his investigations? (Or, if it's already been posted somewhere, add a link?) I'm also wondering what FAC it is you looked at, Connel; if it's just GameFAQs, that's not much of a sample size. In the last few days I've reviewed three or four excellent historical articles; there may be a disproportionate number of pop-culture nominations, but I don't think that translates to a disproportionate number of pop-culture FAs (yes, that means I do think pop-culture noms fail at a higher-than-average rate). Have you compared the number of articles listed as FAs under "Media" to the number under "History" or "War"? Opabinia regalis 03:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

<This thread was previosuly split into a new section ("Summary of F.A.C section above"), I have merged that back in. But, I have removed a large table prepared by Connel MacKenzie (it was not appropriate, I can elaborate if need be), you can view it at the bottom of this version.--Commander Keane 05:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Until the featured article cabal is dismantled, I see no point in trying to cooperate with Wikipedia. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 03:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

And until you realize that there isn't a cabal just because people disagree with you, I see no point in trying to cooperate with you. Equilibrium has been achieved! :-P EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey EV, at least he gave you a complement in the chart :) — Deckiller 05:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, beggars can't be choosers, so I'll take what little I can get... EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this is the concisest response I can make: You say "Do you have any idea why the Wikipedia "Featured Articles" often feature items that one would never find in a traditional encyclopedia?" like it's a bad thing. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Can we please delete this grotesque table? I did not take the time to explain what I meant earlier only to see it boiled down to "(3) Supportive arguments (smashed into this cabal before, eh?)" (whatever that means). Also I get this weird sense that Connel MacKenzie believes I support his idea that FAC is being ruled by some evil pop-culture-crazy cabal. Again, quoting myself: that accusation is to put it mildly, laughable. Pascal.Tesson 04:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

This table does not help Connel's argument; it damanges it, for obvious reasons. Because I generally oppose the proposition, I feel that the table should stay. Also, it appears that I won the title for most tallies on the chart :). — Deckiller 05:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Damn, I thought I might get that. Seriously, Connel, that's way way over the lines of civility and into the area of personal attacks. I don't think I've made any comments that weren't addressed at the argument; if you feel got-at personally, I apologise. But believe me, there is no cabal. My contact with the editors here before this has been minimal. Trebor 08:21, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

All of this whining because GameFAQs was nom'd at FAC? oh dear lmao. --- RockMFR 07:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break 3

I'm concerned that a single individual (no matter how good or well-meaning) is the sole determiner of what FA goes onto the front page. That bothers me a lot for reasons that I think should be fairly obvious. But to be honest, if you look at Wikipedia:Featured article statistics you'll see that over the past year we have created just 354 new featured articles. Now - think about this...we consume one feature article every day by putting it on the front page - never to appear there again. So we used up 11 more articles than we accepted this year. Since the supply of FA's that have never been on the front page is limited, there will come a day when we don't have a new FA to put onto the front page. Raul is not so much picking which FA's make it onto the front page as simply switching the order of them around so that they are more evenly distributed by subject. That being the case, it's largely irrelevent how it's done - so I shouldn't be too bothered.

But what this shortage means that in the not-too-distant future, we'll have to do one of several things:

1. Stop updating the main page FA every day.
2. Lower our standards and allow more FA's to be created.
3. Somehow push much harder to create more FAC's of sufficient standard.
4. Put articles that are merely GA's onto the front page.

I don't think (2) or (4) would ever be considered a good idea. (1) sounds an awful lot like defeat. So we're left with finding a way to have more articles submitted to FAC or improving the quality of those that are submitted so that an increased number pass. I think there are ways to do both of those things - but what concerns me most is that people who might be writing significant and interesting articles are wasting far too much of their time doing WikiPolitics and in consequence doing too little editing.

This leaves open the possibility for a fanatical group of (to pick an actual example) Pokemon fans to churn out fairly formulaic articles that are very likely to pass FAC. After all, once you've found the magic formula to get Bulbasaur through the FAC process, you can write another FA-quality article very easily by picking one of the other few hundred Pokemon characters and making a page which quotes the same Pokedex books - has the same sections in the same order with pictures gathered in the same manner from the same sources. It ought to be pretty easy to come up with a few hundred articles that are very similar indeed. If one passes, then if our FAC process is logical and unbiassed, they all pretty much have to pass because we won't be able to find anything bad enough about any of them to disqualify them.

Try doing that with articles about European monarchs, Italian sportscars or Diseases of sheep! Each article has to be fought for - you've gotta track down books, read them, fight with other editors...it's a lot of work. So I think we have to accept that unless a lot of the really good editors around here stop playing politics and go back to writing articles, we should expect to see every single one of those Pokemon characters showing up on the front page. There are enough of them that we might see nothing else for six solid months! SteveBaker 05:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Very insightful comments, and I agree; although it's great that we're featuring pop culture topics, we should tip the focus if possible. — Deckiller 05:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You're right that it's easier to copy another article than start from scratch; the Tropical Storms Wikiproject is very efficient in producing hurricane articles that meet the criteria. About having only one user decide what's on the main page, I think it's for practicality more than anything else. There are rarely compelling reasons for having an article on a particular day, so it'd be hard to form consensus in most cases. And having a bunch of users !voting over which article should go on which day doesn't improve the encyclopaedia at all, so it's rather a waste of time. I agree it would be nice to have more FAs on "core" topics, but we can't force volunteers to write on a particular topic, and "core" topic articles tend to be a lot harder to create. Trebor 08:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

That 354 figure is interesting; is that simply the quantity that passed FA in the period or the aggregate between passes and the articles delisted? If it is the latter, then a fifth option would be to ensure that the WP:FAR is even more directed at galvanising editors into keeping articles to standard. LessHeard vanU 13:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

354 is the total count of FAs as of Jan 2007 minus the total count as of Jan 2006 (i.e. the latter, including both newly promoted articles and those delisted). There's a backlog of articles that are being FAR'd, which I think will dry up in the not too distant future at which point FAs will increase more like the promotion rate. 561 articles were promoted in 2006. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:28, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

A bit related, we also have 213 featured lists, 27 added in the last month. Garion96 (talk) 16:30, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll be interested to see what happens after the uncited FAs go through FAR; at the moment, the vast majority of removals are for that reason. The criteria for FAs seem to have stabilised and ,unless they undergo another significant change, that should mean a faster increase in FAs. It is slightly depressing when as many articles are unfeatured as featured each week. Trebor 17:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Lots of points here!

• The number of former featured articles has been increasing rapidly recently, mainly because the change to the FA criteria to require a better standard of citation has been applied more rigorously of late. This is sad, but a necessary evil.
• There is, of course, a self-selected group of participants at WP:FAC and WP:FAR. This group is not a cabal - it includes all those who take part; all you have to become a member is propose an article as a FAC or FAR, or comment upon a FAC or FAR. There are accepted ways of doing things, of course, but I see new people joining the discussion all the time.
• There was some noise about WP:100K a few months ago, but it remains a pipe-dream. The fact is that we do not create featured articles at a sufficiently fast rate. It is hard to meet the FA criteria - believe me! It is especially hard to write a featured article on a core topic, such as Physics or Law - the scope is so wide, everyone has 2p to throw on the heap, edit wars often break out, editors cannot agree on what to include and what, following summary style, should be left to daughter articles, ... Much easier to focus on a smaller topic that can be done well. On the other hand, wide topics can become featured: Dinosaur, for example, or Evolution, or African American literature.
• Contrary to the argument above, despite Bulbasaur and Torchic becoming featured articles, there has not been a slew of featured-quality articles on Pokemon. That is also sad. I look forward to Pikachu and Charizard and Squirtle and Jigglypuff and Meowth and many others joining them.
• The line has always been that any article that can survive WP:AFD can become featured (although some, such as lists, will clearly never meet the FA criteria). But what does "trivial" mean? Is Durer's Rhinoceros trivial (just a print, after all - not even a painting)? Is England expects that every man will do his duty trivial (some signal flags?!)? How about Oroonoko (an obscure novel)? Or Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (a photograph)? Other than requiring that an article is "notable" or "encyclopedic", why should be add another criterion, that it should not be "trivial" (if that is any different)? Surely it is a strength of Wikipedia that it extends beyond the boundaries of a paper encyclopedia to deal with topics that other encyclopedias leave out?
• Raul654's position is anomalous. Determining consensus for promoting other featured content (pictures, lists, etc.) or for the reverse process, at WP:FAR, is not delegated to a single person but rather any one of the regular participants is trusted to make the decision. Similarly, choosing entries for WP:DYK or WP:ITN is not delegated to one person, but left to anyone who takes an interest. Raul654 has done an excellent job, and I have no problem with what he does or the way he does it, but I am not sure whether we need a "director". On the other hand, if the system is not broken, why fix it?
• The original complaint seems to be that "low brow" featured articles on the Main Page attract vandalism. Well, yes - see the articles' edit history. Vandalism is a fact of wiki life. Just see what happens when The Colbert Report mentions Wikipedia. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:18, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Responding to your point on Raul: yes, it has always struck me as slightly odd too; I'm not sure I can think of many other "one-person" positions on the Wiki. But as you say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it (although after two and a bit years, I would have thought he might want to share the load). I think the system is working well, and certainly the "new breed" of very well-referenced FAs are top notch. Trebor 00:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It's probably done by one person because it's really a one-person job at the current level of activity. If there were 50 viable FA nominations a day, more than one person would be needed, but as it is, it's not an unreasonable load for a single person. Opabinia regalis 01:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Show us the vandalism

The inception of this thread is based on the claim that featured articles of the day on wikipedia lead to vandalism on wiktionary. Multiple users have asked multiple times for examples demonstrating this. There have been many posts, mulitple heading breaks, you even took the time to make a table, yet no examples? I'd like to assume good faith, but it's hard not to suspect that the vandalism claims may be an attempt to give credibility to a weak IDONTLIKEIT complaint. So please, if you return to continue this discussion (and I certainly wouldn't object if you didn't), give us some diffs (or preferably a history page that shows a bunch of these if there is one). --Milo H Minderbinder 13:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I leave the subject of vandalism that has resulted from choice of featured article at Wikipedia to others, but it is most definitely true that Wikipedia editors should be aware that Wikipedia does not operate in a vacuum when it comes to other Wikimedia Foundation projects. Wiktionary has had to suffer the fall-out from the various Colbertisms targetted at Wikipedia, for example. "reality" and several related words have had to be, and are currently, protected. And we do regularly get people whose articles were deleted from Wikipedia coming to Wiktionary to re-create them. Uncle G 20:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that we here at Wikipedia are definitely aware that we do not operate in a vacuum. I, personally, and I'm sure my fellow editors here feel the same way, want to see all of the Wikimedia projects succeed, and we certainly don't want to feel like we are causing harm, even inadvertently, to other Wikis. However, no one has yet provided us with valid, concrete evidence that this is happening. We are certainly not at fault for the Colbert-related vandalism, and I'm not sure what we are supposed to do to stop people creating articles on Wiktionary that have been deleted here. Are we supposed to stop deleting all articles, no matter how worthy of deletion? Connell MacKenzie spent lots of time making a table to document his fanciful "Featured Article cabal", but didn't spend the 30 seconds it would take to provide even one concrete piece of evidence of extra-Wikipedia vandalism inspired by Wikipedia articles. If such evidence does exist, and someone who's seen it can direct our attention there, then we can do something about the problem. Until then, it seems like this whole discussion is pointless.--Aervanath 04:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I would like to contribute my own hypothetical (because arrived at completely without a thorough statistical sampling) explanation of which articles tend to attract  graffiti taggers  vandals more often, and thus should not be featured on the main page lest their increased visibility draw increased vandalism. (1) Wiki-vandalism, like real-world "tagging", is an immature behavior, thus its practitioners tend to be of immature interests, very often due to immature age. Non-recent history, classic literature, and advanced sciences, tend to hold less interest for them than video-games and whatever else is "hot" in specifically young people's "popular culture" at the moment. (2) Vandals tend more often to read, and then "tag" for boasting purposes among their peers, articles that interest them. (3) Therefore articles on, say, 19th-century European statesmen will draw less vandalism than articles on Pokemon, World of Warcraft, and this year's most-talked-about sports figures and TV celebrities. (4) It follows that the best way to reduce main-page-inspired vandalism is to exclude such "hot" topics from the main page. In fact, don't feature any article there that could not have appeared in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, or that would have been a most-read article even in the EB. Our safety lies in boredom! If our main-page article bores vandals so much that they can't be bothered to finish reading it, likely they won't trouble to "tag" it either. In fact, the more boring Wikipedia as a whole becomes, the more likely vandals will go elsewhere, to "tag" something more interesting, like blogs. I suggest this become a new guideline, or even policy, as to what articles should aim for, or be deleted for lacking. Future old-timer Wikipedians will be recognized by their commenting to each other, "Say, remember when we used to have vandals here?" -- Helpfully yours, Ben 19:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Update

The nefarious Featured Article Cabal has now been added to Wikipedia:List of cabals. Users with experience of this sinister group are invited to adjust its description there. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:28, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

What happens when it seems a reliable source has mistakenly taken info from WP?

Brief background: The other day I came across an interesting issue at the Sacha Baron Cohen article. It seems that an act of vandalism in April 2006 led to a claim that his mother is of Iranian descent being added to the article (the same IP overtly vandalised another article 10 mins later). There's strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that a couple of reliable sources - 'The Guardian' and Yahoo Movies Bios - picked up this factoid from WP.

Since then several editors have tried to remove the factoid from the article, but it now appears verifiable, and the editor opposed to the removal can quite correctly cite WP:RS and WP:V as supporting inclusion.

I wrote more extensively about this, including my (circumstantial) evidence for believing that WP was incorrectly used as a source, on the talk page for the article.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with this situation? As WP's visibility increases this kind of situation is likely to be an increasing danger when professionals are sloppy and use WP as an uncited source.

(I don't have any stake in whether the factoid is included or not, I just don't want to see WP's credibility undermined if it comes to light that this factoid is an incorrect rumour started by WP that has now spread quite widely).

SeanLegassick 08:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

If everybody would give the exact source for all information, such circular references would be impossible. Alithien 16:55, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Well I guess what you have defined as a "reliable source" is no longer reliable. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 10:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I hear you. As I mention in the talk page linked above, The Guardian isn't nicknamed "The Grauniad" in the UK for nothing. But it wouldn't be the only newspaper to publish mistakes, and I really don't see it as being viable to start arguing that The Guardian shouldn't be cited as a reliable source. A cursory search reveals 1,160 mentions within WP, most of which are cites.

