Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

[[:|WP:VPP]]

The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new other than a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.

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

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IP editors should be blocked…

I would like to propose a new guideline:

IP editors should be blocked for 2 weeks each time 10 different users suggest that they create an account, a user may suggest account creation any number of times as long as they suggest once per "10 suggest cycle." An IP editor must have 1 month to try out Wikipedia before being blocked for this reason, after the IP editor's block has expired the editor must have an additional 2 weeks to continue to try out Wikipedia before they can be blocked again for this reason. When an IP editor has not made any contributions for 1 month and then makes another contribution an editor with blocking powers cannot block the editor again for this reason for 1 month then 2 weeks each "10 suggest cycle" again.

What do you think? Tcrow777 talk 06:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No. It's a foundation issue. We can't change it. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This would be a guideline, the IP editors would still be able to try out Wikipedia before registering. Tcrow777 talk 06:41, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, there's no "try-out". "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" is a founding principle. Your idea seeks to change that. That's not happening, plain and simple. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:51, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think of "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" differently, if this becomes a guideline then anyone can still edit, even IP editors, after an IP editor trys out Wikipedia, they can create an account, anyone could still edit Wikipedia, anyone can create an account. Tcrow777 talk 07:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you take The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit at face value, it's against policy to block anyone ever. — The Storm Surfer 07:17, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What this suggests is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit until enough people bitch at them to register". Sorry for being frank, but that's what it's saying. This isn't a difficult concept to understand. IP users get to edit same as you or me. So long as they follow the rules, there is nothing harmful about them editing anomalously. If they break the rules, they get blocked. Plus, your guideline would be woefully ineffective against dynamic IPs, and would hamper a number of decent IP editors. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 07:21, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" is a founding principle. Your idea seeks to change that. No it doesn't, because anyone can get a UID and use that for editing. But this in turn shows how this proposal would anyway be ineffectual (unless implemented in conjunction with lots of other changes): Dimwits, nitwits, fools, pseudoscience-pushers, advertisers, vandals etc who now edit as IPs would instead just get one new UID after another and edit via those UIDs. Incidentally, for a person who wants to reform WP for the better, Tcrow777 has an extraordinarily bulky signature. -- Hoary 07:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can say that I am tired of the "Do you want me to register? Sorry, not interested. A string of numbers is all I need:}" attitude that many IP editors have, this guideline will not efect dynamic IPs (we have ways of telling the difference). Tcrow777 talk 07:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For someone with so few article edits, why does it concern you so much that some IP have a name? IP editing hurts no one, and as Hoery points out it wouldn't stop people from making throwaway accounts over and over. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 07:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My artlcle edit count is irrelevant. Tcrow777 (talk) 07:42, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So is your signature, but it's still annoying and something brought up. Also, you didn't answer the rest of my question. Is your only reason for proposing this guideline annoyance? Is there any merit to this proposal beside your annoyance? There's nothing wrong with IPs editing, and in fact it makes policing the bag eggs among them all the more simple. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 07:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Goodnight! Tcrow777 (talk) 08:05, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"...luverlee, "IP's Should Be Banned!", that, the Norwegien Blue!"(With apologies to Monty & Friends) LessHeard vanU 12:39, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why do IP editors refuse to get an account so many times when it is suggested? Oh, by the way, I changed my sig, even when there was nothing wrong with it. Tcrow777 (talk) 19:42, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, no, there was nothing wrong with your sig - and it was a pointless arguement to refer to it. There is nothing in the rules, policies and guidelines that meant you should have needed to alter it... as there is nothing in said rules, policies or guidelines that say you must register to edit Wikipedia. I suggest you revert your sig to the way you had it, and you grit your teeth and allow the contributions of ip's. LessHeard vanU 20:09, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I like IP editors and think they have the right to contribute to Wikipedia, but when a really good IP editor gets many suggestions to register and they turn them all down, I think that is just wrong. Tcrow777 talk 22:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And they should be banned because you think it's wrong? — Someguy0830 (T | C) 22:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I understand the point of this guideline. What's to be gained? -Chunky Rice 22:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Those stubborn IP editors get an account. They will not be banned, they will just get a 2 week block. Tcrow777 talk 22:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What's it to you if they don't register? Is it harming you in some way? If not, Wikipedia doesn't cater to your annoyances. Maybe they don't want to register. It's not up to us to force it on them. Regardless, this has about as much chance of happening as your "ban bad language" proposal a while back. You should turn your attention to other, more helpful pursuits, rather than harping on an issue you can't change. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 23:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

IP editors who refuse to register are harmful to Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales said himself in response to a complaint by an IP editor:

"Sorry, but anon ip numbers do not have the same civil rights as logged in members of the community. If you want to be a good editor, get an account, make good edits. I really don't care about your complaint as currently stated." -- Jimbo Wales

Tcrow777 talk 23:19, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Really? I don't see the word harmful. I don't even see the implication. I see a lack of importance, which is not the same as harmful. I suggest you not misinterpret selective quotes to suit your needs. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 23:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, this is the source of Tcrow's complaints: User talk:24.20.69.240. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 23:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Prove it! Why are you against IP editors registering? Tcrow777 talk 23:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No one is against it. However, no one should be required to make an account in order to edit. If someone does not wish to register, then so be it. Does it really matter in the end? No - they make their edits irregardless of what name they are under. Drop it. This topic is a beaten bush. Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 23:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The way I see it is you either want them to register, or you are against them registering. Tcrow777 talk 23:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hit a nerve, did I? One, you quote the first line on that talk page: "Sorry, not interested. A string of numbers is all I need:}". Two, you act like a troll and remove his userboxes under a flimsy pretext. As for your other question, again you have a way of misinterpreting words. I did not say I'm against it. I said it's their choice. If they do not want to register, we have no right to force it upon them, not when their ability to edit is a fundamental part of Wikipedia. Now, I ask you once more, what do you have against them editing anonymously, aside from simply finding their refusal to register annoying? — Someguy0830 (T | C) 23:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm clarifying that no one here is against someone getting an account, which you accused Someguy0830 of above. I am against a proposal that requires people to register, as it is ultimately futile. What is the point of requiring them to register? If someone is going to vandalize, they will vandalize whether it is with or without an account. Someone is not going to become a better editor merely by getting an account either. What is the reasoning behind your proposal? Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 23:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I will never be able to get you to understand my point of view, so I give up! Tcrow777 talk 00:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not only am I against any sort of forced or required registration but the above "formula" is needlessly complicated and would be hard to practically enforce. Any block would require an admin to count the number of requests since the last block, see how long they have been editing since being blocked, and then check their own block log to make sure they have not blocked that IP in the last month. It also seems sort of rude, blocking people who are making constructive contributions but not registering. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 01:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have edited since the start of 2007 but only created an account recently - Pheonix15 14:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am strongly against anything that furthers the trend of IP addresses contributors being second-class citizens. Why are you trying to block genuine contributors to the project just because of their preference regarding signing p? -81.178.104.145 02:58, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Horrible idea. Why would we ever willingly stop people from making positive contributions to the project? Who cares if they're logged in? A productive IP is still productive, a vandalizing account is still a vandal. When it comes to improving the project it doesn't matter. EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:16, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Exactly. If an anon wants to contribute positively, he only has 6 weeks to do so? That's against policy, it's downright wrong; it's forceful and arrogant. A person should be able decide for themselves.James Luftan ^contribs 17:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Once upon a time I was a registered user (User:Orkadian). Then User:Mais oui! took a dislike to my contributions because they disagreed with his point of view and so he started a) reverting my every edit and then b) constantly accused me of being a sock puppet of another user he disliked until I got unjustly banned. As a registered user it is all to easy to become prey to POV stalkers like User:Mais oui! (The unjustly blocked User:Orkadian)

"If you take The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit at face value, it's against policy to block anyone ever."

Exactly. Anyone can create an account. Anons cause far more hassle than is justified by what little they contribute.

"I am strongly against anything that furthers the trend of IP addresses contributors being second-class citizens. Why are you trying to block genuine contributors to the project just because of their preference regarding signing p?"

Second class citizens? Preference? Quite frankly this is just silly. There is absolutely no reason why people wishing to contribute shouldnt take the few seconds required to set up an account. Its a pretty minor and petty convenience to become protective of and its also a convenience which allows a hell of a lot more vandalism to go on than would be the case if everyone had to be registered. siarach 11:26, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is equally easy for registered users to vandalise Wikipedia, although they may have to use different techniques. I will be accused of making personal attacks for saying this, but it needs to be said nevertheless, that some registered users will do their utmost to push their particular point of view, even to the extent of getting other innocent registered users who disagree with them banned from editing (see above). They will make so many edits and reversions in a day, that their opinion simply swamps all dissent, and dissenters get pushed aside, put off contributing, attacked and banned on account of a barrage of false accusations. I think that a limit should be placed on the number of edits any user (registered or IP) can make in a 24 hour period. This would restrict all types of vandalism and curb the excesses of those who will regularly make over 100 edits a day - most of them blanket reversions of the edits of users with whom they disagree. Furthermore, such a limitation would make an edit too valuable a comodity to waste on vendettas and false accusations. (The unjustly blocked User:Orkadian).

I definitely agree. I have seen so much vandalism by new users and other users that have left Wikipedia entirely because of attacks. The worst thing is if you get one of these POV Wikipedians that become admins! (See User:Ryulong). Power is a very dangerous thing indeed. And, sadly, Wikipedia rarely protects its users, but merely its own. Silver seren 21:01, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:PERRENIAL#Prohibit anonymous users from editing. ←Ben^B4 11:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I do think it should be a guideline, but not a policy. Actually, I think we should try to enforce existing policies, not come up with new ones to stress the admins. Laleena^{Talk to me} _{Contributions to Wikipedia} 20:26, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Notability

The single most poisonous rule on the entire site that allows for mob rule on what a plurality cares about. If someone cares enough to write about it, and it's verifiable, it should have a space. This is the bloody 21st century Library of Alexandria, we shouldn't turn anything away. This article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-notability/Essay says it all. Thanos6 01:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree we should relax on the Notability guideline. Abolishing it altogether is not a good idea, because we need the capacity to verify and cross-check, and we cannot do that with millions of articles on non-noteable subjects.  Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 22:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we should. Any random person might care to write about themselves, and their existence, at least, is verifiable from the government. So we get millions of articles saying "Bob is a guy" (or even worse, they accumulate bad things, because we can't monitor that much). -Amarkov moo! 01:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This has been addressed in Uncle G's essay, User:Uncle G/On notability. At any rate, for the most part, meeting the concepts in Uncle G's essay guarantees someone or something an article or merger somewhere nowadays, unless it's a WP:BLP then who knows. I'm not really sure what this thread hopes to accomplish though... we've had many, many debates on this subject. --W.marsh 02:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And I'll keep debating it until it changes, the site dies, or I do. Thanos6 05:18, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then debate it, please. The alternative to notability is having a bunch of articles verified solely from random official records, which means the aforementioned millions of "Bob is a guy" articles. Why is this good? -Amarkov moo! 05:27, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because it's information. If it's true, if it exists, there is no such thing as bad information. Our goal should be nothing less than the sum total of all human knowledge. Thanos6 06:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, but the collection of all human knowledge is not the job of an encyclopedia, it's the job of a database or databank of some sort. The American Heritage Dictionary starts its definition of encyclopedia with "A comprehensive reference work" - I'd suggest that you're focusing too much on the comprehensive part and are forgetting the reference part. You can, of course, argue the degree of notability required for a certain type of article - I think certain restrictions in WP:BIO could be loosened, for instance - but you're never going to be able to convince people that the notability restrictions should be eliminated completely, because many of the resultant articles would be irrelevant to the purpose of an encyclopedia. --Tim4christ17 ^talk 07:03, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I fail to see how All Human Knowledge (AHK) would compromise this site's purpose as a reference work. You look up, say, a restaurant (whether world-famous or known just in its hometown) and from there go on to a list of similar restaurants or a list of restaurants in that town or neighborhood. And each of those in turn branches off to dozens if not hundreds of other articles, much as paper encyclopedias will direct you to other related articles. Will all the "Bob is a guy" articles be like this? No, not at first, but like all articles on this site, they could and would be improved. Thanos6 07:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There would be millions of these "Bob is a guy" articles. There is no possible way you could possibly improve all of them. Those numbers would increase exponentially due to vandals creating articles for malicious purpoess. Wikipedia would become absolutely unmanageable. In any case, all of those articles would violate WP:NOT#INFO and simply be irrelevant to the casual viewer in every way possible. Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 08:00, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not forgetting, of course, that Bob(bie) may be a gal... The lynchpin is not what you know should go in an encyclopedia but the potential need for it to be searched by someone who doesn't. Bobby/ie doesn't meet that need. LessHeard vanU 09:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For me, the line is drawn by the question: what is the likelihood that someone (unconnected to "Bob") will need to look up information about "Bob"? If we think that this is likely, then we should have an article on "Bob"... if we think it is not likely, then we should not have an article. Blueboar 15:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) Also keep in mind that to verify information about "Bob" or "Bobbie" you would have to use public records, data bases, etc. Doesn't that constitute "original research" from "primary sources"--something we are not supposed to do? So we would have to change the guidelines not only for notability, but also for verifiability. --Eriastrum 17:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it needs be changed, then let it change. Don't keep a useless rule around simply because it's been around. *sighs* It bitterly amuses me that one of the principles of this place is alledgedly be bold but then everyone clings to the poisonous Notability rule like a piece of driftwood in the open sea as an excuse NOT to be bold and go beyond what any reference work or database in history has been. Thanos6 17:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is anyone stopping you from starting a "wiki of all existing knowledge"? No. If the Wikipedia suddenly changed to allowing all possible bits of knowledge, would the Wikipedia collapse upon itself with a huge amount of unverifiable tripe? Yes. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 20:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The answer to this is the long-standing policy that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Or, to put it another way, just because something happens to be true doesn't mean it belongs in an encyclopedia. We have standards, after all. My goldfish does not meet them. >Radiant< 11:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree that "notability" needs some serious work for Wikipedia. I'm a (weak) deletionist, but I'm happy to see a gajillion "Bob is a guy" articles if they're sourced, and accurate, and written well, and don't insult Bob, or inflate his importance. But how for would you go with 'not notable, but has verifiable sources about it' - there's plenty of stuff about recent fads (name some children's cartoon / merchandising brand here) but not about fads of equal importance from the 80s. And then do you include primary sources, where that source is fiction? "Bob is a guy" is not good, but "Bob is a pokemon, he is green with three legs" is even worse, eh? 84.12.142.218 12:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Zeitgeist the Movie

google video views

When the movie had 300.000 views in its first two weeks it was deemed non-notable, because no RS seemed to take notice. It is now over 1.200.000 views, and I was wondering: is there a number of views which would make the movie notable without it being noted by a generally recognized external authority? I would like to suggest 10.000.000 views, which at the present rate of 50.000 per day will be reached in 200 days, ergo around February 2008. I can put it in my diary then.  Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 22:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that if you do this, you're starting what will inevitably become a giant snowball, where there's now the argument "If videos on Google have a loophole to avoid RS and WP:N, why can't the song that my brother wrote or my girlfriend's cat have an article?" It may be a bit extreme, but there are people who will take advantage of whatever they can get. - Irishnightwish 12:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It still needs reliable sources. Just pointing to the Youtube page doesn't do it. Corvus cornix 21:04, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that the counter of google is a reliable primary source for the number of views. Why not, then?  Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 05:42, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If the google video page is the only source, all we can say about it is "X is a video with Y views on google." That's not sufficient. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:26, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright of certain works of modern art

I've noticed that a number of images depicting works of modern art are tagged as copyrighted and included in WP under fair use, despite the fact that the artists have died more than 70 years ago. Shouldn't these images be considered as being in the Public Domain? I've seen this pattern in quite a few images and have inquired in the relevant Image talk pages, however (a) I want to know if my reasoning is correct and (b) if it is correct, it would be interesting to find out weather this is a generalized pattern with more such images of works of art whose creators died more than 70 years ago and have been inappropriately tagged as copyrighted.

The images I've spotted so far are these:

Image:'PIÉTA', drypoint by Lovis Corinth, 1920.jpg, creator Lovis Corinth died in 1925
Image:Deer in the Woods II.jpg, crator Franz Marc died in 1916
Image:The Fate of the Animals.jpg, as above
Image:Fighting Forms.jpg, as above
Image:Franz Marc The Lamb.jpg, as above
Image:'Standing Youth', cast stone sculpture by Wilhelm Lehmbruck, 1913, Museum of Modern Art (New York City).jpg, creator Wilhelm Lehmbruck died in 1919

--Michalis Famelis (talk) 12:30, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If they died over 70 years ago then they are public domain. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 12:40, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It should be noted that a photograph of a sculpture such as "Standing Youth" above will have its own copyright separatefrom the sculpture. Dsmdgold 12:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So, the 70 year limit is correct? Is it safe to re-tag at least the above images? Oh, and is there any other place on WP I could inquire about this? --Michalis Famelis (talk) 17:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That is my understanding. In my opinion the apropriate tag would be {{pd-art}} for everything except the picture of the Lembruck sculpture. Dsmdgold 02:31, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not so quick. The photos of these works of art may be indeed copyrighted, by the Museum, the photographer, or the owner of the work of art. {{pd-art}} is not suitable. You need to provide the source of the image and the proper licensing tag added. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I thought one couldn't claim copyright on a reproduction of a previously copyrighted item. There was a debate a few weeks ago about an unmodified scan of an old image (really old, like 1600s) that a library was claiming copyright over, and I think it was determined that they could not claim copyright on the scan. But perhaps I'm remembering this wrong. Natalie 17:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Natalie is correct, unless you were referring to a photo of a sculpture. Accurate photographic reproductions of two-dimensional images are not independently copyrightable in the U.S., because such photos lack the requisite originality or creativity—all you've done is make an accurate copy. American copyright law only protects creative expression, not labor or skill. See Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. (and more generally, Feist v. Rural). However, photographs of three-dimensional objects are independently copyrightable because the photographer has to make creative choices as to composition, lighting, etc. Postdlf 02:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, no. English Wikipedia follows US copyright law, under which the "70 years after death" rule is not relevant (except in a few rare cases). Usually, the work needs to have been published (e.g., reproduced in a book, on a postcard, on a poster, etc.) prior to 1923. Works published after 1923 can be public domain in certain circumstances if the first publication was outside the US, but this is a bit complicated; see this chart for more. —Celithemis 01:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The "70 years after death" rule is U.S. law - take a look at Wikipedia:Public domain#Artworks. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That guideline is extremely misleading. The 70 year rule applies only to works not published until after December 31, 2002. That can happen, but it's a rare case. If a painting got published in an exhibition catalog, art book, magazine or newspaper article, or anywhere else prior to 2003 -- even once -- then the life+70 rule does not apply. That's going to be the case for most works that have received enough attention for anyone to bother including them in Wikipedia in the first place. —Celithemis 02:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I think we can safely (and pragmatically) assume that a famous painting/painting by a famous artist has been "published," absent information to the contrary ("this painting remained hidden in the artist's basement until decades after his death"). Postdlf 02:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Which means the current guideline needs to be changed. I'm trying to start discussion of this at Wikipedia talk:Public domain#Misleading_advice_on_artworks. —Celithemis 01:25, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Popular culture references

Often, I come upon articles that have (or consist entirely of) trivial references to an article subject in various media. I think that Wikipedia needs a policy on this. I think that they should be aggressively removed, per my essay here. I welcome community feedback. --Eyrian 19:27, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Concur. Allowing any trivia or pop-culture refences, even if they are especially notable, just makes it that much harder to keep the truly non-notable ones out, as every game user feels their game is notable! - BillCJ 20:18, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care for popular culture or trivia sections. Once in a while, though, there may be a popular movie that contains a good moving image of the subject of the article. On other occasions, the only exposure most of the general public has had to the topic of the article may have been in a popular movie or book, and that depiction might have been wrong. In such cases, I think it might be worth mentioning the popular depiction in the article. --Gerry Ashton 22:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have mixed feelings about trivia sections, but I support moving them off to separate articles once they become large enough. I know WP:BHTT is on a list of arguments to avoid but it does serve a purpose. Squidfryerchef 04:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps WP:TRIVIA will help? Blueboar 13:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections. I do not personally recommend the strict removal of trivia. Dcoetzee 14:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I say slash them and burn them. With a very few exceptions, these lists are just useless and unencyclopedic cruft-magnets. Anything worthwhile can be included in the main body of the article. --John 18:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well said! I've gotten very tired of cruft-wrangling, and feel it's time for pop-culture sections to go. - BillCJ 18:17, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All interested parties: Please see Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Not a trivia collection. --Eyrian 21:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Look, could someone please start up a wiki where this stuff can be kept? Because I'm sick of this mania for removing anything that might actually be useful. -Multivitamin 22:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree only that there seems to be an unseemly amount of aggression involved in the campaign to remove this material. There seems to be a complete lack of attention to nuance involved.

There are articles where historical or legendary figures play such a large role in popular culture that an article such as these seems absolutely necessary, even if the current article sucks and is in dire need of improvement. (E.g. Adolf Hitler in popular culture). With mythological or legendary creatures, current appearances and uses are in some sense as valid as "classical" ones, and should stay or merge (E.g. phoenix in popular culture). Then there are ones that seem ridiculous, mostly because the title subject of the fork is popular culture in the first instance. (E.g. Britney Spears in popular culture). People who want all of this material gone don't see a difference.

The anti popular-culture agenda has been misused. Notoriously so, in the case of Richard Dawkins, where a group of his groupies refuse to allow his article to admit that he was satirized in the South Park episode "Go God Go", despite the fact that South Park's audience exceeds that of Dawkins's scientific works or atheist screeds by at least a factor of ten.

I think it's time to step back from the whole business. Vague and litigious words like trivia and indiscriminate should not be used in guidelines. The wikilawyering that claims that recognizing allusions is "original research" needs to be fish-slapped; noticing these things is neither original to the editor who sees them, nor pushing an agenda in the typical case, and a citation to the work in which an allusion appears is reference enough. I'd be prepared to take the deletion of "trivia" more seriously if and when some greater sensitivity is shown to the variety of subjects involved here. - Smerdis of Tlön 19:43, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As Wikipedians, we all agree to adhere to the encyclopedia's core values of verifiability and notability: our articles must be accurate and their subjects must be significant. We regularly delete articles that fail to demonstrate these tenants, why should we keep articles of list of things that fail to demonstrate them? I agree with Eyrian that in popular culture sections are a bane to the encyclopedia, and that their systematic removal is in the best interest of our cause.

The first issue I take with in popular culture articles is their lax approach to verifiability. These articles accumulate vast amounts of original research as editors add in "popular interpretations" of symbolism and whatnot in media, art, and music. Connections are insinuated between unrelated items, without a proper source to defend them. For example:

From Phoenix in popular culture:"Some literary critics believe the conclusion of Andrew Marvell's 1681 poem "To His Coy Mistress" may allude to the phoenix, given its references to birds and fire," "In the anime series Beyblade, characters battle using a form of spinning top, many of which contain "bit-beasts" which are based on animals including mythological creatures. One such bit-beast is named Dranzer and is based on the Phoenix."