SeanLegassick 10:15, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The point of using reliable sources is that a reliable source does fact-checking, takes responsibility for mistakes, etc. If we can prove that a reliable source took something from a Wikipedia article without fact-checking it, then *we've just proven that that source isn't reliable to begin with*. After all, if they don't fact-check Wikipedia references, why do we expect them to have fact checked anything else? Ken Arromdee 11:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Understood, and I should point out that at this stage I cannot prove that The Guardian took this from Wikipedia without fact-checking, although the circumstantial evidence heavily points to it. One editor was going to pursue a response from the Guardian journalist in question, but none has been forthcoming. I suspect that if she did use WP without fact-checking she'd be reluctant to admit it.

On the broader point, there are several well-documented cases of apparently reliable sources failing in their duty.

So I guess I have two questions really:

• What are the implications for Wikipedia when an otherwise reliable source fails in its fact-checking duty and thus causes Wikipedia to, whilst following WP:V, fail to correctly portray facts?
• Do we have additional responsibility in such cases if the source of incorrect facts can be reasonably demonstrated to come from Wikipedia vandalism?

In general I agree that the onus here is on the sources themselves to be professional in verifying published information, but I thought this case was interesting in the loop of verifiability that appears to have been created.

Yeah, the problem with Wikipedia becoming more prominent is that mistakes get propagated throughout otherwise reliable sources. I think I read somewhere on the mailing list that [cricinfo.com cricinfo] was now citing information froom Wikipedia. Whereas we'd previously been citing information from them. Something about that relationship no longer works. Trebor 12:24, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

If a reliable source states a fact, any WP article can use that fact with a reference to the source; no further proof is needed. We are not in the business of second-guessing reliable sources or trying to decide which statements in a reliable source are true and which are not. If you want to claim in an article that a reliable source is wrong, you need to find another reliable source that explicitly says so; personal suspicion is not enough. It This is a straightforward consequence of "verifiability, not truth" and WP:OR.

I am pointing this out because the interpretation I have just given is very important for the sciences. For example, there are lots of cranks who will argue that they "know" that relativity is false, and so the reliable sources on it must be wrong. Or they might "know" that the theory of evolution is false, or that they have created a perpetual-motion machine, or that a famous mathematical theorem is incorrect. The point of WP:OR is that we don't have to prove that reliable sources are correct in order to dispute the arguments of these cranks. CMummert · talk 14:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

In the sciences, maybe, but under these circumstances the applicable rule is WP:IAR. I don't think WP:V should be interpreted to require us to knowingly repeat false information... particularly in the biography of a living person. His descent is a fairly innocuous issue, but that sort of thing-- deliberately repeating information that you know or have grounds to believe is false-- is what "actual malice" means in libel law. DCB4W 14:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

As a side note, I've always taken "verifiability, not truth" to be a rule regarding the inclusion of data, not regarding its inclusion.

I assume you mean 'regarding the inclusion of data, not regarding its exclusion.' here right? I think it's a very pertinent point. Also note that media sources are not peer-reviewed, another difference from the science crank cases... SeanLegassick 19:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

You need to be able to verify information to add it to an article, but there are a host of reasons (see e.g. WP:NOT) to exclude verifiable information, and this is probably another one of them. DCB4W 14:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

CMummert, that's a strange point. We're under no obligation to include any particular bit of information even if it is published in a reliable source. Since otherwise reliable sources do sometimes get things wrong, editorial judgment is needed in individual cases such as this one anyway. According to a strict interpretation of what you posted, I can't write a science article and deliberately exclude a pertinent statement published in a peer-reviewed paper whose scholarship is clearly shoddy, or oppose its inclusion by another editor. Supporting the inclusion of information that we have a reason to believe is false, just to hold a hard line against cranks posting information we know to be false, is an awkward position. Opabinia regalis 02:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

In this case, the appropriate way to phrase the sentence would be "The Guardian newspaper has reported that his mother is of Iranian descent. [footnote]". That is an honest way to attribute a claim that, while possibly inaccurate, has been published by a reliable source. What I find uncomfortable is that the claim that the Guardian is incorrect is not based on any sort of published claim to that effect. In any other situation this second-guessing of published sources would be called original research. CMummert · talk 02:26, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Putting a personal analysis of a sourced claim in the article is OR. Using the same analysis to defend excluding the claim from the article is not necessarily OR, and may answer better to the description "editorial judgment". Your example is "honest", but unnecessary; if there is good reason to believe a particular claim is false, it would be silly to include it just because it was published in a source that is otherwise considered reliable. Opabinia regalis 06:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you under the assumption that there is a good reason to believe a particular claim is false. In this case, I see no such reason - what I see is just some speculation that it might be false. CMummert · talk 14:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I regard the combination of the various pieces of circumstantial evidence plus a claim to the contrary from someone (consistently and plausibly) claiming to be a family member as 'good reason to believe' that this is false. Certainly not enough evidence to include a 'He is not of Iranian descent' statement (which would obviously be silly anyway) but enough not to mention it, in my opinion. SeanLegassick 15:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Our standards seem to differ. CMummert · talk 15:29, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Looking at your user page, profession and areas of Wikipedia that you work in I guess it's not surprising that you see my arguments as fluffy. Sourcing pop culture articles in the media is a rather different kettle of fish to citing from peer-reviewed publications in mathematical logic. The criteria for making good editorial judgements are bound to be different. SeanLegassick 15:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Has any reliable source been presented that says his mother is not of Iranian descent, or that she is of some other descent? If there is not, but there is a reliable source that says she is, then it seems to me there is no problem with the article saying she is. What I see here is speculation that she is not of Iranian descent together with a reliable source that says she is. I'm not familiar with Cohen at all - what are the grounds for believing the Guardian article is incorrect? CMummert · talk 15:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

No, there's no reliable source to say the information is incorrect, and it's even possible that it is correct - although there's someone in the talk page claiming to be his cousin refuting the information (written by an anon Israeli IP so not sufficient for WP:V but enough to cast doubt)

I've written more about the additional circumstantial evidence in the talk page for the article but summarising:

• The information was originally added to the article on 15 April 2006 by a demonstrable vandal (the same IP overtly vandalised another article 10 mins later)
• The Guardian article in question appeared sometime later (September 2006) using wording very close to the WP article wording
• No reliable source can be found for this fact before April 2006, or in fact before September 2006.
• Several sources have asserted this fact since September 2006 again using very similar wording to both the Wikipedia vandalism and subsequent article in The Guardian.

So whilst there isn't a reliable source to refute the fact (if there was there'd be no real problem and I wouldn't have brought this up here) there is considerable reason to doubt it, and as I've argued in the article's talk page that as there's no necessity to make this claim (that Baron Cohen's mother is of Iranian descent) the doubt is sufficient to exclude it.

There is at least one editor, who on the basis of WP:RS believes the fact can now be included. We could just now punt this to The Guardian and other sources and say that, as mentioned above, our goal is verifiability not truth, but as this information seems to have originated in a piece of Wikipedia vandalism, I'm uncomfortable with that, hence seeking further input here.

SeanLegassick 19:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

WOW... as someone who deals a lot with reliabilty and verification issues, this discussion opens a whole canning factory of worms. Post-facto verification! I know this is only my paranoid imagination at work... but it does give me the shivers. Blueboar 16:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

From a Reliability perspective The Grauniad is not inherently reliable unless it's made clear in the usage that the statement is based on media reporting. Newspapers make mistakes and any contentious point should be corroborated as much as possible. In this case I'd request further independent verification. I've just had a look at Yahoo and given the lack of indication about where it derives its material from then whilst I'd expect a level of reliability you can't assure that.ALR 16:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

There is always a possibility of mistake or fraud. WP is not edited by machines, so it is appropriate to use our judgement if there really seems to be a problem. There can be. Say I am an editor (in the RW sense) of a peer-reviewed journal in a field I also write here on. If I what to introduce an idiosyncratic point, I can write an article & the other editors would arrange the peer review so as to accept the article in almost all cases. I could then cite it here. (I in fact know of one person who does do something very much like this--not primarily aimed at WP, but so she can cite it in other RW peer-reviewed articles).

In any serious controversy there will be RS on both sides, and most such disputes here occur in such cases. There simply is not a division in RS and nonRS. There's a gradation. A small town newspaper talking about a townsman's inventions is not the same as the NYTimes talking about these inventions, which is in turn less than say Scientific American talking about them, which in turn is not quite the same as Nature. The world of possible sources does not fall into 2 neat stacks, any more than the world in general for purposes of N. DGG 23:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Bear in mind that the authority in the field can also make mistakes, and that commonsense sometimes justifies the removal of such information even when there is no alternative source; an example of which is documented at talk:Autogyro in the section Records and Application. This is a case where a non expert knew the published data to be wrong. LessHeard vanU 23:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Assume the presence of a belly-button, even with normally reliable sources. -- Ben 00:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It becomes harder when reliable sources disagree. Where Pete Doherty went to university was reported by the BBC and The Independent as Oxford, the biography of the band said University College London, and The Sunday Times said Queen Mary's. In these cases, I think editors have to use their best judgement to decide whether the information in the source is correct. Trebor 23:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Or alternatively present the confusion in full, and leave the judgement to the reader. A classic case is that of dates of birth. Sometimes old records are patchy, and no precise date of birth is possible. Sometimes several possibilities are reported, and the correct thing to do is give the possibilities, along with the sources. An example, though not sourced, is found at Isaac Roberts. Two possible birth dates and probably no way of confirming either way. Carcharoth 02:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Dates of birth can be a real problem, yeah, particularly as they're rarely cited. Someone came to the David Arnold article and changed the DOB, saying that they knew David and that it was incorrect. But searching online for it, you had real problems as the DOB from Wikipedia had gone everywhere (this was eventually settled by contacting David himself on his forums). Trebor 09:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

See User talk:Timecode. I tried citing the forum post in the article, as otherwise someone will just change it back again (not all the wrong information that was sent out by Wikipedia will get corrected). Unfortunately it is a flash media site, and I can't work out how to link to the exact post. Don't think it is possible. Can you, um, upload a screenshot? Carcharoth 11:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure, my computer has real trouble going on his website at all. The main problem was the IMDB date being wrong, but I've submitted a correction. Trebor 13:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how Wikipedia is in any way responsible for this. A newspaper, or other media outlet, has a responsibility to check their facts with a reliable source, and Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Whether or not journalists do their job properly is not Wikpedia's concern. A reader who spots a mistake in a newspaper (you or anyone else) could obviously write to them to point it out, but it's nothing to do with Wikipedia. Hobson 02:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC) I misunderstood the point being made. Hobson 02:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Is this still rumbling on? Why not contact the journalist? Mr Stephen 00:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sacha_Baron_Cohen#Request_For_Comment to get both side of the argument. regarding the sacha baron cohen case. Klymen 02:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

corporate censorship is happening

What is the policy for dealing with PR people from the corporations described in wikipedia editing their own articles? I don't know a ton about wikipedia but I think that free advertising is not the purpose. Neither is censorship of a long and dirty corporate history. Personally I see NPOV as partly to blame. It is too easy to mean Mainstream or Status Quo... or complicity in power. Wikipedia use to be a place you could go to cut through the BS that you get on a google search where the results are paid for. Now that wikipedia is THE content creator for all the fake webpage robots and has so much influence... it is becoming a lot more contested. Articles are shorter and have less open conflict written out. I liked the conflict because it gave balance and I could link to both sides of the arguement. We need a more coherent ideal than absurd objectivity. It seems like the norm is becoming stylistically concise, naive, less informative, more palatable to those not in the know. The article in question is the Unilever article and the edits are being made by a user who admits to working for them making websites. The animal rights and other political criticisms have been de-linked in the name of NPOV. Has this sort of thing happened before? I think it is going to become more of an issue. I think it is a great project nonetheless, you are all admirable for participating. I am always melodramatic. ~rusl

All that can be done is to be vigilant and revert anything that seems to violate WP:NPOV. It is difficult, because paid PR people will be able to edit full time, so obviously they have an unfair advantage.--Runcorn 12:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

NPOV *means* you get the good and the bad. Revert them. --BenBurch 16:38, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I have found it possible to deal with such concerns by persistence. It helps also if there is more than one person involved, so it doesn't get to a 1 on 1 personal matter. The determination of many of the WP editors is the equal of any hired PR, as is the special knowledge of how to work in WP. The editors who come to work on the article for their company have sometimes made very useful contributions; it might help to have a Wikiproject for commercial products. What I have learned to watch out for is the simultaneous starting of pages for many different individual products. For consumer products, especially product safety, Consumer Reports is a well known source of NPOV information. DGG 18:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought... PR departments for an international company usually operate from the head office on one continent/time zone. Find editors who are active outside of said company/dept. work hours who would be willing to patrol the pages for POV edits. LessHeard vanU 23:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Or you could just add the page to your watchlist and check for suspect edits. Caknuck 21:54, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

True, but one of the comments is that multi-nationals can afford to hire a dept. to look after their interests and overwhelm a volunteer editor. I was suggesting patrolling an article out of office hours. LessHeard vanU 22:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't thought about this until I saw this section. There are sections in Wikipedia that document corporate corruption, but there would be a strong temptation for the coporates to try to re-write history in their favor. Don't let them win. Richiar 03:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC) Business ethics - Corporate crime

This would be a conflict of interest. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 04:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as the animal testing section Unilever goes, keep in mind that NPOV can be applied to controversial issues. If we have legitimate sources for citation -- and bear in mind that when dealing with huge multinationals and issues, we need SOLID sources -- then we shouldn't shy away from stating the facts of the matter. Caknuck 21:54, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Anon editors

I know this has probably been discussed to death, but why allow anon editors to edit? In my experience on the 171 pages I monitor, they are responsible for almost all the vandalism, and rarely add anything useful to Wikipedia. --Michael Johnson 01:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes this has been discussed to death - see perennial proposals. In fact, if you scroll upwards, you'll find that it has already been discussed on this very page only a couple of days earlier. Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 01:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Well it remains a contentious issue, and a source of frustration to all of us out there trying to achieve something with this project. The claims in the reference given just don't stack up in my experience. --Michael Johnson 02:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Even though I can see why we wouldn't want to have annons editing (ie: mass vandalism, which even registered users do anyways), it might take away from the whole "anybody can edit" ideal. Although, it isn't that hard to register really, unless you absolutely can't and that I can understand. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 02:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

As an example how helpful is this edit? The anon editor has made two edits, in which they carefully alter Orangutan to Orangutang thoughout the document. Probably not vandalism, but pretty typical of "genuine" anon edits I see. --Michael Johnson 02:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, even if they weren't annon's they would still make the same mistakes, shave the tiger can't change it's stripes. When I'm on RC patrol, I tend to search for new users and IPs. Lately I've been finding more new user vandalism than IP, but that's probably just me. For myself personally that just makes the whole point of forced registration a little tougher to decide on. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 02:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Note that IIRC most valid content actually comes from anons too. --Kim Bruning 21:52, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I see plenty of bad edits by logged-in users, and reverts of vandalism by IPs. (And please let's not confuse IPs and anonymous users; most logged-in users are equally anonymous.)--Runcorn 22:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I would totally disagree with this. It is entirely true that most vandalism comes from anons. It is also true, in my experience, that anons contribute very little useful information (at least, to the many articles I watch). Even if it's in good faith it's frequently illiterate, irrelevant, duplicated, not wikified, or just plain wrong. Frankly, my heart sinks when I see an anon edit on my watchlist, because most of the time the edit has to be copyedited if not just outright deleted. Most people who want to edit seriously create an account. -- Necrothesp 21:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I suspect this depends on whether a person enjoys the "social networking" aspects of Wikipedia. Many people just want to edit the encyclopedia and are reluctant to "join a community" (which is what creating an account amounts to) in order to do so. This is particularly true of editors who are not regular users, but contribute only occasionally. It is easy for a regular to underestimate just how much of a barrier a "registration wall" could be to such users - witness the popularity of BugMeNot for example. ISTM that Wikipedia benefits as much from its casual editors as from its "hard core elite" of regulars, if not more so, and anything which discourages them should be avoided. AdorableRuffian 16:50, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I used to be annoyed at anon editors too. That was before I got fed up with the politicking among the "clicks" and groupies. The wiki itch is a hard one to shake and I have found some refreshing freedom in my anon editing. Edits without politics. What can I say, I like to talk. I do agree though with the "cynical assessment" that IP editings allows easy targets for further review. I think in the long run the benefits outweight the annoyance. 205.157.110.11 23:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

nobody forces you to be "social", even when logged in; you can be just as anonymous by creating a new account whenever you feel your former account is burdened socially. dab (𒁳) 17:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

well, maybe this particualar proposal is "perennial" because it is actually a good idea? I understand we gradually take power away from anon editors, they cannot create new articles, and they cannot edit semiprotected ones. disallowing anons will just be a gradual process of sprotecting more and more evolved articles. Letting anons edit stubs is a good idea. Letting anons edit GAs may not be: I would be interested in a study showing what percentage of anon edits to FAs or GAs are actually useful. dab (𒁳) 17:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

User blanking own talk page

Just wondering, what is the general stance on this. Is it allowed? The user in question has warnings on their talk page, nothing serious, more along the lines of untagged image notices. I still think this is an important notice and shouldn't be removed from the page...I've reverted it once to put back the relevant comments and it is just repeatedly blanked. However, I don't really know if I'm going about this the right way. Are users allowed to blank their own talk page, if the page in question includes an important notification pertinent to the user? I'm new around here and don't really know the policy on this, any help would be appreciated. --Xertz 04:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Generally, if a user has warnings on his/her talk page, then it is frowned upon to blank them, as it appears that they are trying to hide their past actions. Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 04:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Warnings generally shouldn't be removed, as ChairmanS above has said. But i normally think untagged image notices don't really count. If we're talking about the same thing - then those untagged image notices are automatically placed by a bot. Warnings should be kept because...they're sort of a record of the editor's behaviour (or i suppose misbehaviour) which helps other editors. Automatically generated talk page warnings by a bot don't really reflect anything - often, it could just be because the person forgot and the bot beat them before they had a chance to fix the image. I don't really think there's any harm in removing those kind of warnings. Unless the person has been intentionally breaking image-related guidelines, in which case they'd most likely have been warned by another editor, not by an automatic bot. --`/aksha 04:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, if the warning is old, and the editor has since then corrected his behaviour, then i don't see why they *must* keep the warning on the talk page. --`/aksha 04:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to come down somewhere in the middle. Life is awkward if you are constantly clearing your page out. Supposed I start a conversation and you delete it. Now if that conversation was not over, where do I put the latest replies? Also, if the deleted text did happen to be warnings that were still relevant, we would have to search history to find them. Have you searched history looking for when vandalism was added to an article like Honda Civic? It can be a real pain. Same with what happened to all those deleted messages.

Having said all that, I do agree that old warnings should be removed. I propose that a bot look at the sig date on each one. When it sees a date that is old enough with no newer warnings, it removes the warning and adds a new message saying "Thank you for behaving." As for non-warnings, encourage users to use archiving tools. Will (Talk - contribs) 05:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

In this particular case, it seems antagnostic to revert notices that are so trivial in nature. As for the general situation, I would suggest that a user can blank *any* warning that is more than 30 days old. Wjhonson 06:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not quite a month old, but it's getting there. The "warning" was from a bot, saying that the user had uploaded an untagged image. The image has since been tagged by the original uploader, so I suppose there is no justification in keeping him from blanking the talk page, as this untagged image warning is the only entry on his talk page that is of any real importance. --Xertz 15:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that a user can blank any warning they damn well please. It's proof that they've read it, and if they continue to cause problems, they can't plead ignorance of the law. --Carnildo 09:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Blanking warnings is perfectly acceptable. As Carnildo points out, it means the user has read them. Re-adding the warnings and forcing the user to keep content they do not like on their talk page crosses into harassment quickly. While blanking of relevant warnings is not polite or nice, restoring them is even less polite. We do not keep permanent archives (other than page histories) of users' past misdeeds. Kusma (討論) 09:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

As above, many warnings are basically reminders for the user, like images without copyright warnings, once the issue has been solved there's no reason to keep them. I've had a couple of image copyright tags stuck up on my user page as the result of basic forgetfully (forgot to tag an image) or as a result of bot error. These things don't tell anybody anything useful about me except that I like to have at least one picture on each page that I create.

perfectblue 09:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Then how are we supposed to find those warnings? You must love searching history. Please tell me the exact edit that Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Requesting 3rd opinion on External Links was started. Then tell me how long it took to find that. Now you have picture of what it is like searching history. What a pain. Will (Talk - contribs) 09:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• The intent of warnings is to warn and educate the user; they do not serve as a record of past misdemeanors. Thus, it is perfectly acceptable for a user to remove warnings from their talk page. >Radiant< 10:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Then there's no point in our rising hierarchy of warnings {{test1}}, {{test2}}, {{test3}}, {{test4}}, etc. If the user is entitled to remove {{test1}} every time he gets one, he'll never get a {{test2}}. He'll be educated all right -- educated in how to avoid being blocked for vandalism. —Angr 10:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Surely you do not block simply because a user has test1 through 4 (or whatever the bloody templates have been renamed this week) on their talk page? A look at contributions is essential, and at that point things get more obvious. Plus we do not require a full suite of warnings before a user is blocked. Ta/wangi 10:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Not true at all. If the {{test1}} was recent, and assuming the suggested edit summary was left, it will be easy to spot in the history. You can't assume the messages haven't been deleted, so you need to check anyway. —Doug Bell ^talk 10:32, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I would only discover such a talk page because the user had been vandalizing. If there's no previous indication that he's been warned about it, I give him a test1 or test2 (which have been their names for years, what do you mean by "this week"?). If he's already received a "last warning" (or several -- the vandals must often laugh out loud at how many "last warnings" they get without getting blocked), I'll block for the vandalism that brought me to the user's talk page in the first place. —Angr 10:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I was referring to {{uw-test1}} et al... /wangi 11:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Back when I did RC patrol, I would use {{test}} as a warning for newbie-test vandalism, {{test3}} for serious vandalism. Repeat vandalism after getting a warning would result in a short block. I never saw the point in the rest of the series. --Carnildo 22:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandals can't hide anything by removing warnings. Any admin who decides whether to block checks the user's contribution page, which will tell you whether the user has edited his own talk page and removed warnings. Any block is based on the user's contributions more than on how many warnings he has had. Kusma (討論) 11:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Certainly a common practise, with test3 or bv being used, thanks/wangi 23:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, they can hide information. This thread has gotten long enough to demonstrate. Please identify the edit where "warning is old, and the editor has since then corrected his behaviour" was added to the above posts. Please note that you will find only one such edit. (Behavior was misspelled.) If you can't do that, you probably can't verify something else was removed. Will (Talk - contribs) 22:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

You do not need to check the page history to see whether a user has removed warnings. You see that from their contributions. As you check a user's contributions anyway when you fight vandalism or decide whether to block, you don't even need an extra click. Kusma (討論) 14:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You probably can't verify anything if you spend so much time worrying about UK vs US spellings and labelling one as misspelled! /wangi 23:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Will: It's true that it's very hard to find back a particular edit, unless you mark it in some way. You should be able to find back my edit easily, by just grepping page history on or around the time I signed for "MARK MARK MARK". You can also grep for "TEST 1". Finally, note that user talk pages have much less traffic than the village pump :-) --Kim Bruning 00:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Unless you can get tools like VandalProof to do all the work, there is no way to ensure we all agree on the edit summary. Even with tools like VandalProof, they might not be in agreement. Sure, you set some standard here. But how long does it take the authors of those tools to get up to coding that standard? Quite some time.

Besides. Some people that patrol, like myself, are stuck with computers where they can't install anything. This computer isn't mine. (That is dead for the foreseeable future.) It is as though I access Wikipedia from a public internet connection.

That leaves my browser and any JS tools I can find. However, some of the JS tools were written a while back and never updated. In one case, it took me months to figure out what some of the tabs did. No one ever responded to the queries I left on the scripts talk page.

For those that claim you don't need the level 4 warnings, I submit users like myself do. I am not an admin. Hence, I can't block anyone myself. For that, I have to report the user on WP:AIV. But that is useless -- until a level 4 warning is present has been there for sometime. Because of the political beliefs where I grew up (USA), I consider users to be innocent until proven guilty. I won't just bump the user up to level 4 without good reason. However, I don't have time to truely evaluate each case. So unless the edit that got me to add a warning to the user's page is severe, I won't bump more than one level per incident.

In short, without a track record, I am left in the dark. Again, due to time constraints, I don't check back through history very far. Just far enough to verify the user didn't remove warnings. Maybe not even that. Will (Talk - contribs) 05:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

4 level warnings are not required. Arbcom has said that repeatedly restoring warnings is harrassment. I'm sorry you don't have time to do things properly. Maybe you shouldn't do them then. pschemp | talk 05:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Restoring the warnings would be harassment only if the warnings were no longer relevant. To often, that is the case. The hardcore vandals will do what they can to avoid detection. You would leave me without the best tools I have. I doubt you care about fighting vandalism. Will (Talk - contribs) 06:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think it's quite feasible for RC patrollers / CVU members to agree on which edit summaries to use. It's also quite feasible for people to set up a log of warnings if they really must. It's simply that user talk pages (1) are not intended as such a log, and (2) do not actually work well as such a log, since we can't prevent users from editing or blanking them. >Radiant< 10:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Will - you have repeatedly used edits to this page, and the history of this page, as examples of how difficult it is to find and evaluate past actions on a user talk page, assuming the user can freely delete messages. Please stop using this page as an example. This is a high volume page. A user talk page is almost always a low volume page, and if it's not, it's because the user is getting a lot of warnings. Someone looking at how serious a problem a user is, in addition to looking at contributions, need not go back 50 or 100 edits, even if there were that many - the last ten or so are almost always going to indicate if the editor has been a problem, and what the level of the next warning - or block - should be.
  • The purpose of allowing users to remove warnings (and anything else they want) on their user talk pages is to help good editors clear off vandalism and mistaken warnings and cruft. Allowing this certainly makes it (at least slightly) more difficult, sometimes, to evaluate problem users. That is just the price to be paid - there is no approach to anything in the world that has all advantages and no disadvantages. The alternative, saying that users cannot remove warnings, under threat of punishment, is to say that you and other editors cannot respond to being harassed on your own talk page, in the form of bogus warnings ("uncivil", "failure to assume good faith", "personal attack", "harassment", etc.), or that you and other editors will have constantly archive junk warnings by hand to get them off your pages. Yes, it would be nice if Wikipedia had a clear policy that allowed "good" editors to remove warnings but forced "bad" ones to keep them visible or archived - but I think you'll agree that such a policy is in fact unwritable. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 14:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Can I copy stuff directly from 2005 Encyclopedia Brittanica?

Well? Andrewdt85

Absolutely not. It would be an instance of copyvio. Askari Mark (Talk) 04:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

You can, however, copy directly from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica! -newkai t-c 11:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. It has been released into the public domain, and can easily be downloaded in electronic form. Needless to say, much of the information contained is sorely outdated, but it's an excellent encyclopedia nevertheless. --Xertz 15:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Back when Wikipedia had substantially fewer entries, it was rather common for 1911 EB articles to be used almost verbatium. As far as I know, almost all 1911 EB article have been updated on Wikipedia since then, although they do still exist on s:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. There are a few biographical entries here on Wikipedia that about the only reasonable source is this edition of EB, but those are some very obscure articles. Even then, some substantial POV cleanup has occured. --Robert Horning 20:16, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Note, though, that copyright protects expression, not fact. (needless to say IANAL, but if copyright protected facts it would be absolutely impossible for Wikipedia to exist.) --Random832(tc) 12:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

There is still a great deal of cleanup to do on those articles. Many of the edits are the addition of a few newer facts to the old article, rather than the necessary rewriting (That's historically been a common technique in EB as well). This may be one of the early decision made under the imperatives of getting started that have turned out to cause difficulties in the longer run. DGG 20:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Should WP:HOAX become policy?