From Classical elements in popular culture:"The Fantastic Four are based loosely off elementals: the Human Torch and the Thing personify Fire and Earth, Mister Fantastic's fluid nature mimics Water, and the Invisible Woman can become as transparent as Air, in addition to her "invisible force" fields. In some continuities, their most recurring enemy, Dr. Doom, represented Metal and/or Lightning."

From Georgia Tech in popular culture:"In the movie Contact (1997), the character S.R. Hadden (played by John Hurt), responds to a comment about his technical abilities with the statement: 'Once upon a time, I was a hell of an engineer'. This is a reference to Georgia Tech's fight song, Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech."

From Kent State shootings in popular culture:"There is also speculation that the second verse in John Denver's "Stonehaven Sunset" refers to Kent State."

From Milton Keynes in popular culture:"The city's road system, with its abundance of roundabouts and scarcity of traffic lights, is famously difficult to navigate for those unfamiliar with the city, while self-evident to locals. The resultant frustration for visiting motorists is almost certainly the origin of Milton Keynes' often surprisingly bitter reputation with out-of-towners."

None of these claims are referenced. Some might be accurate representations of cultural ties, but who knows? If there's a source for the Contact quote that says, "Yeah, I like Georgia Tech. S'why I made that character reference it when I wrote the screenplay," then we've gone somewhere. As it stands, it might just be a regular guy saying he was good at his job.

The second, and far more important criticism I have of in popular culture articles deals with notability, though. Wikipedia has a policy of keeping minorly important people, things, and ideas out of the encyclopedia. This prevents us from downgrading into a social networking site or glorified blog. Why should the same rule not apply to in popular culture lists? The majority of references are of little significance. For example:

From Satan in popular culture:"In Charmed, The Source of All Evil is an elected (or descended) king of all the demons, comparable to the devil, which he is referred to as once in season one," "Him, a character on the animated series, The Powerpuff Girls, is a cheerfully evil, red-skinned, cross-dressing demon," "The adult animated comedy show Aaagh! It's the Mr. Hell Show is hosted by Mr Hell who bears a striking resemblance to Satan himself."

From Chevrolet Corvette in popular culture: "Eiffel 65's song "I'm Blue" mentions a blue Corvette," "Gremlins, Gizmo drives a pink Corvette toy-car," "Malcolm McDowell drives a C3 Corvette in Blue Thunder."

From NYU in popular culture: "Will Truman (from Will & Grace) attended NYU Law," "In Clueless, Cher gives Josh advice: "I hear the girls at NYU aren't at all particular," "In Avenue Q, the song "There is Life Outside Your Apartment" mentions NYU."

Why are any of these things important? If I created Places mentioned in Avenue Q, it would be torn to shreds. And yet, the fact that NYU is mentioned in Avenue Q is worthy of inclusion? The same goes for Vehicles operated by Gremlins. Easy deletion fodder, but individually mentioned, worthy of inclusion. There is no threshold of significance when the only qualifier for a pop-culture reference is that it a something appeared in a something else. Tables in popular culture would be of similar quality and theme, and deleted with impunity.

Yes, I understand that the same can't be said for every mention in every list. There are some references out there that are deliberate, sourced, and present some sort of literary or critical value. God help me, I can't find any at the moment, but I'm sure they exist. And when they do, I believe they should be included in the subject article. In the end, any reference that is both notable and verifiable can add value to the encyclopedia. Noting that Chipoltle restaurants once had a slogan on their bag claiming "our burritos go to eleven" does not. Consequentially 02:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As I just mentioned elsewhere, sometimes ir/relevance is obvious. Sometimes the trivia has to accumulate to a point where a pattern appears as to some of it being relevant or some being irrelevant. (SEWilco 01:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC))[reply]

That pattern isn't our job to determine, though. By asserting that our growing list of references in other media is a pattern of notability is WP:OR, unless there's WP:RS that say it first. I'm not at all opposed to an article on a particular entity's effect on media, but that has to come from a WP:V and WP:N perspective. If an academic paper is published saying that the appearance of the Eiffel Tower in Deep Impact holds a deeper symbolism, that's one thing. If an author reveals in an interview that he chose phoenix-like imagery to connect his piece to mythology, that's alright. But to randomly chronicle every appearance, no matter how insignificant, is bad for the encyclopedia. Consequentially 05:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The real question is, what do you do with this sort of material? It has ever been my practice not to simply remove contributions that I find dubious or unimproving without first preserving the contested content on the talk page. It seems common courtesy, respectful of the contributions of others, and lets strangers to the difference of opinion know what we are talking about.

Instead, what seems to happen now is not this. The practice seems to have taken root to fork out these edits into separate "in popular culture" articles, which are then proposed for deletion en masse in episodic spasms. This is not as good, for multiple reasons; most seriously, it leads to the potential loss of valuable contributions.

Phoenix in popular culture is a perfect example. As a mythical critter, the phoenix exists only as long as people remember and rehearse the legend to yet another generation. The use of the phoenix as a heraldic symbol belongs in the article. So, for that matter, do at least some appearances of the legend in well known works of fiction. We can trust people to use their brains; if something is called a phoenix and it seems associated with fire and rebirth, it belongs somehow.

No, not every such appearance should be catalogued; but deleting the data en masse and wiping it from the history is an even worse thing to do. - Smerdis of Tlön 04:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I feel no remorse for the removal of factoids and irrelevant trivia from the encyclopedia, but we can't keep bad content because someone worked hard on it. If the information is valuable, and by that I mean it has significance and is verifiable, then it belongs in an article, maybe even the main article. But we both know that it's not these brilliant gems of cultural weight that are getting these articles forked and deleted. I suspect that if we held popular culture references to a higher standard when determining when to include them, we'd never have a long, listy section that needed forking. Consequentially 05:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"I feel no remorse for the removal of factoids and irrelevant trivia from the encyclopedia, but we can't keep bad content because someone worked hard on it." Amen to that! Bulldog123 10:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GFDL copy & paste

As a RC-patroller, I see it several times a day, that users move content per copy & paste (or cut & paste) from one article to another one, neither mentioning at least the 5 main authors of the original article nor terming the original article. In my understanding (and as we handle this so on de.wikipedia) this is a violation of the GFDL (esp. section 4B).

Example (only to illustrate the point, the question is more generally):

In these cases, contrary to a page move, the history get lost and it seems that the copy&paster is the only author of the content. I wonder why it was told me that such things are no violation of the GFDL and this is tolerated. --Oxymoron⁸³ 17:40, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Original authors need to be credited. If the edit summary for the paste doesn't credit the original, then do a null edit on the destination to note the original source. And on the original article's talk, note that some content was merged elsewhere. The logic is the same as for an article merge; which is what this is, and we don't delete the history of merged articles in order to ensure that the original authorship data remains intact. GRBerry 21:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks GRBerry. Additional question: What to do if an user creates a redundant copy of an article disregarding the GFDL? (example: this is a copy of that). On de.wikipedia the copy would be deleted immediately. My speedy deletion request to the copied article in the example was denied (probably csd g12 is the wrong reason for the speedy deletion, but I'm not aware of a better possibility). Maybe at the moment nobody cares about the copy, but in the future it can become problematic to keep the original/correct history if more mergers and splits to the original article are done. I suppose a version deletion (as would be done if copyrighted content derives from another website) is obligation, isn't it? Noting the original source of the unusable copy makes less sense in this case as it's a redirect now. --Oxymoron⁸³ 00:40, 5 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In all cases it is vital that the copyright holder is credited. Anything that removes this credit is a breach of the license. Trollderella 18:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was under the impression that copy paste moves were generally not tolerated, which is why the move button exists. It's one thing if someone is merging to articles together, but if someone is just renaming the article they really should be using the move button. That is, after all, why it's there. Natalie 18:28, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The reason doesn't matter - any move that removes the attribution to the copyright holder is a breach of the license. Trollderella 18:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

disagree "List on the Title Page" says GFDL. We do not do that, ever. We don't have a title page. The five main contributers to any article may me burried far away in ancient history. By editing wikipedia we implicitly "release" this requirement of GFDL. If text is copied from one article to another, it suffices to mention from where it was copied, and we do not need to look for or mention who exactly wrote it. We give away whatever we write — without losing it ourselves.  Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 08:23, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Biting newcomers

Moved to WT:U Mel sa ran 18:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Frivolous Links to Date / Year

Forgive me if this proposal has come up before, but I could not find it in the archives. I find almost all Wiki pages to be filled with links to dates and years, which is absurd. Although the use of links is subjective, it is generally understood that links are made for nouns that are 1. relevant to the topic, or 2. are not considered to be well understood by all readers. For instance: Square = polygon with four sides of equal lengths and angles. A more subjective example is: Euclid was a greek. Who is to say which countries should be linked and which should not be? However, I take issue with links to dates which is totally irrelevant: The Simpsons Movie was released on Wednesday, 2007-07-25. The date has no relevance to The Simpsons. Granted a tiny minority might be interested in what happened on that date. He/she can merely do a simple search. For the rest of the readers, this is unnecessary clutter. If dates were so important, then how about linking everything else, all nouns, all numbers etc.: Jane wanted a proposal of marriage for each of her four daughters who lived under her roof and whom depended on her savings. Isn't this ridiculous? Therefore, I propose that all links to dates, except where relevant should be banned. Examples of relevant links are: 1666 was an ominous year. The Simpsons Movie was released in 2007 (note the link is to 2007 in film). ICEBreaker 16:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can't comment on the linking of years, but there actually is another reason to link month-day dates. Logged in users can adjust their preferences to change how dates are displayed, but it only works on dates that are wikilinked. The default is to display things month-day (August 6), but I have my prefs set to display dates day-month (6 August). I can see in the edit window that you wrote the date of the Simpsons Movie release as 2007-07-25, but it shows up on my screen as 25 July, 2007. Natalie 16:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Linking dates is important so that they display correctly for users who have their preferences set. E.g. I have mine set to show Month day, year. However others prefer day Month year, and others prefer all numerical. This is only important when day and month are together or day-month-year. Months (without day) shouldn't be linked, nor days of the week. There is a debate on whether years (on their own) should be linked. I don't see the point unless there's a good reason to; others like to link years. Some of the examples above seem silly, such as linking 4 (number). For more see MOS:DATE. -- Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 16:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Years only occasionally need a link. If we ban anything, it should be proposals that demand that inconsequential things be banned (irony). Adrian M. H. 17:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we should ban irony... Can we agree on a date? LessHeard vanU 20:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