I think that Wikipedia:Don't create hoaxes should become official policy. There are several reasons for this: first, it is relatively uncontroversial, and seems to be accepted by community consensus, from what I've seen at AfDs about suspected hoaxes. Also, the guideline tag says that it "should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." It seems to me like that implies that it is occasionally acceptable to create hoaxes, and users not familiar with WP:V and WP:POINT might construe it that way. If there ever were to come a time when a hoax was allowable, WP:IAR would solve that problem.--Grand Slam 7 | Talk 12:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• It's too low-level for it to be policy. There are relatively few policies (blocking policy, deletion policy, stuff like that) and content issues do not generally belong there. Besides, WP:NOT and WP:V pretty much address the issue. >Radiant< 10:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
  • See also "policy bloat" discussion, two sections below this one. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 13:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Another option is to make a shortened version of WP:HOAX a section of Wikipedia:Deletion policy and create a guideline titled Wikipedia:Hoaxes or something of that sort for further clarification.--Grand Slam 7 | Talk 20:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't really think this needs to be addressed. Personally, I don't see how Wikipedia is even benefited by having this guideline at all. No potential hoaxer is going to read this guideline and say "Oh, ok. I won't do it, then." Hoaxes are just vandalism with some planning behind it, and as such, are already prohibited by almost all of our other policies. Definite policy bloat.--Aervanath 06:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Financial appeals on article pages

I suspect there is no policy on this, and neither do I think there should be, but what's the position on links to financial appeals on article pages? The article Bryan Budd talks about a Parachute Regiment soldier who has been posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross following his death in Afghanistan. The article includes a non-encyclopedic comment about a trust fund having been set up on behalf of his spouse and two children, with a link to the website.

I appreciate that removal will be a contentious issue but I'm not convinced that it is appropriate or encyclopedic however would appreciate some other views on the point.

ALR 13:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The article itself appears to be deleteable under WP:NOT#IINFO as a memorial. The only reason the article states he is notable is because he was KIA and posthumously given a military award. --Farix (Talk) 15:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree the article is not well written, but the award of a VC is pretty notable. My issue is with the link to the charity. ALR 16:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The Victoria Cross is the highest military honour in the Commonwealth. I think that is fairly notable, especially since it has only been issued thirteen times since the end of WWII. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 16:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

And all newton ever did was write some books. Being able to talk dismissively about a person doesn't mean the article doesn't belong. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

He himself is notable, but issue with the charity link is warranted. While it is a tragic circumstance involving the subject of the article, Wikipedia isn't a soapbox and probably shouldn't have that particular link. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 16:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Removing the trust fund charity link is the correct action to take. zadignose 17:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

All Victoria Cross winners are inherently notable and have entries on Wikipedia. Indeed, the external Victoria Cross Reference project was migrated to Wikipedia several years ago, with Jimbo Wales' blessing. -- Arwel (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Policy bloat

It strikes me that there is a growing, and understandable, movement to promote more and more to policy or guideline. I'm no fan of policy bloat because it leads to additional management overhead and in the pseudo-democratic wikipedia universe that slows down production. So do we need to develop a policy which says not to create policy cruft?

ALR 13:15, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree: we currently pile up policy, but hardly manage to slim down existing policy. I'm sure I'm not aware of half of our policies by now, WP:ENC, WP:5P, WP:BOLD and WP:DICK are quite enough most of the time. dab (𒁳) 14:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

It already exists and is called m:instruction creep. ColourBurst 15:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

It's almost like everybody with an edit wants to make a policy nowadays. What ever happened to WP:IAR? Wikipedia isn't like getting a PhD where you need to write a dissertation for your time here in policy. I think WP:KISS needs to apply itself to policy, as in keep them amount of them short and to the point, no use in 100 policies on the same thing. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 16:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Aren't admin candidates required to write something in the Wikipedia: namespace these days? Ut oh. --Kim Bruning 16:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's well and fine, but does each administrator need to make up a separate policy? I think not. There is nothing wrong with contributing to existing policies or making one when absolutely needed, but there is no need for every administrator to have a policy on Wikipedia. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 16:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

It'll be on one of thos my criteria for admin promotion or my vote will be super strong you cant bed it oppose, just after 3FA.ALR 16:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Just a side note, when I mean policy I don't mean individual administer policies that are on their user space, I mean ones like WP:SOAPBOX, WP:IAR, WP:NOT some, maybe most of which have merit, but policy bloat is never good since much of it can be compressed and combined. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 16:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• We have slightly over forty policies, most of which are reasonably straightforward. We could reduce this number by doing some creative merging, e.g Wikipedia:Appealing a block, Wikipedia:Blocking policy and Wikipedia:Banning policy arguably belong together, as do Wikipedia:Protection policy and Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy, and the duo Wikipedia:Libel and Wikipedia:No legal threats. >Radiant< 10:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea to take out excess policy bloat, there really is no need for separate articles when it can all be found in one place. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 14:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think in general it would be useful to streamline some of them, there is the risk that in streamlining they become too abstracted for many editors to deal with. I think Attribution is quite a good example, good effort but I think it's still going to need some supporting material in guideline form to really be useful.

Probably a common theme from me recently but one of the problems is the lack of either content or process strategy, which in itself positively encourages the apparent proliferation of special cases and the bloat of extant policy and guideline.

Now is there a place appropriate to raise the absence of effective governance?

ALR 11:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

full circle? --Kim Bruning 14:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Game-cover Merge again

Some may recall 2 months ago when I posted something about a merge proposal for game-related fair use templates. After waiting a while with no objections I performed the merge. It has now been reverted by someone who thinks I did not make enough of an effort to contact interested persons to obtain concensus. So here we go again. ANYONE INTERESTED IN Template:Game-cover, Template:Boardgamecover, OR Template:RPG-artwork IS INVITED TO JOIN A DISCUSSION AT Template_talk:Game-cover#Merge ABOUT MERGING THESE THREE TEMPLATES. I'm cross-posting this to all the Village pumps. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Citing references

Hello, I am seeking clarification regarding whether citing references within an article is policy (or if it is fine merely to list references at the bottom of an article).-MsHyde 23:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You can reference sources at the bottom of an article. It can be more useful to the reader and future editors to have in-line citations, but it is more difficult and the reference system is unwieldy. For controversial biographical information about living person, or any controversial information, it is more important and helpful to have statements explicitly paired with citations. —Centrx→talk • 23:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. How is it determined that something is or is not controversial? (For example, may anyone request inline citations, as fact tags are used?)-MsHyde 23:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

If you have no particular reason to believe that a fact is controversial or incorrect, and are not interested in actually reading a reference if one is provided, then there is no need to request a reference "just in case" somebody else might someday want one. The policy is that everything must be verifiable in principle, not that it must be explicitly sourced.

Adding many fact tags to many articles in a short period of time would make it hard to believe you are requesting the references in good faith rather than making a point. Along these lines, let me point out that your account was created this month but the vast majority of your edits consist of tagging articles as unreferenced, prodding articles, and voting "delete" in AFD debates. CMummert · talk 01:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I am trying to help. If I know something about the subject, or find a reference on Google when trying to decide to prod or AfD, I add it to the article. Also, I vote keep sometimes, and add references to AfD. Can you show me where in policy it says everything must be verifiable in principle, but not explicitly sourced? It seems like this is actually undefined, or a gray area. I agree that not every line should be sourced, but perhaps every paragraph, especially in a long article. But clarity about what policy actually says would be appreciated. In actual practice, it seems to me that inline sourcing is preferred over leaving sources at the bottom, with no way for anyone to tell which parts of the article match which sources or parts of sources.-MsHyde 01:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Careful with adding comments. You messed up the (UTC) in his sig. Not every paragraph has to be sourced. That's just ridiculous. Only those bits which are disputable or not common knowledge need citing. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

That is what I meant about gray area. Everything is disputable; nothing is common knowledge. In a long article, I think there probably should be a reference for every paragraph, at least. But what explicitly is policy covers inline citations vs. references at the bottom?-MsHyde 05:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe there is any policy about which type of citation to use. Personally I prefer the <ref>, since these create standard footnotes that we are familiar with in printed material. Also if someone were to page-print an article, the footnotes would appear normally, the inline cites won't. Wjhonson 09:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

MsHyde probably already has read the policies, since she is familiar with the deletion process, but I will answer her question. WP:V and WP:ATT are carefully worded so that they don't require explicit citations for every fact. If such citations were required, the policies would have been written to explicitly say as much. It is only facts that are "challenged or likely to be challenged", or biographical material, that are held to a higher standard. WP:SCG was recently written to give more specific guidance in the context of scientific articles, and it has been adopted by several WikiProjects as an accurate description of the level of citation they would like to achieve. CMummert · talk 13:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the numerical stability article again, can I kindly suggest that MsHyde read the guidelines at WP:SCG before tagging any more math or science articles? It reads in part:

The verifiability criteria require that such [uncontroversial, widely known] statements be sourced so that in principle anyone can verify them. However, in many articles it is cumbersome to provide an in-line reference for every statement. In addition, such dense referencing can obscure the logical interdependence of statements.

Thanks, Lunch 23:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

In all articles with many refs, not just sci-tech, it is usual to group the references at the end of each sentence. For controversial articles in particular, having reference numbers after individual words in the same sentence looks somewhat aggressive. if it is necessary to make it absolutely clear which references said exactly what, it is clearer to use a quote. DGG 00:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC), one per sentence.

Proposal forWikipedia:Notability (politicians)

I've created a proposal for a notability guideline for political figures, at Wikipedia:Notability (politicians). I'd welcome input at the talk page. There's already a little discussion because I've been slow about listing the proposal. Argyriou (talk) 01:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Talk page "owning"

I have recently, reluctantly put myself "in charge" of Talk:Kevin Federline. I archived a ton of stuff, nearly all of which was irrelevant - the talk page had almost literally become a straight-up message board to discuss Federline's career. I put a notice at the top of the now-blank page saying "irrelevant comments can and will be removed." So far I have removed several (most recently an unsigned statement that simply read "Federline has no career"), and I believe that whether my "instruction" was there or not, the page would slowly revert entirely back to its previous anarchy. Is it wrong or WP:OWN of me to do this? -Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 03:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Non-topic stuff should be deleted. The talk pages are meant to be for discussing Wikipedia, so I see nothing wrong.++aviper2k7++ 03:25, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Irrelevant talk page comments are a problem everywhere, and there is no reason to let them sit on the talk page for too long. You can delete them or move them straight to the archive. But you should err on the side of leaving them if they actually have comments about the article mixed in with their comments about the subject. As long as the talk page isn't too long you don't need to rush to archive the reasonable comments; try to leave a couple weeks of discussion and only archive the page when it gets too long (40 or 50k). CMummert · talk 13:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not WP:OWN unless you get into a disagreement with another editor about what you're doing. Personally, I wish more editors would do what you do, to make it clear that talk pages are for discussing the article, not the subject of the article, and that old comments belong in an archive, not on the active page.

It may be useful to say "per WP:TPG" in your edit summary when removing wikichat; my experience is that I've never had any complaints when I do that. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 13:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I've added {{notaforum}} for you, hopefully that will help bring this rule to people's attention. --Random832(tc) 13:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Now, just so I have it straight, are these the same people who tell us we can't delete trash from our own Talkpages?--Wetman 20:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope. I've posted a couple of times recently about people misunderstanding the policy on deleting stuff from one's user talk page (the policy is that one can delete anything, whether it's trash or a real warning); in fact, I added something about that to WP:USER. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of Articles

The content of a deleted article should be retained, the submitting author notified, most likely on the user's page. If this is current policy, it is not always followed. Recently a new article that contained considerable information was deleted. There is no "history" to account for such disappearance, nor any indication of where the information may be retrieved by the contributor. Apparently it is lost forever.Phmalo 15:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by "retained"? The content isn't actually deleted except in the case of clear copyright violation. Speedy deletions recommend that the author be notified, but do not force the tagger to do so. People can see that the article's deleted through the logs (and if the article is deleted, there's a clear link there that will point them to who deleted it) and they can then go ask the deleting admin why it was deleted. I'm not sure why they need the contents unless they needed it to 1) recreate the article (in which if they haven't addressed the concerns will probably be deleted again) or 2) move the article somewhere else (in which case they contact the admin who deleted it). Please show me an example. ColourBurst 15:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The "content" of a deleted article always is retained, but this deleted history is only visible to admins. The deletion is recorded in the deletion log, for which a link is provided on the "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name" screen. If someone wants to object to a particular deletion, they can talk with the admin who deleted it (I have on occasion undone my own deletions after requests/explanations), or follow the procedures at Wikipedia:Deletion review. Postdlf 16:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, the content isn't lost, it just isn't visible to our readers, or to non-admin editors. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?. The preferred method of trying to get it back is to talk to the deleting admin first, and only after they've responded then go to deletion review. Less than 10% of page restorations come about through deletion review. GRBerry 18:01, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Massive Deletion of Webcomic Entries

Recently, the Powers That Be of Wikipedia have decided to purge several unnotable webcomic articles from Wikipedia's database. While I agree on this point of view in principle (after all, just because some Bob Smith makes a webcomic, doesnt mean there should be a Wikipedia page about it), it seems the editor(s) in question does not know a fair lot concerning what makes a webcomic notable.

While Penny Arcade and User Friendly were left up, for example, several other award-winning webcomics were taken down and senselessly deleted, including those that receive a fair amount of traffic, I might add.

Even if one does not know which webcomics are notable, one could numerically experiment by seeing how many other pages link to a given article, the kinds of articles that appear in its 'related links' section (such as awards it has won), and how many people search for an article over a given period of time.

I, among others, might suggest that someone or some people have been overbroad in the deletion of webcomics, as similar low-audience activities have not been deleted, which seems to myself to show a definate bias.

I have "been bold" and taken the action of recreating a few of the webcomics that seem, to me, to be the most gevious examples, however, I am sure I missed some, and would like to ensure such actions are not taken in the future.Sim 19:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I have difficulties believing that they were "senselessly" deleted. They would have gone through AfD, no? And unless the comic is utterly, utterly unnotable, the worst outcome of such an AfD would have been "merge into some list of webcomics" rather than "eradicate from the database"? dab (𒁳) 19:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Webcomics experts have different definitions of "notable" than wikipedia does. They're often rather surprised to discover comics they think are unremarkable get kept, and other comics which have some kind of significance or influence get deleted. --Kim Bruning 20:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that popularity != notability, I also think that AfD bears a remarkable resemblance to a random-number generator when anything borderline goes before it. Having seen a few of the webcomic AfDs, I find it hard to draw any specific standards from the results of the AfDs, either those which the webcomic experts would like, or those which Wikipedian policy experts would find reasonable. Argyriou (talk) 20:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Sim. It is always good to give examples of the deleted articles, if possible. Also, articles should not just be recreated. Instead, the matter should be taken to Wikipedia:Deletion review. Besides being better than having people continually writing and deleting articles, it allows the original article to be undeleted if the case is decided in your favor, which saves a lot of work, if the article is any good. An exception to having to go to deletion review is if it would be possible to write a new article that does not have the same problems that were given as reasons to delete the first one. For example, if an article is truly non-notable, that cannot be fixed by a new article. However, if the article was just a copyright violation or very poorly written and was deleted for that reason, it can be rewritten without going to deletion review. -- Kjkolb 19:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, you seem to be confusing notability with popularity. There are indeed popular things that don't warrant articles, due to a total lack of secondarily sourced information that would make it pass the verifiability policy. Certain variations of drinking games, for example, don't receive coverage in reliable sources, so it would be impossible to write an article that isn't original research. However, without examples, it's hard to determine whether the deletion was correct. The best way is to ensure the articles have reliable sources (ie not blogs, not forums, not personal websites) mention them. ColourBurst 20:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The one that really got to me was Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures. I moved a lot of things around and added a lot of data about awards it has won, influence, etc. to compliment the old mostly-list format, creating what should be a better article, per guidelines.

Almost a year ago it had maybe 30 other pages linking to it, When I went to source it, I found that many of THOSE articles had also been deleted, and this is what got me posting here. I can understand some fudge room on one or two individual articles, but this included a long-term deletion of a whole series of articles on an entire dicipline, and I thought that warranted a policy request.

Additionally, the original RfD had a large, unanimous keep vote except for the original nominator and the final entry. The administrator even commented how well-thought out the argumens for keeping it were, and then deleted it anyway, which I found extremely odd, to the point where it might even have been some kind of mistake. Sim 19:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The arguments hinged on an aspect of WP:WEB - whether the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards were "significant" enough an award to grant notability (there's also the other point of whether an article that satisfies WP:N, a guideline, but violates WP:V and WP:OR, both policies, can be kept.) Unfortunately, no consensus has ever been made. ColourBurst 04:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The debate seems to revolve around the idea that web comics (in and of themselves) are not notable. The benchmark for notability seems to be weither a topic has gained recognition outside the the realm of the internet. The logic being if a subject is notable, then printed newspapers or television will have made mention of it. This is flawed logic. Some indistries rely almost exclusivly on the internet for distribution of news. Many trade papers and peer reviewed journals have significant internet presence and often significantly more content on their websites. One of the strengths of the Wikipedia is that wikis can keep up with the rapid changing pace of the internet much better than print can. Many of the best sources of news about the internet are (surprise!) on the internet. By the current measure of notability, these sources (however relyable, widly read or highly regarded) will never be notable. For example, if Gabe from Penny Arcade mentions something in his Rant, then that is immediatly read by more than four million people.

Web comics are a recent phonominon and have found a social niche. Lots of readers are realising that many sindicated comic strips are crap. Webcomics cost nothing and some of them are much better than the print alternitives. If the Wikipedia Notability policy defines this very valad and recent form of art, enjoyed by millions, as non-notable, then it is the policy that is at fault not the Webcomic indistry.

Guys, get a clue. This jihad against webcomics is splashed all over the net. Hundreds of thousands of people are taking notice of this. This axe-grinding crap is making the whole project look bad. Figure out what changes need to be made and get them done. When there are 86 _thousand_ unique hits on google about a subject, most of which are from blogs and independant reviews, then people have officialy noticed it. It is of note. Dan.Montgomery 11:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You make several reasonable point (that dead trees aren't everything, that many syndicated dead-trees comics are crap), but you overdo it. I find it hard to believe any claim that such and such a page (other perhaps than the main page of a notable newspaper) is immediately read by X million people. If it isn't "axe-grinding crap" [excrement as an abrasive, a wonderful metaphor!) at WP it'll be something else: people will always find plenty to hate at Wikipedia (notably the deletion of articles about them and their friends). Just what is it that gets 86,000 unique hits? How is the routine mention in a routine blog of any significance? (I for one don't even read blogs by my own real-world friends unless they're accompanied by particularly good photos.) What can it mean to say that people have "officially" noticed something? -- Hoary 11:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the "plenty to hate" statement. My experience is that people don't care unless you throw it in their face. I see no reason to be deliberatly antagonistic, which is how this recent behavior comes across. The reference to google hits was to a point brought up in the spirited debate over the deletion of the webcomic Ugly Hill. I may have exagerated the exact number (I quoted from memory), but the point is that the number of hits was many thousands. Individually each blog entry may be without merit, but taken together they work as a pretty good barometer of what people on the net are or are not talking about. Don't forget that the rest of the world defines "Notable" very differently. You sir, may disagree that there is any agenda behind these systamatic deletions. Frankly, I don't really care if there is or isn't. I'll read my comics every day regardless of their WP presence or lack there of. But please be aware that this could spill over to the actual print media. Webcomics have a wide enough readership and enough human-interest to make this story newsworthy. It would be very ironic if the notability that you demand were to come about from news stories reporting the bloody-minded burocratic removal of the aforementioned webcomics.

A deeper issue, I feel, is the fact that by definition any new media is Non-Notable. This is, frankly, shooting ourselves in the foot. Dan.Montgomery 12:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think it is to Wikipedia's credit that it's trying to sort the wheat from the chaff. Webcomics are a recent phenomena and it will take some time to establish the critical review process necessary to establish that a particular webcomic as "notable".

What webcomic supports don't understand is that popularity does not confer notability. Also, they don't understand that the internet is a "low-trust environment", to use the words of Glenn Reynolds. This makes the fact that internet websites are not viewed as reliable as their print counterparts. Though this will change as online publications establish their reputations, but that will take time. --Farix (Talk) 12:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Mate, reliability of sources is not the issue. Notability and relability are not the same. Saying "Yeah, we are wrong and in the fullness of time we'll get our shit together" is pretty cold comfort. The idea that all of print media is valid and all of new media is not is deeply flawed. Exactly the same skills are used to determine the quality of information, regardless of the presence (or not) of slain vegatables. The independence of information from the method of delivery is a fundamental. These issues with webcomics are symptomatic and, I beleive, just the tip of the iceberg. Dan.Montgomery 13:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Notability must be verifiable. To be verifiable, you need reliable sources. Thus reliable sources is very much at the heart of the matter. --Farix (Talk) 21:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Cracking down on Politics Edit Warriors

One of the weakest parts of Wikipedia's content is anything about politics. There are a spate of editors who edit wikipedia not to create an encyclopedia, but rather to push their political viewpoint as fact on a large website. I suggest that there is wide consensus to take strong and decisive action towards these editors - community bans from all articles about politics/current events. I further suggest that the only reason these actions are not taken is because of fears of backlash. I am very interested to hear if there are others who feel this way, or if there is a belief that we are not overly leniant with what I will call "politics edit warriors". Thank you. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:07, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain your campaign regarding David Horowitz then please?

• User puts David Horowitz Freedom Center up for deletion: [3]
• Votes to delete FrontPage Magazine [4] which is edited by David Horowitz.

Removes all External Links related to Horowitz:

• National Lawyers Guild

[5] [6] Bill Moyers [7] [8] [9] Christian Peacemaker Teams [10] [11] World Festival of Youth and Students [12] Evan Thomas [13] Mengistu Haile Mariam [14] Paul Booth (SDS activist) [15] Brandeis University [16] CounterPunch (newsletter) [17] Lynne Stewart [18] Political Research Associates [19] Mumia Abu-Jamal [20] Durban Strategy [21] Keith Ellison (politician) [22] Joel Beinin [23]

I have to agree there is much warring over politics, seems deleting a commentator you do not like is not the answer either. --NuclearZer0 18:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

A big reason is the way the sentence gets reworded as the pronoun changes. "I am defending Wikipedia." "You are being contentious." "He is a POV edit warrior." (Not that this situation is unique here; script writers use the technique often.) There are quite often counterclaims. Sorting them out is never simple, and always takes time. The policies are clear, handling the situations is non-trivial. GRBerry 18:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

What value is gained by sorting it out? Ban em' all, let it sort itself out. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree that Politics warriors are a big problem here, and may I suggest you start by looking in the mirror, Hipocrite! ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

A 'crackdown' would accomplish exactly nothing. So you ban all the POV pushers on politics, somehow being completely fair and impartial in the process... and miraculously none of them create new accounts to get back into the game. A month later a whole new batch of politics POV pushers will discover the site and start it up all over again. It's a non-starter. Even setting aside the vast and many problems with implementing it, even imagining that it would somehow not cause far greater problems than it aimed to solve... the end result still would be of no benefit. The only real hope for dealing with such situations is to educate people on NPOV and verifiability and slowly build up a cadre of people who feel passionately about politics, but follow Wikipedia policy on writing about and discussing them. Ban the people who show no effort in even trying to comply after repeated efforts... but we desperately need to keep the ones who make any progress towards cooperative editing. --CBD 18:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

we do already crack down on vandals, trolls and edit warriors. WP:NPOV is policy, and firmly in place. People are free to have an opinion, and to focus on documenting their selected point of view by referring to WP:RSs. But at the point where they try to spin the prose, or insist on undue representation of a fringe position, they are violating policy, and any admin may, and should, crack down on them. dab (𒁳) 19:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It would seem to me that the fairest thing to do would be for editors to limit themselves to AfDing only articles on subjects supportive of their own strongly held viewpoint, and eschewing doing so for those in opposition to it as a simple matter of WP:COI. Askari Mark (Talk) 22:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

A lot of the NPOV editing of political articles is sorting the wheat from the chaff. I would argue (but not so much as to trawl a few dozen articles for examples) that some good notable information is provided by POV pushers (both for and against) which a dispassionate contributor who may not have been so inclined to do the research would not have found. Whilst it is undoubtedly frustrating to deal with such 'warriors' simply removing them may result in a case of baby/bathwater etc. LessHeard vanU 22:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Image use policy

This conversation needs more input by people well versed in our image copyright policies: [24]. SchmuckyTheCat 22:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Primary notability criterion questions

I am in the middle of a few discussions that have left me very confused about the notability criteria. I will just list the questions and comments that I have and hopefully some insightful discussion and perhaps changes will result. (These questions concern only notability; I understand that the article must also be in agreement with other policies and guidelines.)

• Are there subjects that have to pass a stronger test than the primary notability criterion?
• If no subject is required to pass a stronger test than the primary notability criterion, what is the purpose of the multiple subject specific guidelines regarding notability?
• In the subject specific guidelines, specifically WP:BIO, there exists a list of tests one can apply to a subject. Are these to be used in lieu of the primary notability criterion?
• In the subject specific guidelines, specifically WP:BIO, there exists a list of tests one can apply to a subject. Are these to be used in addition to the primary notability criterion? In other words, does a subject have to pass not only the primary criterion, but also some test on its subject specific page?
• If a precedent is set that is in contradiction with the primary notability criterion, or if a precedent is set that adds stronger criteria that certain subjects must pass, how can we best inform members that meeting the primary notability criterion is not sufficient?

Sancho McCann 23:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Each and every notability guideline includes the primary notability criterion of being (paraphrasing) "the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the article's topic". What the subject specific guidelines do is define other criteria that where present, imply the primary criterion, even if not easy to verify, is likely true of the subject. For example, the WP:BIO guideline criterion: "The person made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field," means that if a person meets this criterion it is "very likely that sufficient reliable information is available about...[that]... person. All of these additional criteria are disjunctive--they are additional bases for recognizing notability through the primary criterion, and not bases which must be met on top of the primary. So to answer your points in order as I see it:

• There are no subjects that have to pass a stronger test than the primary notability criterion;
• The purpose is to help us find other bases where the primary criterion is very likely true but is not easily substantiated, as well as provide guidance tailored to the specific subject area;
• They are not used in lieu of the primary notability criterion; they include it and expand our understanding of it and how to recognize other criteria that make it likely to be present;
• No they are not used in addition, meeting any one criterion is enough in all guidelines I know of;
• Your last question is only relevent if the above was not the case.

--Fuhghettaboutit 00:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The fundamental issues that all "guidelines" raise are made quite clear here. Guidelines offer a guide to common sense, not a replacement for it. Any guideline one can write will eventually be enforced as an iron-clad ruling by a Wikipedian coming from an enforcer-type background, buoyed by their indoctrination. There is no procedural solution if procedure is actually the problem. --Wetman 20:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Follow Up

Many AfDs have arguments that are simply: "Delete. Subjects of type x are not notable." Without addressing the primary notability criterion whatsoever. Is there a way that we could place more emphasis on avoiding this type of argument? Sancho McCann 18:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

How about the Argument from Ignorance— "Well, I've never heard of X"— that appears to trump all aces at Wikipedia? --Wetman 20:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

You are encuraged to read Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (or WP:AADD) for short. A question I have no real clue about is how to shift the AFD culture towards better, more informative, discussions. The scale is too big, and I'm rarely there at all these days. GRBerry 03:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Semiprotection notice

If you would like to comment on doing away with the semiprotection notice on articles that are semiprotected by adding additional information elsewhere, please see this discussion. -- Kjkolb 04:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Use of Wikipedia logo images and other Wikimedia copyright images

I believe images which use the Wikipedia Logo or other Wikimedia copyright images should be deleted where they are not fair use, including images linked to by Copyright by Wikimedia and those on Wikipedia:Banners and buttons. Non-fair use includes use on userpages and Wikipedia project pages, or anywhere they are used incorrectly as per WP:FU.

Please see the deletion review of Image:NotSuckBanner.jpg and these posts from the Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List, which essentially say that the images should only be used where it is fair use. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Kat_Walsh's_statement is also relevant. One of the key reasons is WP:FU#Downstream use - notably Wikipedia mirrors. I've posted it here because it's not actually a new proposal - it's down to the existing policy under WP:FU.