YA Paperlilies AICMFP ? TSP 20:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Adrian, not only is your comment off-topic, but I do not find over-linking to be "inconsequential". Why not link all words then? Non-English speaking people would be pleased to have every word linked to a dictionary. The point is, linking to a year is completely meaningless and adds clutter to the page. ICEBreaker 12:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was not aware that linking a date helps format it properly according to user preference. I wonder why it is important to have a user preference over something like this, but if this feature already exist, then so be it. Thanks for your reply. I suppose the next thing would be just to stop people linking to years. ICEBreaker 12:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If people wouldn't use NN-NN-YYYY dates, the absurd wikilinking would be completely avoidable. Chalk it up to a poorly-thought out software quirk, and hope it will all be patched up by a bot in the future. ←Ben^B4 06:58, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But this has been discussed before. The only possible alternative to wikilinking is a date template that achieves the same effect without displaying a link, but as far as I know, there is currectly no such template. Providing the means to display British date layout as desired is important. Adrian M. H. 12:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just British, by the way, it's most of Europe - I first got used to day month year when I started learning Spanish. But really, anyone will understand that August 7, 2007 and 7 August 2007 are the same thing. The big problem is determining the difference between 7-6-2007 and 6-7-2007. Natalie 22:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, it is virtually only the US, Philippines, and (perhaps) Canada which prefer month-day-year; just about all other English-speaking countries, and many other language users prefer to see their dates as day-month-year, except for east Asian languages which favour year-month-day. We had huge edit wars over this issue back in 2003 which were only stopped by the adoption of the current software fix and conventions on which national style of English were appropriate to particular articles. People get very attached to how they see their dates. -- Arwel (talk) 21:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the history Arwel_Parry. I see what you mean. Yes, I think it is important that we use neutral date formats, such as YYYY-MM-DD or Month DD, YYYY. DD/MM/YYYY would annoy North American users too much. I can see why people link dates now. It would avoid the format problems. I wish there was also a way that UK/US spellings can be interchanged as well. It'd really help. I've noticed that the younger generation tend to spell things in US format because of the web. Anyway this is a topic for another I guess. ICEBreaker 10:05, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This issue is discussed in full at Wikipedia:Date debate. Synopsis: There is the bugzilla:4582 request, which may or may not be implemented soon (anyone know?), to allow preference-formatting without the wikilinks. --Quiddity 20:23, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

None of this will effect the date ideologues who think every stand alone year and indeed every other date (regardless of a future lack of 'date preference' need) should be linked because every link to a date field provides 'context' to the article. These ideologues stand prepared to fight every and any change to this current regime by every sort of nasty method and language you can imagine and to keep all date links in place that were ever placed in every article and to add links where they do not already exist. Hmains 04:37, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most full dates are simply not WP:Notable. Day-month combinations on the other hand, could all have an article: every day of the year is dedicated to a particular Christian saint; many are holidays in one or another country and then there should be a disambiguation page. But whatever happened on a particular date needs to be notable enough to have an article on the subject, before even considering to allow it a date-article, and even then the date-article might better include a term that relates to the actual topic that made the date notable (thus several distinct date-articles for the few dates that are important enough to deserve an article, not needing a disambiguation page). For those people who want to check whatever (even trivial) things happened on a particular date, one might have date articles in a specific, fixed, date-format; this should then not be the format that a link on a date in an article would automatically go to, nor should it be one of the formats that are normally written in articles (e.g. "Date 2007-08-14") [thus one could still intentionally write a link to such 'trivial' date-article in the (rare) case this would be appropriate. A link set on a (rather unnotable) date (in any so far recognized format), that has no date-article, should then remain red (and no longer confuse newer readers, while a blue link on a date would finally make experienced readers curious to follow the link, which then now never try. I just wrote more about this topic, in particular on how to differenciate formatting dates from linking (and colouring) dates, see Template talk:Cite web#Unlink. — SomeHuman 14 Aug 2007 22:25 (UTC)

Easter egg links

Links such as 2007 are not intuitive and should not appear in articles. It should always be obvious which article pressing the link will take you to. violet/riga (t) 07:20, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD#Internal links point 2 prohibits them, for music articles at least. — The Storm Surfer 18:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Violetriga, may I ask why not? Mel sa ran 19:18, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not the use of piped links, but maintaining proper context around the links. Consider a sentence discussing films released in 2005, 2006, and 2007. In such a context the links make sense to a majority of readers. For the segment of the readership that is unable to understand how context can change the meaning of linked words there is always the Simple English Wikipedia. --Allen3 ^talk 20:49, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is counter-intuitive to have links to articles when it is not obvious where you will be taken, and with year links in particular most people would skip them thinking it will just be to the general article rather than an "in film" article or suchlike. This is just the basic reasoning and it's been discussed quite a bit previously with the consensus being that we should avoid such "easter eggs". violet/riga (t) 01:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, when/if the article is printed on paper, the link will be replaced with bold text. It might be worth debating this specific example, but on the whole, I definitely agree with violetriga that it should be clear where a link goes, whenever possible. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:04, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I do not quite see why one should allow [[2007]] if the year is not particularly relevant to the article; thus also a link [[2007 in film|2007]] that simply looks like 2007 should indicate it to be an interesting idea to click on it (just like other links that show one text but link to a differently named article: a year does give some indication about what one may expect, and it should of course relate to the topic), if one has the time and interest to learn more. If that is not likely going to be the case, the 2007 mustnot be linked. The problem arose only because of the linking of unnotable dates in order to get the proper date formatting according to user preferences, and then people started to link the stand-alone years out of habit, I guess. If the original problem of distinguishing links from formatting gets solved (see my comment in this section above this Easter egg subsection), lots of full dates will no longer show a link anymore and the straightforward [[2007]]-style links (which would remain links) could then be cleared (semi-automatically: very few will make sense, they almost never allow linking according to WP:LINK about links in general, and a stand-alone 4-digit year never needs any formatting). — SomeHuman 14 Aug 2007 23:37 (UTC)

people only "notable" due to one event?

What's the policy on articles on people that seem to be "notable" only for one event? For instance, I just ran across Glenn Kopitske. It's a great article - well sourced and everything. But would Glenn be notable for any other reason? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 17:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

'Notability' is not part of policy. Verifiability is what's important. Trollderella 17:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:BLP1E. Adrian M. H. 17:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Jonny Wilkinson and Andrew Flintoff were awarded honours for what were just one-offs against Australia, so on that basis notability should not particularly highly thought of. Certainly in Flintoff's case the honour was signally un-warranted and undermines the value of the award to those who were more deserving of it. --JohnArmagh 17:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ultimately, it depends on what the event is. Some events are more notable than others, thus those who participated in them are more notable. Blueboar 17:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the article Glenn Kopitske is about a notable person. The crime itself isn't notable in my opinion. I'd say {{subst:prod}} it, or take it to WP:AFD. -- Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 17:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The important thing is 'how verifiable is it'? Trollderella 17:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The argument that people known for a single event are not notable is soft at best. Some events are infamous, of lasting importance, influential on other events, etc. What it's really getting at is that Wikipedia is not a newspaper. Matters of fleeting interest shouldn't be covered. These people too are known for a single event or achievement, yet quite notable: Neil Armstrong, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark Spitz. Wikidemo 18:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So how long do we wait to see whether Lady Bird Johnson or Johnny Appleseed planting one tree is notable or the notable start of an event or industry? (SEWilco 19:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I think you'll wait a while before a non-stub like that can be verifiably written - let's see a real-world example of what you're talking about. Trollderella 23:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's an oddly written article, tending me to believe that it's a copyright violation. But at any rate it isn't really abour Mr. Kopitske, or for that matter about Mr. Hirte, who hasn't been dignified with an article. It's an article about the event which may or may not be notable, and which I gather is filed nuder the name of the victim for lack of a better way to catalog it. Mangoe 21:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's part of a kind of series - Violence against LGBT people links to a number of (quite well-written and sourced) articles about LGBT victims of murder or violence, often linked to only from that article. TSP 21:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's some useful discussion in the proposed guideline Wikipedia:Avoiding_harm#Pseudo-biographies. I quote:

An article under the title of a person's name should substantially be a full and balanced biography of that person's life. If the person is notable only in connection with a single event or position and little or no other information is available to use in the writing of a balanced biography, that person should be covered in an article regarding the event, with the person's name as a redirect to the event article placing the information in context.

Note that this doesn't say you shouldn't have an article about a person connected primarily with only one event, just that in cases where you have very little other verifiable information about them, you shouldn't try and create an unbalanced biography based on available info. Dcoetzee 21:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's an excellent point. This article reminds me a lot of the Anna Svidersky article in that (unlike Lee Harvey Oswald, Neil Armstrong etc) I don't think either the individual or the event are likely to be remembered 10 years from now much less a hundred.Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 19:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Disregarding soapboxing to the contrary, if someone is notable only for one event we tend to avoid an article on that person, because such articles tend to get focused on the event instead, becoming a coatrack and/or WP:BLP hazard. Generally, the article on the person is redirected to the article on the event. >Radiant< 10:00, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it's really an article about one event, rather than a biography of the person, then move it to a title that reflects that. In this case, it's become Glenn Kopitske murder, although I think Murder of Glenn Kopitske would be better. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:20, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Changing policy concerning succession boxes in articles concerning fictional characters

A proposal has passed at WP:WAF and WP:SBS to allow in-universe succession boxes in articles with fictional elements. A template was created, Template:s-fic, to deal with the in-universe-ness of the succession boxes and a proposal to delete the template failed last week. I am wonder what needs to be done to cancel this policy and allow succession boxes officially on templates, because currently succession boxes such as those of the Kings of Arnor are not technically allowed in their articles, although they provide an excellent method of navigating the multiple generations of kings and heirs. Similar succession boxes have been removed from certain Harry Potter and Star Wars pages, as well as many others. Can anyone tell me how to do this, because I would really like to know. Thank you!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 00:58, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmph... Can anyone explain why we even have articles on all the various kings of Arnor (and other such fictional kingdoms etc.) ... I can understand having the King of Arnor article ... The concept of the Kingdom of Arnor is an important background plot element in the story line of LOTR... but why in the world do we have seperate article on, for example, Arantar, who isn't even notable to the background plot and is barely even mentioned in the apendix of the series?

I see this as being similar to having articles on every single episode of a TV show, or every minor character in the Harry Potter books. There is a clear precedent for rolling all such articles into one larger article. I know the LOTR fans will be unhappy if all the little stub articles get cut... but so were the Potter and Simpsons fans when we started to roll their stubs into larger "group" articles. Shouldn't we be consistant between project groups on such things? Blueboar 14:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for not answering my question. Example aside, the question is how to get succession boxes allowed on fictional pages. It has been approved, in a sense, three times in three different forums, yet there is still a rule stating otherwise that needs to be removed and I would like to know how procedure goes to do that. Not all fictional articles are as brief as Middle Earth kings. Pages such as Albus Dumbledore and Palpatine also qualify very much for succession boxes but cannot under the current rules.

Regarding the reason for the individual pages. People seem to forget that this is an encyclopedia, which is "a book or set of books [in our case a website] giving information on many subjects or on many aspects of one subject..." I believe that fact of this encyclopedia has been lost in some of these policy and procedure groups. I miss the days when I could go onto Wikipedia and type anything after /wiki/ and get results. Those days are gone because people have felt that to be respectable, we have to have less information instead of more. To all those people who say "that is what we have Wookiepedia for" or "that is what Wikia is for" I say, NO!, that is why we have WIKIPEDIA!
–Whaleyland ( Talk • Contributions ) 17:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to comment here that, even in cases that a person is only given a section in a larger article rather than their own article, a succession box may still be added at the end of that section, especially since, in such a case, its size will generally be limited to one or two lines. That way, continuity is ensured (thank Unicorn there are section redirects!) and everything is in perspective as far as importance is concerned. Waltham, The Duke of 06:39, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having trouble following this. You say that a proposal passed to allow succession boxes, and then you ask if this can be changed to allow succession boxes? What's the difference? Also, judged by the amount of formalisms and references to "officialness" I think you misunderstand the non-bureaucratic nature of Wikipedia. We don't do official. >Radiant< 09:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"succession boxes such as those of the Kings of Arnor are not technically allowed in their articles" - not allowed by whom? Where is this policy? Corvus cornix 21:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some people tend to take policies overly seriously, Radiant, and the policy in question is Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction), or "WAF". The thing is, while there has been a great debate in the talk page, which one could reasonably say has ended with great support for the policy's modification to allow for succession boxes in articles for fictional characters, nothing whatsoever has been done towards that direction. Moreover, this policy never ceased being used as a justification to delete succession boxes in such articles and to disallow the creation of new ones. So, the question is, what do we do now? Waltham, The Duke of 10:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Overcapitalization or is it Commonwealth English?