Please add any comments below. Thanks. -137.222.10.67 01:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, the question being raised by the anon is whether or not unfree images owned by the Wikimedia Foundation and their derivatives should be allowed on Wikipedia, even when they violate our Fair Use Policy. Historically no restrictions have been applied to the use of Wikimedia logos and their derivatives on Wikipedia. However, as such images are unfree, this is potentially bad for reusers. At present, the Foundation has no official policy on the use of logos or the creation of derivatives, though a draft policy has been on meta for 22 months. So, the question is: Should the unfree WMF logos and/or their derivatives be restricted to only those uses consistent with our fair use policy. Dragons flight 01:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Other than directly relivant articles they should not appear in the article namespace. Beyond that there is no clear pratice or policy.Geni 02:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Our goal is to make a free content encyclopedia, not a free content website. As long as the images are not in the article namespace, they should be allowed. Of course, the decision of whether or not we can use these ultimately is in the hands of the Foundation, as I can't see how the use of these images can be considered fair use. The Foundation needs to rule on when and how the logos can be used on the Wikimedia projects. If they don't care, then we should continue using them. Users who redistribute the content hosted on Wikimedia projects need to be aware of the specific legal conditions for all the hosted material. We certainly wouldn't remove the logo from the corner of the page solely for the sake of having "free" content, would we? --- RockMFR 03:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The logo in the upper left corner is not an issue, that's just part of the website skin and is not included in content dumps. Using it "internaly" is an issue though. We have a total ban on unfree material outside of the main namespace, so it seems highly inconsistent to allow the use of these particular unfree images in those very namespaces... I have tentatively brought this up before on the talk page for the admin userbox that use a derivative of the logo, but it didn't rely go anywhere so I've just made my own version of the admin box with a free image. IMHO we should flush the "Copyrighted by Wikimedia" category, retag the logos used in main namespace articles as {{logo}}, and come up with our own set of free licensed "unofficial" project logos/mascots/whatever not derived from the official logo for "internal" use, such as Wikipedia:Wikipe-tan. Alternatively come up with a very strict set of rules such as only allowing them to be used for "self reference" and maintainance type stuff, like transwiki boxes etc.--Sherool (talk) 12:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess I should ask this question: if the issue of content dumps was not a problem, would you still want to remove Wikimedia images from the userspace? --- RockMFR 18:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I would say no, unless the Foundation explicitly says to, like during the WP:CVU logo issue. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 23:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

For the sake of consistency; Yes. There is not rely any benefit to be gained from using these logos on userpages. Creating seperate classes of restricted use images only for "comunity use" that are excluded from image dumps and what not have been suggested before and shot down every time. At best it would be a waste of developer resourses to implement features intended purely to allow people to decorate theyr userpages with unfree material. --Sherool (talk) 01:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

So other than the userpages, is there any other pages that would be affected by this? Also, would this include the derived images, such as the Wikipedia with a Santa hat? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 02:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Well if "my" suggestion was implemented it would affect everyting across the board. The logos would be treated like any other copyrighted logo meaning they would have to satisfy all of our fair use criterea on any given page they where to be used. The "exception" clause in criteria #9 could be used to treat special cases such as the "Wikimedia commons have more media about XXX" type templates or the commons link on the upload page if the comunity deems it to be important enough to continue using the logos in such cases. Though granted it would be more of a "problem" for projects that do not allow fair use at all. All sorts of derivatives would obviously be affected too, unless the foundation have explicitly authorised such a work to be released under a free license. --Sherool (talk) 08:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

My view is that when the Wikipedia/Wikimedia logos are used inside the article proper (not the monobook skin upper left hand logo) space they should be treated exactly like any other logo and need to meet our fair use guidelines. The logo in the skin isn't a part of our project really, so it's outside of the scope of our rulemaking, and the logo use in meta namespaces should be fairly limited and it's fine to give it a pass because .. well.. it's our logo. --Gmaxwell 15:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

There is no reason to care about mirrors, it's their problem to fix their problems. Besides, Wikimedia logos should be copyrighted under free licenses. We need to oppose meta:copyright paranoia. It's as simple as that. PS. And the old 'not suck' banner was better, too.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Actualy there is reason to care about mirros and other downstream users, see: foundation:Wikimedia Foundation bylaws#ARTICLE II - STATEMENT OF PURPOSE. Let me quote the first paragraph:

The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.

(emphasis and wiktionary link mine). To spread content as widely is possible is why this project exists. As for the logo not beeing free licensed that is a unfortunately side effect of how trademark law works. It just doesn't work to well to trademark an image everyoen is allowed to use and modify, and the logos is part of the foundations "signature", they need to restrict theyr use in order to maintain the integrety if it's visual identification. All major open source projects do the same. You are free to modify and release your own versions of theyr contnet/software, but you may not use the official project logos without official approcal while doing so. See meta:Logo#Logo guidelines. --Sherool (talk) 09:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Town articles

Also known as, well, let's just drop all pretense and call them what they are, Rambot articles. Many of these do not assert notability (the basic skeleton created by the bot certainly doesn't), and I can't find a consensus, or even an assertion, that small towns are inherently notable. This issue has been raised in WT:WEB regarding to a certain double standard on things existing in the physical world getting better treatment than web-based things. (note that another issue is how to deal with non-notable ones - presumably any that are deleted will be recreated with 2010 census data unless something is done at Rambot's end of things. --Random832(tc) 08:19, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

A double standard with web things vs real places.. I'm not saying I think the articles are a good idea, but come on, you can't compare websites and real places like that. Yes, things in the physical world should get better treatment than web-based things. -- Ned Scott 08:31, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Articles on every town are beneficial and important to have. It looks bad if we've got 20% of a state's towns redlinked. Even articles with minimal information are a good start. Badagnani 08:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with NEd and Badagnani. Every geographical place article is important in WP. The difference between a web site and a small town is very clear, a website is a virtual thing, which anyone can set up for a few bucks. But a town is *real*, and isn't set up overnight by a single guy. --Ragib 08:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Real-world settlements are inherently notable. The only criterion the articles have to satisfy is verifiability. —Angr 09:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the double standard as we are comparing two entirely different things here. Websites are a part of pop culture and must establish notability. Towns and communities, on the other hand, are geographical areas that has an inherent notability. --Farix (Talk) 14:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Personaly I don't see any problem with having a seperate article on every town, village, hamlet or other settlement on the planet. Most settlements have hundreds if not thousands of years of history behind them. Granted finding verifiable sources can sometimes be a problem as there are usualy not published all that many verifiable works (scertainly not online) focusing just on the history of every little town out there, but it's still a world apart from your average fly-by-night website or forum. --Sherool (talk) 16:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Towns will almost always satisfy verifiability in several reliable sources. Town/country records can show demographics, settlement characteristics, etc. Local newspapers and other newspapers can verify culture and events in the town in a lot of cases, and so can history books.

The two aren't equal at all. The internet as we know it has been around for 15 years or so. Most settlements outpace that by an order of magnitude, possibly two. ColourBurst 17:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that "geographical areas have inherent notability". That opens a can of worms - is a single city block inherently notable? Should some of these articles perhaps be merged? The problem is not the "average fly-by-night website or forum", it's sites that have been around for years, have readership/participation of hundreds if not thousands (more than the population of many small towns), have been written about in blogs, etc, yet aren't considered "notable" solely because of the lack of print coverage. If towns are inherently notable because of being incorporated and recognized by the bureau of the census, analogous claims could be made about other classes of things - are public companies inherently notable? --Random832(tc) 19:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with print and everything to do with the fact that blogs are self-published and have no semblance of a fact-checking process. They cannot meet the definition of a reliable source. Wikipedia cannot fact-check anything; it's an encyclopedia filled in by volunteers. So we have to rely on the fact-checking mechanisms of other media. Also, the bias of Wikipedia editors is towards websites and web content, so they may think something is more notable than it actually is (whereas they may think something is less notable than it actually is if it was in one of the neglected areas in WP:CSB.) ColourBurst 20:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Also note that notability is not popularity, so saying that something is more popular (the Spears vs. Brahms dilemma, if you will) doesn't necessarily mean it needs an article more. ColourBurst 21:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not talking about popularity, I'm talking about stuff that IS notable, but the sources that it get coverage in are online because the subject matter is primarily or exclusively of interest to the online community. Please continue this in WT:WEB. --Random832(tc) 23:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

However, blogs and similar sites vary; some are operated and moderated by responsible named people or groups, but the authority depends entirely on the actual known reputation of the blog. There are beginning to be some areas where these may be the most reliable source, or the only source. This probably will be an increasing problem in trying to reduce the R of RS to a fixed formulation. (Do not interpret this to mean I like the situation. I deplore it as a threat to standards, but it's there just the same.)DGG 22:44, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Can we get THIS discussion back to the matter of whether and why small towns are or are not inherently notable? I wasn't making a point with this, I really do think that East Nowhere, Kansas doesn't necessarily deserve an article, and that raw census data belongs on wikisource. If you want to talk about notability and "non-trivial source"-ness of blogs, etc, please go over to the discussion already in progress on WT:WEB. I was just disclosing what made me initially think of this.--Random832(tc) 23:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

What is "small"? I'm less worried about East Nowhere, Kansas then I'm worried about systemic bias towards Small Capital, Small Country, Oceania or even Big Town, Non-English-speaking country. ColourBurst 01:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Really, I think anything that there's not enough material to write an article about (and, raw census data is not an article), should be merged into a section of the article on some larger division - notability should be able to be established for any of your examples without saying "settlements are inherently notable". For the first, I'd think national capitals are inherently notable. And, for the second - notability doesn't depend on language, and presence or absence of articles likely has more to do with systemic bias anyway, especially since as it is, the proverbial East Nowhere KS does have an article. If we need a population cutoff, say that any town with a population less than, I don't know, 100, doesn't get an article unless it's otherwise notable. But really, I'm not sure that's necessary. If there's insufficient material to write an article, merge what there is to a larger division (i.e. a county for example, or a "town" in northeast states that use those as larger administrative divisions where the settlements themselves are called villages) --Random832(tc) 14:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

As I understand the guideline (aided by the answers that I got to my question above), a subject is notable if and only if it satisfies the primary notability criterion. This would mean that no subject is inherently notable, because then we would be using a test other than the primary criterion to test for notability. Sancho McCann 01:21, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

"Inherently notable subjects" are those in which the primary notability criterion is going to be met in all cases one can reasonably imagine, or where the subject as a whole and so many of its members are notable that leaving out articles on the remainder of the set for "lack of independant notability" would simply be pedantic. For instance, the group of United States congressmen can be considered inherently notable. Sure, there might be one representative somewhere who no-one on the planet would know from a WP:HOLE in the ground, who never gave a notable speech, and was only elected because his district consisted entirely of his extended family, but leaving him out would be absurd. The same thing is true with towns and mountains and rivers. --tjstrf talk 02:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Sancho, that is "inherently" wrong. The PNC does not trump the criteria set by any of the other notability guidelines. The PNC is only one test for notably that is shared by almost all notability guidelines, the only exception I know of is WP:FICT. The notability guidelines provide other criteria that are specific to their respective subjects. However, if a subject can pass the PNC, it will pass any of the criteria set by the other notability guidelines. --Farix (Talk) 03:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for this correction. So just to clarify, subjects can be deemed notable without passing the PNC? Sancho McCann 03:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, if it also passes one of the other criteria in the subject's specific notability guideline. The PNC is simply the most common, and perhaps the most strict, of criteria that is shared among most of the notability guidelines. Let me use WP:BOOK as an example. A book may have won a major award, such as the Newbery Honor, but does not have the multiple, non-trivial published works whose sources are independent of the book itself which the PNC outlines. But since winning a major award is one of the criteria points in WP:BOOK, the books is considered notable. --Farix (Talk) 04:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you mean WP:BK. But I think I understand now. In WP:BK, passing any one of five tests would deem a subject notable and the PMC is just one of those tests. It isn't clear in WP:LOCAL though that it defines what tests an article about a place could pass to be deemed notable. In fact, it states that its purpose isn't to provide strict criteria like that, but to outline the considerations that should be discussed before deciding on the inclusion of an article about a place. The spirit of this guideline seems to lean towards not making a blanket decision such as "towns are inherently notable", or "towns are notable if and only if...", but rather to give points for discussion in the building of consensus at an AfD. I think an approach like that would be appropriate for articles about towns as well.Sancho McCann 04:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

How likely is it that a Newbery winner will not have anything reporting on it? For Ella Enchanted (an example randomly picked), a casual search in findarticles gets an article from Newsweek, and reviews from Kliatt, ALAN and the Book Report. I just couldn't imagine that any book that wins a major award like that would not get reviews, and only the parameters of the BK criteria might limit whether those reviews are "non-trivial". ColourBurst 15:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Rambot articles have been challenged (and strongly defended) MANY times. Here's just one early example. Real places (whether towns or islands--even ghost towns and micronations-OK, micronations aren't overwhelmingly support, but generally no consensus to delete is ever reached) have consistently been overwhelmingly agreed worthy of inclusion many times. Even the smallest lake has probably out-lasted humanity, and virtually every community has out-lasted at least one generation of people. Including ALL real places is consistent with being a timeless encyclopedia of the universe, as opposed sites that try to document what's notable to people alive at this moment. US Census data being public domain is the primary reason the Wikipedians haven't been able to do the same for other countries, not systemic bias. 76.22.4.86 02:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Since the bot works off census data, the fact that there is census seems to establish some reasonable notability. We shouldn't start an article for a plot of land I randomly call "Nedland", but you're not going to find census data for Nedland.. -- Ned Scott 03:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

"NedLand"? Not Nedva Scottia? --tjstrf talk 03:18, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Is "notability" required for individual articles? I view those articles as geographic stubs which were created to ensure that the geographic collection as a whole is encyclopedic. These stubs can acquire more detail individually, but their joint existence with common information contributes to all geographic needs. (SEWilco 05:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC))

So, why not merge them into county articles unless there is enough detail present for an individual town article? And raw census data still belongs on wikisource. --Random832(tc) 13:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

There is also something of an unconscious New World bias, too. A great many of the permanent year round habited sites in the Americas and Australasia are of recent origin (the last couple of centuries). In the old world there have been many periods of expansion and contraction for many sites of habitation. The best example would be Old Sarum; whilst it has notability as a Rotten Borough it also indicates that what is now (or even a few centuries ago) a few homes once once a thriving centre for the locality. Current population figures and housing density of itself is no indication of an placenames notability. The converse, once separate towns & villages swallowed up by urbanisation of a city, is also true. In the Old World the districts and areas of a large conurbation were likely to have been seperate entities, and can therefore be regarded as notable seperatley from the modern city. LessHeard vanU 14:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This being the english language Wikipedia, I think any "New World bias" is overwhelmed by the bias toward english language source material. I have several hundred pages of U.S. government memos and ship's logs from the First Barbary Wars, and recently hunted down a little Spanish town which was mentioned under an old name in a different language. Maybe Spanish sources have a lot of information about that little town but I don't have it. (SEWilco 19:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC))

The bias I was referring to is that the perception of history is possibly different. Most New World places have a history measured in centuries, if not decades. Old World habitations sometimes have histories of some thousands of years, which of itself may be considered notable even if the place is otherwise obscure. My village, Carleen, is such; the place name indicates a neolithic origin, but it is otherwise unspectacular. Is it notable? How many places that have existed (possibly continously) since the Bronze Age do you know? LessHeard vanU 22:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a finite and 'fairly limited' number of localities possible... I think they are one of the (not too common) things whos mere existence we can accept as the basis of notoriety. It is the sort of material people expect in an encyclopedia. We have good verifiable data (thanks Rambot). Someday, perhaps the same will be true of domain names, but so long as anyone can invent new domains until they turn blue in the face I doubt it. --Gmaxwell 15:28, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Documentation requests: stub placement, globalized locations, don't crap on anons

I have tried to find guidelines on several subjects (if you look at my Talk page you'll see I've been able to find most of the ones I've been looking for), and hope someone here can point me in the right direction (also interested in any new tips or tricks on how to find them myself).