Sometimes in articles I see this bizarre overcapitalization which I don't understand the rationale behind. But I do see it a lot from U.K. and Australian users, so it's possible this is a British convention I'm not familiar with. You especially see it in regards to public services where they capitalize the type of service, not just the name of the organization. For example, being from the U.S. I'd capitalize "Boston Police" or "Boston Public Schools", but they capitalize things like "the Police" or "the Schools" meaning any police department or any school system. Squidfryerchef 22:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Example pages? — Someguy0830 (T | C) 22:44, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Those two examples are simply incorrect rather than regional. Blame the education system (or "the Schools"!) Adrian M. H. 08:12, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd only say it was useful if, for example, you were referring to the Boston Police - you may use 'the Police' subsequently where the reference to Boston is implicit, but the lowercase 'the police' may be used more generally.--Breadandcheese 11:00, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Change to fair use rationale requirement

Please see the proposal at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#A rational change (pun intended). —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation needed at WP:COI

WP:COI simultaneously refers to two things:

The existence of a conflict of interest; and
The conflict of interest policy

This leads to unnecessary confusion: WP:COI permits editors with a conflict of interest to participate on Wikipedia, subject to certain procedural limitations, but other editors misread that to believe that the existence of a conflict of interest violates WP:COI, leading to a lot of time wasted on the COI noticeboard. (For example: WP:COI requires editors with a conflict of interest to discuss edits on the talk page. An editor left a lengthy report accusing me of violating WP:COI because I was discussing edits on the talk page while I had a conflict of interest.) Someone can be subject to WP:COI and comply with WP:COI: it's a two-part inquiry, and some sort of disambiguation is necessary to distinguish the two to avoid these problems. THF 08:05, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The solution is probably rewording the header of the policy to make it clearer. >Radiant< 09:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Radiant. I have done precisely what you suggested. Can some administrators take a look and comment? THF 22:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

sysops/admins: edit patrol problem

Dear admins, if I understand correctly there is an edit patrol tag to every new edit, which admins can set to "patrolled". This creates the following problem: a powerful part of wiki editing is that first editor1 has a good idea but words it poorly or leaves out proper sourcing, and (much) later editors 2,3,4 come along and correct this. For a good article, such an improvement trajectory could mean a temporary decline in quality.
By the need for admins to patrol edits, edit1 will now be reverted because the admin is not the editor with the knowledge or ambition to be editor 2,3,4. This slows down the improvement of articles drastically, as well as wasting a lot of editor and admin time in reverting; possibly warring or scaring away new editors.

Does this analysis make sense?
Possible solution: create a permanent =Draft= section on the talk page, to which all potentially useful reverted edits are copied and kept for e.g. 3 months. Better still a "draft" tab in the wiki software.

 Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 08:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is no universal edit patrol looking at every edit, just catch-as-catch-can. Reverted edits are already kept as long as the article exists, and are in the article history (with the exception of some WP:BLP violations). An editor who wishes to avoid having edits reverted but recognizes the cites are lacking, should tag his or her own article to demonstrate recognition of the problem, or discuss on the talk page first. But reversions are part of the editing process. rTHF 08:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not only admins go on recent changes patrol. As with new page patrolling, some people can be a little overzealous. I think we just need to remind editors not to bite newcomers and assume good faith. However if the added material in unintelligable garbage, then there's no choice but to remove it. Recurring dreams 11:55, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Recurring dreams. And: please do not treat needy edits as if they were bad edits  Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 05:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On a similar note - may I suggest that all Editors (including Admins) refrain from editing articles on subjects that they know nothing about. For example this one [1] turned a statement which was arguably true into one which was indisputably false. (The Admin later admitted he knows nothing about Formula 1!). This is one example I have seen others. Kelpin 16:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No. WP:EXPERT is a failed proposal. Corvus cornix 21:47, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Kelpin is suggesting any particular standard of expertise, just "some knowledge". I can see both sides of that argument, though. SamBC(talk) 21:51, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's right - I'm not saying you need to be an expert to edit an article but for someone to remove a comment that a Formula 1 race where the gap between the first 2 was 0.014s was the "third closest Formula 1 finish" on the basis that no race could be that close and change the comment to "the closest" is madness. Even if I hadn't seen both that race and a closer one I know that these things can be checked at the official formula 1 site. (Which I did). Why does an Admin who later admitted he doesn't know anything about F1 feel the need to edit out a valid comment? Its true the comment he took out was open to debate (I later changed it to something that wasn't) but the comment he replaced it with was blatantly false. Kelpin 07:52, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Video game article naming conventions

I have proposed a new guideline on video game article naming conventions here. These are all things that we have been going by but haven't been written down yet. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 10:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Question related to article deletion

Good morning,

The other day I discovered that an article was posted on Wikipedia related to a member of my family. My cousin was convicted of drug manufacturing and smuggling in the United Kingdom and is currently serving a twenty year sentence there. I find it disgraceful that an article has been posted about him - especially as the article discusses the matter in a manner that is subtly biased toward his so-called "cause".

What can I do to have this article removed?

Thank you.

First, you need to tell use the name of the article. This would also probably get a better response at WP:ANI or WP:BLPN, which are watched more closely. --Eyrian 15:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I've raised the Casey William Hardison article at WP:BLPN after inquiring on the user's talk page. THF 15:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nonfree images on the Main Page

There have been several reverts on the Main Page today based on whether or not the blurb for the Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion article should use a copyrighted picture of the painting itself. Following a discussion about the picture at Talk:Main Page#Fair use image on the main page?, it looks like the subject is being reopened for discussion on the issue at large at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content criteria exemptions#TFA/Main Page exemption, revisited. It'd be helpful to get some broad discussion to determine the community's consensus on the issue. 17Drew 21:19, 9 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Subcultures and Policies

Subcultures and countercultures are definitely important enough to be included in Wikipedia. However, it's virtually impossible to write about them without using original research, or unverifiable information. Subcultures are things that can be only understood through observation.

So, I suggest theses rules be relaxed, or modified when subcultures or countercultures are involved. Skrayl 01:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uhhuh. And without reliable sources, how do we know the article isn't just a hoax? Please read WP:FIVE. WP:V is non-negotiable. Corvus cornix 01:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. If a counter-culture is so "under the radar" as not to attract media attention, then it probably won't meet WP:N. With the specialization of literature these days -- every subnookandcrannyminorityofpeoplewhohavethesmallestthingincommon has an outlet now -- it'd be hard to convince me that it's notable and undiscovered. Consequentially 05:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thirded. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is not for writing about topics, it is for editing previously written information into cohesive articles. We are "editors" not "writers". ~ JohnnyMrNinja 05:24, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, Wikipedia's model pretty much makes it impossible to relax rules on original research and verifiability, because any given editor could just be spewing complete nonsense. This means that some things will not be covered to the extent that we'd like, and we just have to deal with that, really. However, like others have said above, I doubt that a subculture that's attracted no media attention is notable anyway. -Amarkov moo! 05:36, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In practice, this happens all the time, and eventually gets tagged. Also in practice, for these difficult situations primary sources often do just fine. Not that I agree, but it's what actually happens. ←Ben^B4 09:25, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the statement "Subcultures are things that can be only understood through observation." But what is left out of that statement is the issue of who should be doing the observing. We, the editors of wikipedia, should not be the ones making the observations (that would be original research)... that job should be done by somebody else... a reliable source. We should simply report and compile what that reliable source says. Blueboar 12:51, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See also WP:CK. Statements like, "German is the primary language in Germany," that nobody is skeptical of won't be challenged, and won't need a source — should have, often if not usually, but won't need. ←Ben^B4 08:42, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is Digital Command Control in breach of Wikipedia principles?

I am repeating this post here as suggested by a response to my post on Wikipedia:Wikiquette Alerts

Many of the links in the Digital Command Control page look on the face of it to be standard Wikipedia links but actually point to an external Wiki site www.dccwiki.com. Examples are the word Track in the intro and DCC decoder in the first section. This external site itself seems to be some unknown persons attempt to create there own DCC wiki. I'm not experienced enough with Wikipedia to quite know how it has been done, but it seems wrong to me and much of the material on this external site should be in Wikipedia itself. I would welcome opinions on whether this is a breach of Wikipedia principles and what should be done about it. --St1got 09:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, someone set up the dcc: prefix to go there, but it's not an official sister project. No harm done, so I wouldn't worry about it. ←Ben^B4 09:19, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to thank Geni for cleaning up the page and removing the external prefix links. St1got 08:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So now there's some unexplained and unlinked jargon: "booster" etc. Did this change improve the encyclopedia? Would ordinary inline external links to the old targets be better? ←Ben^B4 10:01, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is adding summaries refactoring?

WP:REFACTOR states that summarizing is only alright if other editors don't object. However, the kind of summarizing mentioned here seems to be the kind that replaces the original text. What I did here (and in previous edits) was to create a summary at the top of the section, and then enclose the full text in {{hidden begin|title=Full Text|bg1=light blue}}/{{hidden end}}, since one of the editors tends to write at length.

So, is this the kind of refactoring that can be objected to? How about if I put it in the section, at top or bottom, without hiding the original text? (Assuming, of course, that I've accurately characterized the original text, which is always debatable -- snark can be found in the darnedest places...) Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan 15:28, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine, I guess, but kind of unique. I doubt other editors will object, but if they do, you should probably convert the Hidden begin/end templates into a colored box, I guess. ←Ben^B4 16:07, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The editor who is trying to WP:OWN the article did indeed object, and forbade me from summarizing his comments (which I ignored, since he doesn't have that right). The ~~admin~~ editor who is trying to moderate between us figured it was a REFACTOR violation, and since I can see how he came to that conclusion, figured I'd bring it to a wider audience to help me evaluate which of us is right. :-)--SarekOfVulcan 16:17, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, EdJohnston (talk · contribs) is not an admin nor has he claimed to be that I know of. Not to take anything away from the way he's handling things, I just don't want there to be any misunderstanding. 24.6.65.83 16:27, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks, 24. I had missed that somehow...--SarekOfVulcan 16:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He was explicit about it on his talk page. 24.6.65.83 16:39, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So, going back a bit, does anyone else agree/disagree that summarizing despite objection is not a violation of REFACTOR, even if the original text is set off is some way, such as the colored box that Ben suggests?--SarekOfVulcan 17:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: Should WP:COI guideline limit participation on talk pages?

At Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#SBC.2FDSB_Proposal_.235_-_Can_we_get_consensus_for_this_addition.3F, there is a proposal that would (1) strictly limit the ability of editors with a COI to participate on a talk-page, and (2) greatly expand the role of COI/N to include resolution of content disputes. Please comment. (For the record, I think it is a bad idea.) THF 22:31, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the proposal is one that is typically expected: That if a person who has a Conflict of Interest (say, someone who wrote an article they want included on page, such as Ted did above), that they bring up the proposed addition/edit on the Talk page (already a guideline), raise their COI (already a guideline), raise their reasons and merits for inclusion when they initiate their proposal (not yet a guideline, part of the suggestion), and then sit back and allow others to discuss and debate the merits of the proposal, being strongly encouraged to not debate their own COI proposal except to clarify misunderstandings or address questions directed at them. This is pretty much already an expectation, and we are proposing it for a guideline, not a policy. So I changed Ted's mistaken title this article. Comments and consensus welcome. --David Shankbone 22:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- Why is this needed? There is an expectation that use of Talk pages will be constructive rather than argumentative. This applies to pretty much everyone, though. Charles Matthews 07:21, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is bolding necessary for the article title?

I asked this on Wikipedia talk:Lead section but received no answer. On an article like Interstate 15 in Arizona, bolding the title but not linking within it results in ridiculous sentences like "Interstate 15 in Arizona is the portion of Interstate 15 in the U.S. state of Arizona." Is the proper solution to bold nothing? --NE2 00:43, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:MoS the article subject should be bolded in the first instance of use, and not contain wikilinks. You could try using alternative text to the wikilink required, so your example would be typed; "'''Interstate 15 in Arizona''' is the portion of [[Interstate 15|the highway]] in the [[U.S. state]] of [[Arizona]], United States." This allows the link to Interstate 15 with a more natural style of writing. LessHeard vanU 10:56, 11 August 2007 (UTC) ps. You were, of course, intending to note the nation alongside the state!? ;~)[reply]

I have seen some articles, where such usage is cumbersome, "creatively" using the bolding, and have not seen objections. For example, you could start the article something like Interstate 15 is a major Interstate Highway in Arizona. Of I-15's XXXX total mileage, XXXX miles are in Arizona. Not sure if that usage is completely frowned upon, and not sure I did it perfect, but that might give you some more ideas on how to stay within the bounds. Remember, ignore all rules, especially where said rules make for a worse article. Bending of the rules where said rules actually produce a worse article is encouraged, as long as just IAR cases are easily justified... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A

What regulations does this website have for postings

For starters, you need to sign your posts on discussion pages such as this one with four tildes (~~~~). ←Ben^B4 21:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to have a look at WP:HELP. SamBC(talk) 21:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SVG logos

This is something I've always wondered about. Why does Wikipedia allow copyrighted/trademarked logos to be uploaded in SVG format? Part of our policy on non-free content is, and I quote: Low- rather than high-resolution/fidelity is used (especially where the original is of such high resolution/fidelity that it could be used for piracy). This rule includes the copy in the Image: namespace. However, can't SVG images be losslessly scaled to any resolution? That makes it seem like they would be a pirate's best friend. So are we violating our own policy by using SVG-format logos? Just wondering. --CrazyLegsKC 10:28, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This has been a bone of contention in the past. However, with logos, the primary concern is not copyright, it's trademark. It's distinct from most copyrighted artwork, where a high resolution could be used to make and sell infringing prints, for example. An SVG logo allows for accurate reproduction, but using an svg instead of a PNG isn't really allowing a pirate to do anything they couldn't do anyway, especially when companies put .eps logos on their press sites. Companies want their logos to be reproduced accurately, they just don't want them to be used misleadingly. Putting up an .svg IBM logo isn't going to abet bad behavior the same way a high resolution scan of a batcave pullout poster is (both actual images). Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Autoconfirmed proposel

this one needs views from a wider audience. Please feel free to go there and comment. Regards, Navou ^banter 19:48, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:COI redraft/refactor

There has been a lot of mention recently on WT:COI of the unwieldy, wordy, and poorly-structured nature of the current COI guideline. It has thus been suggested that some interested parties (not as in a conflict of interest, obviously) get together to find a better way of writing the same guideline in a more usable way. There is no intent here to change the meaning of the guideline, just to make it more usable.

Discussion of the redraft/refactor is invited at Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/redraft, with the current intent to initially 'recruit' participants and discuss the aims of the redraft before putting together a precise plan of action. SamBC(talk) 20:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Website hosting WP fair-use images

I found a website that is hosting fair-use images from Wikipedia. I'm sure it does waste unnecessary server resources, and may be against policy. If it is not yet against some policy, then it definitely should be. The website is http://www.freewebs.com/u2city/, and I found it at User:CRBR, who claims that it the user's own website. –Dream out loud (talk) 00:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The software should be changed to prevent hotlinking. -Nard 00:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly what is the problem? That he is linking to his own hobby website? People can link to all kinds of things from their user pages. I don't see any harm, or why this is any different than linking to his school, hobby group, favorite team, personal home page, whatever. If he were to put it in the main space it would invite all kinds of scrutiny regarding reliability, relevance, linkspam, etc. But I don't see any harm here. There's no prohibition against linking to fair use galleries. If you were to determine that the gallery is not fair use and is in fact full of copyright infringement, then it's not an appropriate link even on the user page and can be deleted on site as a violation on WP:COPYRIGHT. There is still no risk or harm to Wikipedia but we would not want to encourage that sort of thing. Wikidemo 01:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that the images on his hobby website are hosted on Wikipedia. In short, he's getting the benefit, and we're footing the bandwidth bill. See hotlinking. --Carnildo 03:04, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please forgive me for being dense but I don't see the instances of hotlinking on his talk or user page. If he is using Wikipedia to serve copyrightedimages from third party sources via a hotlink I agree with you, and if it were necessary to think through the copyright implications I would probably take back my statement that it's okay per WP:NONFREE. Am I missing something? Wikidemo 03:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Look at his website. The one linked to on his userpage. Go to the "Discography" section. Check the URLs of those images. Those images are being hosted by Wikipedia. --Carnildo 04:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have you bothered asking the user to upload the copies to his website, rather than pulling them off of the Wikimedia servers? (for those that see no links, view the U2 discography page[2]) EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Given that it is hosted by "freewebs" and I can't even find his site on Google, I don't think it is a big deal, but yes, asking him to host those files directly would be the right thing to do. Dragons flight 04:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This strikes me as more of a technical than a policy issue; why are we letting people leech bandwidth? – Luna Santin (talk) 04:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Free encyclopedia, i.e. we want people to use our content. As long as it isn't breaking the bank I think we are going to avoid taking strong generic measures against hotlinking. However, I know we have blocked selected sites for abusing our generosity in the past (though typically for hotloading entire pages, rather than selected images). Dragons flight 05:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also if someone is blatantly uploading non-ensuyclopedic images for the sole purpose of using the images on theyr own site we tend pounce on them. I've indefblocked a few repeat offenders of this in the past, but it's fortunately not that common. People who do that rarely even try to follow the image rules with the inevitable result that all theyr images keep getting deleted, making Wikipedia a very "unreliable" image host for them. --Sherool (talk) 08:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Heavy-handed pompous editors are destroying Wikipedia

Case in point, these two comments inserted into the entry for the movie "The Good Shepherd".

"This article or section contains a plot summary that is overly long or excessively detailed compared to the rest of the article."

"This is a trivia section. The section could be improved by integrating relevant items into the main text and removing inappropriate items."

I wanted to read a detailed plot summary, the more detailed the better.

If the editor could write a better trivia section, then write it. What are the inappropriate items?

Because Wikipedia's articles are written by a myriad of people, there will be a myriad of styles reflected. Busting on people because they don't reflect a particular editor's personal preferences, is ridiculous.

And before I finish, let me say that actually gathering and typing in the data for an article, is what counts. That is the hard part. Unless an editor finds something factually incorrect, or completely inappropriate, they need to keep their cotten-pickin' hands off.

Which, as you know, seems to be impossible in this world. The urge to change another person's original work in the name of "quality" or "style" or "consistency" ... is simply irresistible.

Some years ago the US Postal Service decided to "right-size" and anyone who wasn't "touching the mail" got canned.

I would humbly suggest the same criteria be used at Wikipedia. If somebody isn't involved in originating articles, they ought to hit the road.

The founding philosophy of Wikipedia encompassed diversity, that seems to get lost quite a bit nowadays.

Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.182.98.237 (talk • contribs) 04:20:54 2007-08-13 (UTC)

~~Since the above material doesn't seem to have anything to do with the purpose of ANI, is it fair game for deletion?~~ I have just learned that having too many windows open at once can make you type stupid things. Raymond Arritt 04:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

??? Does this page have anything to do with ANI?

As to the point, I disagree. The hard part is not collecting and typing in stuff. It's referencing and verifying stuff and making a good article that is encyclopedic and conforms to the policies and goals of wikipedia. And we're all editors, so who exactly is being criticized? Some are sometimes too heavy-handed, I agree. But they don't run things. Dicklyon 04:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Overly long plot summaries quickly become difficult to manage, unduely giving weight to certain aspects of a subject (in this case, the plot), boring to most readers, and poorly written. Trivia sections invite poorly written, unreferenced, and even completely false information. Anything verifiable in the trivia section should be somehow merged into the article proper.

I find your suggestion that certain kinds of people should be excluded from editting an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, especially since many of the people you are refering to are highly respected members of the Wikimedia community. By submitting somthing to Wikipedia, you agree that your contribution may be editted mercilessly. Atropos 07:44, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Over the last year or so, Wikipedia has moved from rapid growth of new articles and content to more quality content and verifiable material. Hence these boxes have been popping up; hence when adding material cite it to make sure it stays in. Recurring dreams 11:32, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually editing articles, changing text, adding information? Fine. That is the essence of Wikipedia. Saying something needs to be changed and then walk away for someone else to do it? No. An editor either gets their hands dirty, and contributes to the article, or they are just so much useless baggage.

So I am not suggesting excluding anyone from making bona fide edits or changes. But a call-out box that criticizes an article ... doesn't add anything to it. I can figure out pretty quickly if the information is plausible or not.

Ultimately, people that use the internet for research come to Wikipedia for the data. Not for the style, page layout, administrivia associated with Wikipedia, or for all of its highly respected minions. And they don't come for the philosophy, goals, voluminous guidance, or infighting. Either the data in Wikipedia is more convenient to use than other web sources, or people move on elsewhere.

I'm glad people like to check facts, but it is ultimately not going to make much difference. Since changing a page is so incredibly easy, Wikipedia is just not going to be a reliable reference source, period. The data is provided "as is". Let the reader beware. If anyone doesn't understand this, I'm sure Wikipedia's lawyers can provide further explanation of this key point.

As the saying goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Quality sounds great, but starts a "death spiral" of ever more critical picky requirements, until nothing new is ever really "good enough".

Wikipedia achieved its enormous success by embracing diversity and encouraging contributors. There is no need to change a successful formula. So forget the article tagging for improvement, call-out boxes, and any other activity that doesn't "touch the data". Focus that energy on glomming onto as many articles and contributors as possible. The best data are often not neat and tidy.

Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.11 (talk • contribs) 13:19:01 2007-08-13 (UTC)

An admin's invitation that the lot of us leave and got to Citizendium

I think User:Swatjester's demenor and behavior on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eastgate Systems, especially his invitation to the lot of us to leave and go to Citizendium, are highly inappropriate and unbecoming of an admin and a Wikimedia legal intern. --Pleasantville 13:38, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Secure sign-in page should be linked from regular sign in page

I've just discovered that there's a secure sign-in page. That page should be linked to from the regular sign-in page, so that editors logging in from insecure connections don't transmit their user/pass in plain text over easily harvestable wifi. Dan Beale-Cocks 12:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Query about deleted article

Hi there, I recently attempted to post some information about the company Booking.com, an internet travel site. It was removed within minutes of me uploading it, and i was wondering why exactly? All of its competitors and similar companies, such as Expedia and Priceline, have pages with their information, and my piece of writing was in no way advertising or promoting any aspect of the company. Thanks, Samorro

Hi. This isn't really the best place to discuss this, so I'll come to your talk page. --Dweller 13:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should WP lead or follow the culture?