1. Stub placement: I've been editing here for more than 3 years, and stub placement has recently changed, from the long standing 'immediately below last other visible part of the body of the article', which was most often immediately under the 'External links' section. Something like 6 months ago they started showing up below the Categories, which I don't fully support, but can understand the reasoning--stub cats end up at the end of the list. In the last few months they've also started showing up with two blank lines above them, causing extra blank/white space in the article display. Whether or not that is a good thing seems entirely subjective to me (and I think it is a bad thing--requires additional vertical scrolling to view the whole page). My question is, 1) does anybody know anywhere that either or both of these changes was discussed, 2) whether a consensus to overturn a long-standing status quo was reached, and 3) if there were changes in the community consensus, where they are documented?
2. Globalized locations: In my mind, and in discussions with other editors it seems obvious that all geopolitical locations should be described out to the country level on the first reference, to ensure the article serves the global audience. For example, the intro of my place of birth starts "Centralia is a city in Lewis County, Washington, United States.", so people who don't know that that Lewis county, and/or Washington are in the United States can understand where the community the article describes is in the world. Similarly, "London is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom." However, I can't find where that is documented--didn't find it in anything connected to the {{globalize}} template. Surely it's documented somewhere? Anyone have a link?
3. Discouraging anon biting: Is it documented anywhere (specifically—WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL would seem to apply, but they're very broad) that treating anons dismissively, just because they're anons, is frowned upon? Or, to put it other ways, that 'username snobbery' or 'anti-IP bias' is discouraged? I have about 30,000 edits under my largely retired usernames, but just because I've chosen to edit anonymously the last year or so, I'm often being treated like a clueless newcomer with nothing of value to contribute, by people that don't know Wikipedia:Policy or the Wikipedia:Manual of Style half as well as I do. Heck, I helped polish the first version of Wikipedia:Tutorial, and created another Wikipedia documentation page from scratch. Anybody know of anything along the lines of Wikipedia:Don't bite the anons? 76.22.4.86 01:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

For 3, we have this exact guideline at Wikipedia:Please don't bite the newcomers. For 2, we have the Wikipedia:Proper_names as a subsection of the MOS, but doesn't mention your issue. For 1, I don't think it's been discussed anywhere and WP:STUB doesn't actually say anything about where it should be placed. ColourBurst 02:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd think 1 would be a non-issue for most people, and would have so little effect that making a rule about it would violate WP:CREEP.

I'm often slightly on guard when an IP editor suddenly makes a comment that shows a lot of interior knowledge of Wikipedia because it triggers my sockpuppet warning flags. Not when it's on something non-contentious, but if it's a controversial subject or debate page. --tjstrf talk 02:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

But I'm not a 'newcomer' and there are many anons with hundreds, even thousands, of edits, to which Wikipedia:Please don't bite the newcomers doesn't really apply; and while this editor has backed off and admitted they might have misjudged the situation, so I am just using this as an example of one most recent of the many variations on the 'anons can automatically be assumed to be clueless and/or vandals' attitude I regularly get hit with, not a complaint about the user overall, the initial response to my citation of the MoS (regarding capitalization of subject headers) seemed unnecessarily condescending. 76.22.4.86 02:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The way I see it, you shouldn't bite or be rude to anybody on Wikipedia, it's just not professional to completely trash somebody or yell at them for no good reason like a mistake. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 02:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

IP accounts are treated as newbies by default because the majority of them are. Now there are two ways in which I see people treat IPs differently from account-holders: For some members, they insult them/think they're vandals by default. This is a bad thing, I agree. For other members, it means they try to be patient, explain things to them, and help them as members who mean well but are uneducated in policy and whatnot. If you are meeting people of the first type, then I sympathize with you, but if you are complaining about the latter type of behaviour I cannot. If you are not a newbie then having basic policy explained to you every 5 minutes and having people going around "fixing" what they think are mistakes when you actually meant to make them might indeed seem like condescension, but you can't blame them for it if they're trying to help. The practical solution to both types of annoyance is simply to get an account. I realize this isn't the answer you want to hear, but it is the pragmatic one. In terms of WP:AGF, is it not better to assume IPs are bumbling newbies rather than that they are purposefully breaking rules? --tjstrf talk 02:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

As for (1), I've seen both, and it wouldn't bother me, either way. I personally go for the very bottom (below category, below interwikis) because it's easiest for somebody to find and remove that way -- not sure if that's been set down as a guideline, anywhere. WP:STUB mentions a lack of consensus. Either way, not something worth arguing over; if somebody moved a stub tag I placed, I wouldn't even so much as bat an eye at it. *shrug* As for (2), I've seen an essay regarding this at Wikipedia:The Pope is Catholic, and in general it seems like a good idea for an encyclopedia hoping to cater to a wide variety of people. As for (3), I agree that IP editors are in many ways the future of the wiki, and should never be dismissed out of hand. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who started as an IP. – Luna Santin (talk) 07:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't listen to this fool! Can't you see (s)he is not registered?! What a bunch of poppycock suggestions! − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear dear... now, if that's not username snobbery I don't know what is. Even as joke this doesn't go down well. I have no clue about the process of changing people's attitudes, so all I can do here is to provide some stuff to munch on - (1) By the anon, and (2) About the anon. And, please, stop using words like fool or poppycock, it's against Wikiquette. Cheers. 202.168.246.196 14:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Although I appreciate this comment is probably meant as ironic, someone could take it the wrong way. It seems this violates the principles of WP:CIVIL. Please could you consider this in future. AndrewRT(Talk) 14:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I am really sorry that I made kind of a derogatory comment. And, I take this opportunity to praise User:Twas Now for the good work done, as well as putting forward my sympathy for the trouble the user had with anon editors. But, while many of the anons are vandals, sockpuppets and what not, you can't forget that the bulk of WP was developed by anon editors. More importantly, it would be very nice if you mentioned WP:CIVIL when words like fool or poppycock was being used. And, while my 2nd link was to a humorous article, the 1st one was a serious philosophical comment on being anon. Cheers, and thanks for correcting me. 202.168.246.196 16:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

As for number 1, I wouldn't care if the extra blank lines were being added manually by regular editors on occasion, but since there are one or more VERY active BOTs doing it wholesale across all of Wikipedia, I think the change in the long-standing de facto standard of a single blank line ahead of {stub} tags should only have been done following discussion and consensus, rather than arbitrarily based on their personal preference. In other words, I think BOT operators should only follow existing standards, whether de facto or documented, rather than making it up as they go along. 76.22.4.86 01:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

As for number 2, thank you very much for the link to Wikipedia:The Pope is Catholic--should be good enough to refer people to if no one knows of a geographic equivalent. 76.22.4.86 01:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

As for number 3, I have absolutely NO problem with people trying to 'help the newbie' on my talk page (even if I usually know more about the relevant WP policy/guideline(s)). What I DO have a big problem is when the tone of what they write is condescending/derisive/dismissive/etc. or based more on my being an anon than on my actual edits. 76.22.4.86 01:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Including alledged Nobel Prize nominations in bios

Several biographies include claims of Nobel Prize nominations. (Al Gore, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Alfred H. Love, Maksim Kovalevsky, SOS Children's Villages Canada, Hugh Harman, Ding Zilin, Tookie Williams, and Rush Limbaugh to name a few.)

Since the Nobel Committee does not release the names of nominees for 50 years, none of these claims are verifiable (the Nobel Committee neither confirms nor denies any nominations). The fact of whether the nomination was actually made is not verifiable, hence it's against policy to include any of them. Therefore I propose that all of these Nobel Prize nominations included in the bios need to go. —Doug Bell ^talk 12:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Struck out names of people nominated more than 50 years ago. —Doug Bell ^talk 12:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

If the Nobel Committee are the only people who know the names of the nominees (and therefore the only way to get verifiable information regarding who the nominees are), then this is an obvious case of what's "impossible to verify", and therefore must go, per WP:V. --`/aksha 12:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, obviously I agree, but the subject is debated contentiously and separately at each bio, so I'm hoping a centralized discussion on this can establish a uniform consensus on the matter. —Doug Bell ^talk 12:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

On ones such as Al Gore and Rush Limbaugh, we do have published evidence that they were nominated, simply not by the Nobel committee. As long as that fact is made clear in the articles, I fail to see the problem. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

No, we have published claims that they were nominated. Not the same thing as evidence. —Doug Bell ^talk 12:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This comes from a lack of understanding as to how the Nobel nomination process works, I think. Regardless of one's knowledge of it, though, as long as the facts of the case (that it's been claimed by Such-and-Such that So-and-So was nominated or something similar) are presented accurately, there's no problem. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with mentioning Nobel Prize nomination rumors if they are clearly marked as rumors and there are multiple reliable sources that claim somebody was nominated. A similar example is "Christoph Cardinal Schönborn was considered a potential successor of John Paul II": there was considerable media speculation about all the people on the List of papabili in the 2005 papal conclave, but there are no records of the votes in the conclave itself, so we can't reliably say who the real candidates were other than "all cardinals". In any case, WP:V tells us not to say "John Doe was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Pathological Nanoarcheology" (which is unverifiable and unfalsifiable for 50 years), but "The New York Times claimed that John Doe was nominated for the ..., but that was neither confirmed nor denied by the Nobel Committee", which can be verified. These rumors are of course a lot less notable than a verified nomination would be, so unless they attracted considerable media attention, they should not be included. Kusma (討論) 12:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I like others didn't have a complete understanding of how the nominations are made. So I would say that it now makes sense to remove the claim that they were nominated. However, if reliable sources such as The Globe and Mail report that Coutier and Gore were nominated then it should be mentioned in that way. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 13:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

My two cents is that if an editor can provide a reliable source verifying that someone was nominated then the information should stay. However, I can see the other side of the argument that we can't absolutely verify (with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt) that a nomination actually happened until the Nobel Committee releases the name in fifty years. However, I still go back to my original position. However, I believe should apply the "clear and convincing evidence" standard. We talk on Wikipedia all the time about various movies or actors getting Oscar talk before the Osacar nominations are actually given. We also talk about movies and actors being the leading contender after the nomination but before the actual announcement on Oscar night--as long as we have a reliable source to back up such speculation. In the Oscar situation we can't absolutely verify any of this talk until the actual nominations are announced or the winner is announced. But if we quote a reliable source, CNN, for example stating that "Clint Eastwood is the leading contender", then I don't see a problem. Basically the Nobel candidates should be treated just as we do MVPs for sports or Presidential candidates in politics. There has been much Wikipedian ink spilled on Barack Obama and Dr. Condi Rice, even though neither of them are President (yet). I always err on the side of giving a reader more info than less, as long as it is verifiable with a reliable source, and then let the reader decide.----Getaway 13:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Having thought about this I re-did the entry for Sheila Watt-Cloutier. Would something like this be OK? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 14:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that is fine. The statement as rewritten is verifiable. —Doug Bell ^talk 16:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

"Each year the respective Nobel Committees send individual invitations to thousands of members of academies, university professors, scientists from numerous countries, previous Nobel Laureates, members of parliamentary assemblies and others, asking them to submit candidates for the Nobel Prizes for the coming year," [[25]] and therefore persons who may not be bound by statutes of the Nobel Foundation may claim to have nominated someone for a prize. And in the words of the Nobel Foundation's own web site, "Well, either it's just a rumour, or someone among the invited nominators has leaked information. Since the nominations are kept secret for 50 years, you'll have to wait until then to find out." [[26]] Cryptonymius 15:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that nominations made by eligible parties as reported by reputable sources are OK for inclusion. I believe that those nominations which are submitted by ineligible parties but reported by reputable sources should either be excluded or included only with strong mention that the nomination is invalid or made by an ineligible party. Obviously, claims with no reputable sources should be excluded entirely. I take a neutral stance on whether they should be included or not as a general guideline. Vassyana 15:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think stating the nomination as a claim of a nomination, tying the claim to reliable sources, and including a caveat that the claim cannot be verified is acceptable. This creates a statement in the article which is itself verifiable. —Doug Bell ^talk 16:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

If a wikipedian is stating that the claim cannot be verified, that would be in direct conflict with verifiability and so not acceptable. If a reliable source however can be *quoted* as stating that "...so and so says the claim cannot be verified..." that may pass. If the claim is tied to reliable sources and by tied, I mean quoted from (which is typical in the case of controversial claims), that would probably be sufficient to assert the statement in the article. Wjhonson 17:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

An example wording might be "Nobel Prize nominations are not released for 50 years and prior to their release the Nobel Committee neither confirms nor denies any claims of nominations." That is a verifiable statement that puts the claim of a nomination in its proper context. A reliable source, preferrably from the person or organization claiming to have made the nomination, would be needed to make the claim at all, but that source is not a verification that the nomination was in fact made. That fact is not verifiable as the information is not released by the Nobel Committee and there is no other means of verifying the claim short of that. —Doug Bell ^talk 17:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I was one of the people who wanted it removed from the Al Gore article (actually for me the main problem was that it was being mentioned in the opening paragraph of the article). As others have said, the Nobel committee doesn't release who was nominated until 50 years later, and in their rules they discourage people from announcing their nominations. I ask this purely out of ignorance -- has anyone who has been previously announced as a nominee ever won? Evil Monkey - Hello 20:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Over the years I have made several sweeps through Wikipedia and removed scores of unsourced assertions of Peace Prize nominations. I have done so for several reasons. As noted above, nominations are usually unverifiable unless older than 50 years. The exceptions are instances in which the nominators have publicized their nominations which then became the subject of media coverage. (Bob Geldof, Stanley Williams, etc.) Another important reason is that being nominated is not an exceptional honor. Over a hundred people are nominated annually, the pool of potential nominators is vast, and there are no eligibility requirements (other than being alive). An exception there would be the nomination by the American Friends Society (Quakers), who make an annual nomination and do so with such care that it is something of an honor in its own right. So my general view is that nominations should not be included unless the nomination claims are sourced and exceptional. -Will Beback · † · 22:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Will are you sure that it's not a honour? A quick look at the nominators list and then at 39th Canadian Parliament, United Kingdom general election, 2005 and 110th United States Congress would indicate that in those three countries alone there are over 1000 possible nominators just from elected officials. Expand that world wide and include the other people who get nomination papers and that is indeed a vast pool. Yet this large group can't manage to come up with more than 200 nominations. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

How in the world can we even guess at how many nominations there are? Where are you getting the information on the number of nominations—since they don't tell us who was nominated, I'm surprised they would say how many...where? —Doug Bell ^talk 10:33, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

What we do know is that the Nobel committee, in their own words, send out "thousands" of invitations to nominate someone. Even with considerable overlaps of opinion, it stands to reason that hundreds of distinct people get nominated in each category each year. Thus I would argue that it is not a notable honor to be nominated, let alone to be rumored to be nominated. --mglg_(talk) 19:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh I agree it's not notable. I'm just thinking that the numbers are MUCH higher than several hundred. Probably for exactly this type of "I've been nominated" self-promotion. —Doug Bell ^talk 19:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to search for the link, but the Nobel Committee announces the number of nominations received. In recent years it's been around 120. Among others, I've removed nomination claims from the article about a philanthropic car dealer from Ohio and a faith healing dietitian from Brazil. Since any national legislator, and any humanities professor may make a nomination, the only honor is that one person feels the nominee is worth nominating. -Will Beback · † · 20:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's the Nobel Committee's page on the nomination process.[27] They say they've been getting 140 nominations annually in recent years. -Will Beback · † · 20:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I see that Will already linked to the same place I got my info from. mglg, in this case we are talking only about the Peace prize and the links provided reflect that. Will, I would agree that if the persons only claim to notability is the nomination then not only should the claim be removed but the article on that person should be deleted as well. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 21:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the Peace Prize has an entirely different nomination procedure from the other prizes, which have nominating committees composed of experts. -Will Beback · † · 22:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Number of nominations: 2005, 199; 2006, 191; 2007 (so far), 167.[28] —Mike 23:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Nutshells

Are nutshells a good thing that should be encouraged on policy and guideline pages? Personally I think they are good, and their use should be encouraged. I have found them particularly useful if you have to wade through various policies and guidelines trying to find an answer for something.

The reason I ask is that I added one to WP:N and when someone came along and removed it saying "This is already stated below". I would have thought that would always be the case with nutshells and indeed should always be the case. I would appreciate other's views. Thanks AndrewRT(Talk) 14:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to say that the lead section has the same function of the nutshell in the case of WP:N. ColourBurst 15:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Nutshells are a very good idea, I think. Especially on a wiki, and especially on this wiki, the spirit of a rule is just as important as its letter, if not more important. Besides that, it makes things more accessible to the reader, to the new user, and to anybody hoping to have a little bit of context before reading fifty pages of policy which may not always make sense or be coherent. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Depends, really. If you cannot meaningfully summarize the policy/guideline in a short sentence or two, then it doesn't need a nutshell. If the title of the p/g is already a good summary, then it doesn't need a nutshell. In other cases, it's useful. >Radiant< 12:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I think nutshells often end up mis-representing our policies. The reason the policy page is longer than a sentence is because they need to be in order to accurately express our policy. Nutshells should be removed and replaced with terrific intros. Policies which are overly long should be trimmed down. --Gmaxwell 15:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

On at least that one count, I agree: the nutshell is not a substitute for the policy. I do like the idea of giving people a quick rundown, if they don't have time to read the full policy, but can see why others might not agree. – Luna Santin (talk) 19:45, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Deleted articles

I'm surprised we don't offer them under the GFDL for other wikis running MediaWiki software. Could be good for people who want information on webcomics, other stuff considered non-notable here on Wikipedia etc. --sunstar net^talk 14:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

What if they violate WP:COPYVIO? We couldn't do that because we have to premanently remove the info. Of course anyone can copy the info across if they get in in time! AndrewRT(Talk) 14:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

As long as the content is not offensive or copyvio, I can't see any reason why. It could be temporarily undeleted per a new section in WP:DRV. --sunstar net^talk 15:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, if you just ask an administrator for the text of a deleted page, then provided it's not a copyright violation, libellous or anything else like that, they'll retrieve it for you – Qxz 15:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

A number of admins will provide access to deleted revisions, provided the request is reasonable, made in good faith, and there's no secret skeletons hiding in the closet. I think WP:DRV makes some mention of that. Some things should stay very deleted (though many of them are now subject to oversight, not quite all are), but others are harmless. So long as the admin in question is very careful. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

In the past people have suggested that we make deletion have an associated level. When someone deletes a page they select a deletion level or intensity. A minimally deleted page(or revision) could then be viewed, for example, by any logged in user. Additional levels could replace normal deletion and oversight. The ability to delete at different levels could be assigned as separate permissions. Undelete/View and delete access for a particular level could be separate permissions. It's an interesting concept.. but it would require a lot of social, procedural, and software changes. Until this happens, it should be easy enough to make a case to any admin to get a copy of an article which was delete because it was not suitable for wikipedia.--Gmaxwell 15:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

disputedtag

I think that {{disputedtag}} should not be removed if there is an ongoing serious dispute about the guideline, and that removing it should be considered vandalism. --Random832(tc) 14:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. I think common sense covers that pretty well, though; no need to make a whole policy about it – Qxz 15:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

We need to avoid situations where guidelines which have previously been accepted are then disrupted by one or more people who argue against them and then get them overturned on the basis that they don't agree with them. It becomes a bit self-fullfilling.

If a guideline has been adopted then there should be a higher threshold needed for someone to reopen the debate. AndrewRT(Talk) 20:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• The problem is that {{disputedtag}} is reasonably often misused, either by someone who just doesn't like a guideline (note that a small amount of dissent does not equate to a dispute), or for disagreement over the wording (dissent over content does not imply dissent over whether or not it's a guideline). >Radiant< 12:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• So you don't think this is an appropriate tag to use for when changes have been made to the guideline without getting a consensus? --Random832(tc) 14:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• My own view is that the disputed tag is widely abused on guidelines/policies, it still has valid uses in those contexts. It is generally better to revert a bad change and copy it out for discussion on the talk page than sticking a disputed tag on the page and thereby slander the entire document. As far as calling it vandalism: Thats silly.. such actions are almost always done by someone who really believes they are doing good. Bad actions shouldn't be done so we don't need to call everything vandalism in order to ask people not to do it... To me, if someone accused me of vandalism for such a change I'd counter that they were just looking for an excuse to whine at me because their actual complaint was without substance. --Gmaxwell 15:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • So you don't think there's a parallel between removing this and removing a cleanup tag or a speedy deletion tag from an article? --Random832(tc) 01:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The tag is ridiculously abused. And usually the editor slapping it on insists there's no consensus (even if there is) and that there's a huge dispute (even if the tagging editor is the only one disputing it). It should only really be used when both sides come to an impasse and agree to put it up until they figure something out. --Milo H Minderbinder 16:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind the tag if it were mostly used for something other than objecting to statements along the lines of "grass is usually green", saying that there was no consensus to support such a statement (I choose this example particularly because it is evidently acceptable given our article on grass says as much). Chris cheese whine 23:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Use of admin rollback tools

Can someone provide me links as to where it is explicitly mentioned that the use of admin rollback should not be used to revert contentious edits? Previous ArbCom rulings, all of them, if possible, please. Thanks. — Nearly Headless Nick 14:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This Google search lists some arbitration pages which might be of use, but I haven't managed to find anything yet which explicitly says that rollback cann't be used to revert contentious edits. Help:Reverting#Rollback tells you when not to use it in the third paragraph of that section, but that page isn't marked as policy. Tra (Talk) 15:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I've always treated the help pages as de facto policy, there's a lot in them we treat as policy, WP:ES for example. Steve block Talk 21:23, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

• WP:AAP gives community opinion on the restriction. A majority opposes restricting rollback to just vandalism. >Radiant< 12:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

First Person Accounts

I know that much discussion and probably a fair amount of brain damage has occured over the issue of first person accounts and the resolution that they are not appropriate for Wiki. I posted one regarding a train wreck I was in (my first real entry to Wiki) and it was deleted in a fairly abrupt manner. While, of course, I think my entry added a lot to the story and was actually more accurate than many news reports that were cited, I accepted the fact of the community that such postings are not appropriate. Well I was reading the 'Animal House' movie entry a few days ago and lo and behold there is an entry from one of the writers of the movie talking about different options for one of the scenes - another first person account. It really added a lot to the story and should not be deleted in my opinion.

I continue to grapple with first person accounts for Wiki. In my opinion they add a lot to the entry and arguably make it much better and probably more accurate. A sincere yet rigid devotion to using only quoted sources seems to limit the usefulness, accuracy and texture of the entries. And let's be honest, even with a well written entry like the one for "Animal House" it seems like there were a lot of 'needs citation' even for blindly obvious statements like the fact that toga parties increased after the movie.

Is there some way to compromise on this? Can we create a section in every entry for first person accounts or a mirror wiki dedicated to first person accounts? It seems to me that the many eyeballs philosphy will keep the junk at the bottom and allow the cream to rise to the top for these. Perhaps a voting type system could be used or the existing edits approach. By clearly segregating first person from the 'main' cited entries it seems like we could have the best of both worlds and have a better handle on the truth.

While I know most look upon Wiki as an encyclopedia, I would argue that it is really a social artifact containing our collective perceptions and knowledge. Expanding its reach in a thoughtful way could make it an even more powerful tool.

--Taganwiki 21:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem comes up when person A gives a first person account, but person B asks, "How can I know that you're not lying or mistaken person A?" Wikipedia doesn't have dedicated and reliable fact-checking machinery in place to settle this type of question, so we need to rely on the reliable sources that do have this ability. Certainly, this does end up eliminating some true information, but great articles can still be written given this trade-off. Sancho McCann 21:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikinews: is for first person accounts. --Kim Bruning 13:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Hm. Does wikinews mind if you write old news articles? I don't see why they would... after all new news articles will all be old someday themselves, and I hope that they won't just delete them! :)--Gmaxwell 15:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Please note that there is a difference between first person account of a writer of a movie that is reliably published, and the personal accounts of an editor of Wikipedia. If your account of the train wreck is published by a reliable source such as a newpaper, broadcast transcript, or book then some one can use it as a source in Wikipedia. If not, then it can not be used as it would be in contradiction of both WP:NOR and WP:WS. Please also note that it is frowned upon for an editor to cite their own work (of course, the author can always ask someone else to cite it for him). Blueboar 18:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal: Romanization of Mongolian

After sporatic discussions over more than a year, I've tried to compose what I hope to be a decent proposal for Wikipedia:Romanization_of_Mongolian. Unfortunately, there's a very small circle of people who participated so far, and most of them don't seem to have any linguistic background. We'd welcome more input on the respective talk page, or on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Cyrillic). --Latebird 17:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Rights of those with arbcom sanctions?

I have had a Arbcom case against me in the past. I am now, I believe being harrassed based on it. Any dispute with a user, meaning disagreement involves a user threatening an Arbcom hearing against me. There is a page for enforcement that lets people complain about those who have had hearings, where do those who feel they are being harrassed because of them have to go? I tried asking on Arbcom Enforcement page, but was told it was not the best place and their didnt seem to be any place for it. I guess I am opening the floor to a discussion on creating a place for that, similar to Arbcom Enforcement, but where those with sanctions against them can go if they feel they are being harrassed, directly to the ear of Arbcom, so it is equal to those complaining at Arbcom Enforcement. --NuclearZer0 21:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Entertainment.wikia.com a trusted source?

I think the question should be asked although I know the answer: Is Entertainment.wikia.com considered to have trusted source material? (SEWilco 03:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC))

No. User-editable content is never considered a reliable source (not even Wikipedia). The only exception might be Citizendium's expert model. ColourBurst 03:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Any substantive edits to pages marked as {{policy}} without reaching a consensus beforehand may be reverted on sight and without limit

Proposing a new policy to do what the section title says. --Random832(tc) 04:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see the need to say this. If someone makes a large scale edit that seems... wrong... then people will revert it and discuss without being told to do so. The problem with the statement is that it might limit things where the change is to reflect a consensus found on another talk page, etc. Then you get people revert warning saying "no consensus was found here" etc etc. Sometimes a big edit is ok, usually not often for policy pages, but it can still happen. -- Ned Scott 07:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Wait, is this about those recent disputes you've been in? No offense but, for crying out loud, can you at least make the proposal when it doesn't look like a blatant conflict of interest? -- Ned Scott 07:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism is already limitless-revert-on-sight. What sort of other edits would be so heinous as to sanction breaches of 3RR? Chris cheese whine 09:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Lists of works: ordered chronologically or reverse-chronologically?

Should lists of works be listed in chronological order or reverse-chronological order? Please vote Chronological or Reverse at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/List ordering. 10:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to have a hard guideline on this? Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 11:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This can better be discussed at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) instead of voting. Garion96 (talk) 11:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Voting is evil, but why is there a dispute in the first place? --Farix (Talk) 12:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)