If you like, please check out: Talk:African Wild Dog. These animals are highly endangered and some of the groups working to save them have suggested that their traditional common name, "African wild dog", has been a part of the problem because it sounds kind of negative and could cause confussion with feral domestic dogs. I proposed that the name of WP's article be changed to African Hunting Dog, since that seems to be the trend. However, most of the sites on the Internet still use African Wild Dog. An Internet search for them gives WP's article at the top of the list. I know that WP's general policy is to follow the most common useage in the culture, however I would like to ask if an exception could be made in this case. Thanks. Steve Dufour 14:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If there is a scientific organization that gives "official" names to African mammals similiar to what the American Ornithologists' Union does for North American birds, and they use African Hunting Dog, then that would be a valid name change. We after all changed Rock Dove to Rock Pigeon even though most common usage is just "pigeon". In absence of of some authoritative source however, we should follow and document the culture and not try to lead it. Dsmdgold 14:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is easy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are tertiary sources. Primary sources lead, then secondary sources document, then tertiary sources pick up on things. When the new name starts to predominate in secondary sources it will be time for Wikipedia to follow. The primary advocacy sources aren't relevant, except for the possibility of a redirect and mentioning an alternative name. GRBerry 14:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Alternative names are already given and redirected. I added a mention of the name controversy to the article. Oh well, it was worth a try. :-) Steve Dufour 14:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to make a policy or guideline for lists

FYI:
This conversation has been moved to User:Sidatio/Conversations/On list guidelines due to its size. Please comment there. Thanks! 02:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Notability isn't working

I guess I'm a bit of deletionist myself, but I've had not much luck getting articles deleted for failure to cite evidence of notability (see, for example, Paul Ashley Chase and Maria Hart, clear non-notable COI family member articles, Bed Head, and square root of 5, which may have picked up a usable citation in the process, but look at the comments). It seems that if enough people assert that it's important or interesting, the just about any article can survive, without citing a single independent reliable source on the subject (sometimes with no references at all, in fact); sadly, the keep votes in an AfD do seem to get counted, even when they make no attempt to address how the article relates to notability guidelines. I think that if this is the way it goes, we might as well flush the policy and take all comers. Dicklyon 00:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And now I'm being told by User:Newyorkbrad that my placing of notability|Numbers tags on certain unreferenced articles such as 193 (number) is "disruptive". What's up with that? Dicklyon 01:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Paul Chase was a major executive at Warner Brothers, Maria Hart was an actress who had starring roles in several movies, Bed Head is a product line with worldwide distribution, and the square root of five is the basis for the geometrical construction of a golden rectangle (among other things). I don't see how these are non-notable, the failure to delete those articles looks like a success to me. Bryan Derksen 15:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The only possible source on Chase is the obituary, which I have not seen. The book on the early history of Warner ignores him. Maria Hart had no starring roles, just minor roles and a couple of minor mentions in the LA Times. Bed Head is not the subject of any secondary sources, much less any significant coverage. You make a good example of my point; people say "I don't see how" without reading the guidelines and looking for the evidence. Dicklyon 18:49, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Whenever you find yourself getting upset at AfD debates, take a wander through Special:Newpages and I guarantee it will change your attitude. ←Ben^B4 15:56, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

True, but some of the reason people become upset at AfD debates (particularly, but not limited to, lists) is that the articles under attack are not at all new articles, but instead articles that have been around for years, with hundreds of edits, representing the contributions of dozens or more editors - and the delete brigades stormtroop their way through them, often misusing policies to further their goals. So it's not as simple as Special:Newpages. Perhaps there should be something incorporated into the decision-making process at Afd that takes longevity and level of contribution into account when closing these debates. Substituting the closer's opinion for the opinions of multiple editors - as I see on Afd all the time when they misuse concepts like "indiscriminate" - is bad for the encyclopedia as it results in less information being presented to the world, not more. Tvoz |talk 16:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. But the ones I'm talking about in AfD are all new articles. Dicklyon 19:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really understand the complaint. Articles get deleted all the time on the basis of notability. The ones you're upset about seem to be, at worst, marginal. -Chunky Rice 16:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The complaint is about the policies and guidelines being thrown out in favor of opinions and hearsay. The policy calls for evidence, but these "marginal" articles survive with none. Dicklyon 19:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maria Hart now has evidence: two articles from the LA Times about her; the second one points to a rather interesting life, actually. I suspect if you looked for evidence for one of the founding executives of one of the largest and most influential movie studios of all time, you'd find it too. Don't work so hard at deleting articles, work hard at sourcing them. Deleting articles is a last resort, it's not our goal. Our goal is to write articles. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I did look; that's why I went and found and bought the cited book on Warner; it has nothing on Chase. As to the two LA Times articles on Maria Hart, I didn't get past the headlines because I didn't subscribe; do you have a copy I could see? Because then we could actually cite it to support some of the points in the article, and maybe even make a better estimate of whether two mentions in the LA Times constitutes significant coverage in multiple independent sources. But also do keep in the mind that the other reason I picked on these two and a few of their relatives in particular is that they were all written with blatant COI by a family member working from unpublished OR. This is NOT what we want to be doing here. Dicklyon

By the way, AnonEMouse, if you check the record I think you'll agree that I DO work hard at sourcing articles. I would never propose one for deletion without first looking for refs. I have about a ton of books that I've bought in the process. Dicklyon 06:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

but COI is not and should not be a reason for deletion--it is a reason to inspect the article carefully, and see if the notability claimed is actually justified, human nature being what it is. And at least half the time the person or whatever is clearly not notable by any reasonable definition, and the article should be deleted--by speedy if nothing rational is claimed, by Prod or Afd otherwise. And generally articles with COI where the subject is in fact notable need to be much re-written. But many of our good article started that way. If the subject seems clearly notable from the their position or verifiable accomplishments, then the thingto do is to edit, down to a stub if necessary. DGG (talk) 23:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And that's why I didn't ever assert COI as the reason for deletion; just an additional point making it clear that the article was not written from verifiable sources. I tried hard to get the guy to provide sources before I proposed deletion, but with no sources I can't even reduce the Chase article to a sensible stub (if I had the obit I could, maybe). Dicklyon 04:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Perhaps there should be something incorporated into the decision-making process at Afd that takes longevity and level of contribution into account when closing these debates." Agreed. Articles that have been around for years and have had hundreds of edits and yet still fail to assert notability should be deleted far more frequently than articles that have had 1-5 editors and have been around for days. It is irresponsible to the topic to not assert notability beyond any doubt, so as to protect the article from deletion. And please remember, popularity, recognition, or financial wealth are not notability. Notability is the fact that a professional publication thought the subject would be interesting enough for it's readers to warrant writing about. If a recognizable subject has failed to be noted it is likely not notable. For all his impact, Paul Ashley Chase might as well have been a root vegetable (a fabulously wealthy root vegetable, mind you). ~ JohnnyMrNinja 04:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I pretty much agree, except there's no evidence that he was wealthy; that's just a guess based on the position he allegedly had, right? As to earning the right, I agree. I spend at least half my edits reverting, warning, and cleaning up after newbies. If they had to earn the right to post external links, or to create new articles, or to remove more than a few lines, there would be less mess to clean up. Dicklyon 04:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My personal pet peeve was Meow Wars. No secondary sources, no hope of any, but it was basically kept on WP:ILIKEIT and WP:IREMEMBERITMYSELF. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:07, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Contents pages, and lists of lists

{{Contents pages (header bar)}}:

What namespace do items 2–6 belong in, mainspace or projectspace? (see example log for many disputed moves) Part of the problem seems to be the overlap of Wikipedia:Avoid self-references and Wikipedia:Lists.
If they are in mainspace, should they have the fancy but unnecessary colouring and icons? Can and are they aiming for Featured List status?
We need more participation. I'm still shocked that Wikipedia:Contents made it into the sidebar so easily. We desperately need more editors to go through all the subpages, to add missing items and remove unwarranted items. There aren't nearly enough people watchlisting the central talkpage to have a discussion there. (Please do, it's a very low update page).

That's the very condensed version, with many tangential issues (such as the "lists of lists" and "lists of topics", e.g. List of timelines, Lists of mathematics topics (featured in 2005), List of psychology topics and Lists of psychology topics, etc, etc).

Previous discussions abound, most recently here, here, here, and here.

Please advise. --Quiddity 17:40, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They are in the main namespace, as evidenced by the lack of "wikipedia:" or "template:" or something else at the start of their name. If you wish to discuss their layout, either edit them yourself or use the talk page. Wrt featured lists, refer to the WP:FLC page >Radiant< 12:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Nonono. They have been moved back and forth between mainspace and projectspace a number of times. That is the problem.
  Many (most?) editors believe pages like Lists of basic topics belong in projectspace. They cannot pass Featured list criteria (WP:WIAFL), as by design they have no references or lead section. They look and act like portals, but don't belong in that namespace either.
  As the admin Prodego said (referring to List of overviews): "Obviously this is a list of Wikipedia overviews, not all overviews, so I think it probably belongs in the Wikipedia namespace." User Rbellin said: "... I don't think a move to the Wikipedia namespace is a bad idea for most of the list-of-topics/contents lists ..." User Moe Epsilon said: "Lists of topics is maintained like a WikiProject, not an article that provides disambiguation, and thus should have been moved to the Wikipedia namespace."
  The Transhumanist is the main (only?) proponent of moving them to/keeping them in mainspace (see User talk:The Transhumanist#Contents and User talk:Quiddity#Contents pages and mirrors for his reasons, which I find partly compelling, and mostly confusing).
  (With the exception of List of academic disciplines, which we all seem to agree belongs in mainspace)
  If this were simple, I wouldn't have brought it here! As I explained, only a handful of people watchlist Wikipedia:Contents (which is a major problem in itself), so it isn't productive to discuss it there. --Quiddity 17:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User insists that logo is in public domain

I changed Image:SNES logo.svg from a public domain license to a non-free logo license. As soon as I did so, the user reverted the edit and put it back in public domain, and insisted that it is in public domain. I don't want to start and edit war here, so wanted to resolve the dispute otherwise. He left a message on my talk page, saying that it is in public domain because one other editor said so at the image's proposed deletion entry. It cannot be in public domain because of the folllowing:

The logo is trademarked and typically has a ^TM symbol next to it (example)
Public domain means that no one has rights to the image, therefore the image page's statement "All trademark rights are held by Nintendo of America Inc." should be redundant
The image is SVG and even if it was a free image, the image tag used is not applicable because it explicitly states "This does not apply to vector format images of fonts, such as SVG."

–Dream out loud (talk) 00:20, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That tag needs to be changed badly. Vector coded fonts are copyrighted because the programming behind them is. A newly created vector image of the font is not copyrighted, because it has different coding. The font itself is not copyrighted, only the computer code for it is. And yes, I insist that image is PD, per the ruling of the closing administrator. See clean room design. -Nard 00:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- One thing to note is that a newly-created vector image of a font should not be uploaded to commons (I don't believe), since font designs themselves are copyrighted in many countries (France among them). I have not seen whether there has actually been a court ruling on whether "font software" (the code behind vector coded fonts) actually has copyright protection in America, but Adobe and many other font creators certainly believe it does, and Wikipedia is not the best forum for testing this limit of American copyright law. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 03:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - The current interpretation seems to be that it does have protection. See [3], which mentions especially Adobe vs. Southern Software Inc. Also [4] and [5] on that case. nadav (talk) 05:29, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Dream out. You have made the same mistake about the meaning of "public domain" that I once did. "Public domain" refers only to copyright status, which is very different from concerns about trademark. The logo cannot be copyrighted in the US because it consists of a name, a short phrase, and "mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering or coloring" [6]. The fact that the logo is trademarked is incontrovertible, but for Wikipedia purposes this is irrelevant. Trademarks appear all the time in the text, and there is no way (or legal reson) to avoid using trademarks in an encyclopedia. See Wikipedia:General disclaimer#Trademarks. nadav (talk) 00:54, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a generic example of a logo, which we assume to be copyrighted unless proven otherwise. I would have been conservative, given it the logo copyright tag, and written a use rationale exactly the same as Image:Super Famicom logo.svg. Even if copyrighted, the way it's used in the article is completely appropriate. But as per the above and the deletion discussion there's a convincing case that it's not copyrighted, so that's fine too. I just don't see the fuss either way. Reproducing something by computer program, hand, photo/scanner, or any other method does not change its copyright status; you end up with a copy that has the same copyright as the original. SVG creation is not a clean room procedure. Wikidemo 01:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What reason is there to assume a logo is copyrighted when it consists of typographical ornamentation, which is ineligible for copyright, applied to a copyright-ineligible short name or title? It seems to me that {{non-free logo}} is unsuitable for situations like this, and that {{trademark}} together with {{PD-ineligible}} would be more accurate. (Per Image:Coca-Cola logo.svg, although in that case any copyright that might be claimed has expired regardless of eligibility.) I see no reason to unnecessarily encumber any media with a non-free tag. TCC (talk) (contribs) 08:46, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Typefaces (fonts) are definitely not eligible for copyright in the U.S., but are considered copyrightable in the EU (and just about everywhere else). It is very rare for a party to claim copyright on a logo. Some logos (e.g.) are almost certainly ineligible for copyright, since they contain nothing but a couple of words in a typeface. De minimis non curat lex. Others are almost certainly eligible for copyright, like any other detailed image (e.g.) As Wikidemo says, it's better to err on the side of caution, but let's not get carried away: these sorts of images are never going to be eligible for copyright. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 12:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

School naming convention RFC

I have requested that the article on State University of New York at Stony Brook be moved to Stony Brook University. Would someone with knowledge in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools) or Wikipedia:Naming conventions in general participate in the discussion at Talk:State University of New York at Stony Brook#Requested move. Thank you. --Voidvector 04:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy delete for a duplicate stub type

What would people think for a "speedy delete" criteria for a stub type that is a complete or implied overlap of an existing stub type (type=template+category). A recent example is {{US-bio-stub}} and {{American-biography-stub}}, or {{AFL-bio-1980s-stub}} and {{Afl-bio-1980s-stub}}. Proposing deletion the old-fashioned way is tedious, but this kind of thing happens often. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 06:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My feeling is these are probably worth listing, lest there be an argument that they should be kept as an upmerged template, or as a redirect (from a alternative spelling or usage, typically). I've no objections to having them 'speedied by acclaim'. Alai 06:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy by acclaim sounds fine to me. This would at least halve the current one-week period for such cases. Valentinian ^{T / C} 09:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of listed affiliation is not evidence that the person is not affiliated?

By this argument, anyone's biography on Wikipedia could claim that they were British Lords, or heirs to the French crown, or recipients of the Nobel Prize, in spite of a lack of evidence to confirm any such wild claim.

Clearly, this is not helpful. I believe that noting that the individual at question is not listed on an official document is not OR, and it is not POV. It is just a plain bland fact. For example, "person X is not listed as an heir to the French Crown on a list published by Y. Person Z does not appear on the list of Nobel Laureates on the official list published at W, although person Z claims to have a Nobel Prize." These statements do not make the leap of inference to say that person Z or person X lied or their information was misrepresented intentionally by someone. That is left to the reader. The inconsistency is noted, and that is all. No speculation as to the reason for this are presented, since that might be OR. For example, stating in an article that the reason for this inconsistency is some given reason, such as:

lying
delusion
typographic error
mistake
confusion
cheating

and so on, is probably verging into OR and might violate the rules of WP:BLP. Do I understand this correctly?--Filll 14:51, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: That's why we have verification and reliable sourcing guidelines. Sidatio 15:09, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Saying "person X is not listed as an heir to the French Crown on a list published by Y" is WP:OR unless that observation has already been published. Dicklyon 15:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is somewhat besides the point, but I think that that's stretching the point of OR a bit far... SamBC(talk) 16:09, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Suppose that a RS and V source Y states that "person X is on list Z" but when list Z is examined, person X does not appear on the list. Your contention is that stating that "person X does not appear on list Z" is OR? --Filll 15:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is. Sadly, perhaps, but that's what the WP:OR and WP:RS rules imply. You might try in this case to make a case on the talk page that that source is not in fact reliable, based on the evidence. Dicklyon 15:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Um, no. Where are you getting the list from, anyway? E.G. for Nobel winners, isn't the Nobel website (assuming there is one) a reliable source for a list of winners? This sort of lists are published things, and their publishers are sources. Reading such a publication and verifying that it states what is claimed is not significantly research, and the official desseminator of a list is ipso facto the most reliable source possible for its content.

When we are talking about institutional affiliation (which seems to be the issue at hand) such lists generally are often not easily citable per se, and we are forced to rely on secondary sources. Since those sources are generally the originators of the claims of phony affiliation, however, they are generally citable. I would also note in the case in question that the affiliation issue is being used to cast doubt on whether the person in question was a signatory to a specific document. That document is available on-line from what can be considered to be an official enough source; therefore it can be cited directly as the authority as to whether he is a signatory. Mangoe 16:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The dispute here, is not about whether the person signed the list, or appears on the petition. The dispute is about whether his incorrect or out of date affiliation on the list is something that can be stated in Wikipedia or not, without some third source stating it.--Filll 16:50, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That may not be the focus of the dispute, but nonetheless the controversy is being used as the occaision for deleting the statement that he is a signatory. Mangoe 18:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a correct statement, I believe.--Filll 18:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe this now ~~mute~~ moot, because I have found a source. Thanks. I just wanted to understand this better.--Filll 15:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Moot--— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dicklyon (talk • contribs)

Absolutely correct. moot not mute!--Filll 15:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It might no longer be moot. We will see.--Filll 18:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Moot or not... I want to suggest a different way of dealing with this. If Source A says Person X is on List Y... but after checking the list you discover that Person X is not on List Y, then you have a legitimate reason to question the reliability of Source A. I would delete the entire statement as demonstratably inaccurate.

If someone insists on including it, then rephrase the statement as an opinion... "According to Source A, Person X is listed on List Y (cite to Source A). However, Source A is inaccurate on this point and Person X is not actually listed on List Y (cite to List Y)" Blueboar 16:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting the reference entirely is not appropriate here since it is an integral part of notability. The second statement is exactly what I did, and I was accused of OR.--Filll 16:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't seem like OR to note that two sources disagree. Where is this happening? SamBC(talk) 16:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is ongoing at Bernard d'Abrera. The situation is that Bernard d'Abrera's name appears on a petition, "A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism". His affiliation is to an institution which ceased to be known by this name over 15 years ago, in 1992. The petition was only begun in 2001, so even if d'Abrera was an early signatory of the petition (which is verifiably incorrect), this affiliation would have been incorrect by at least 9 years. The institution is currently known officially as the Natural History Museum, and d'Abrera currently does not appear on their list of staff. I have written to the Natural History Museum some weeks ago, and they were able to find no record of d'Abrera at all and sent me to the Museum Archives Department, and I have had no response from them for weeks. I have written to the Natural History Museum again to try to clear this up subsequently. Today I went through Internet Archives and found d'Abrera's name listed on the official Museum website in 2001, 2002, 2003 but d'Abrera's appears to have been dropped in early 2004, and did not appear on the official Museum website staff directory in 2004, 2005 or currently. d'Abrera appears to have signed the petition by 2006, but was not present on the original 2001 version of the petition. Out of date affiliations and wrong affiliations are very common on this petition, and we have WP:RS and WP:V sources that state this.--Filll 16:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... after reading both articles, I am confused... what list are you saying Bernard d'Abrera was not on? It seems his name was on the Scientific Dissent petition (allbeit with arguably inflated credentials), and he was listed on the Natural History Museum website from 2001-2003. So what list was he not on? Blueboar 18:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I claim d'Abrera is on the Dissent list. I claim d'Abrera's affiliation on the Dissent list is incorrect, and refers to an organization that changed names at least 9 years before the Dissent list was created. I claim that d'Abrera was listed on the Natural History Museum website in 2001, 2002 and 2003. I claim that d'Abrera is not listed on the Natural History Museum website staff list in 2004, 2005, 2006 and is not currently listed on the Natural History Museum staff list. I claim that a WP:V and WP:RS source states that this kind of misleading affiliation is common on the Dissent list. Others want to remove reference to d'Abrera appearing on the list, d'Abrera having an incorrect affiliation, d'Abrera not currently appearing on the Natural History Museum staff list and the citation to the source stating that this kind of misleading affiliation is common on the Dissent list. Is that clearer?--Filll 18:45, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say that it sounds like you're engaging in quite a bit of original research. -Chunky Rice 18:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In what way am I engaging in original research? Perhaps our definitions of original research are different. I believe that looking up a source, and reporting what the source says, is not original research. Is stating that someone appears on a published list or not original research? I do not believe it is, and if it is, then a large fraction of Wikipedia would have to be removed.--Filll 19:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like a subtle Synthesis linking all of these disperate facts to make a clearly implied conclusion (that both the Descent list and d'Abrera lied about his credentials). Which would be a OR violation. Blueboar 19:16, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"In what way am I engaging in original research?" You are synthesizing your findings into something that no source has yet published (as far as we know), and which if it was published you'd love to cite. So get it published some place reliable, and then it will be fair game for inclusion in wikipedia after that. Dicklyon 22:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is not at all clear that d'Abrera lied about his credentials. We do not know that he was the person who listed his credentials in that way. We just know that those credentials are inaccurate, or at least that three sources state two different things.--Filll 19:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I will also point out that much of this really does not belong in his biography article. This seems more of a comment on the people who compiled the Dissent list than on d'Abrera himself. Blueboar 19:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

d'Abrera's appearance on this petition is actually a major part of his notability. And it is not just a list, but a petition which people willingly sign, as opposed to other creationist lists. d'Abrera has made vigorous efforts to promote creationism and attack evolution. Other than that, he is just a butterfly photographer without a science degree or a graduate degree, and is not particularly notable or noteworthy, as near as I can tell.--Filll 19:49, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the d'Abrera article should mention the fact that he signed the petition... that does seem relevant. But disagree about everything else... I would go NO further than a simple statement that he signed the petition. All the stuff about his credentials and how they appear on the list simply does not belong the bio article on him. It might be relevant in the article on the petition itself (in fact, I believe it is mentioned there) but is either irrelevant to his article or a WP:SYNT vio. Blueboar 20:14, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree vehemently. That is like saying an article about George W. Bush should not mention that he is President of the United States, or an article about Bill Gates should not mention that he is Chairman of Microsoft. You can try to maintain that, but I think you will have trouble getting many to agree with you.--Filll 20:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is turning into a lot of discussion to be sitting here, but I think putting together all this stuff is pushing into OR a bit. I'm not saying exactly how far you can go. I think it's reasonable to mention that the name of the institution as given is anchronistic, and maybe note that his affiliation with the institution (as listed) begins in whenever (provided you can cite it). Synthesizing it into a false claim on his part is defintely going too far, though. Mangoe 21:29, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree completely, which is why I never claimed that d'Abrera had lied about his affiliation or whatever. And I do not claim this now. We do not know the reason for the confusion in affiliation (error, typo, confusion, mistake, economical with the facts, etc). All we know is that it exists. Period.--Filll 21:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And, thus, there is no need to discuss it in the bio article on d'Abrera. Since we don't know if d'Abrera had anything to do with how his credentials were listed in the Petition, we should not mention it. Doing so implies a connection that can not be sustained. Note again that I am AGREEING that you should mention that he signed the Petition (which is like saying Bush is President)... I am simply saying that you should stop there. Discussing how the Petition lists his credentials is irrelevant in the article on him, since it may not have been his error. The error is relevant in the article on the Petition. Not every fact belongs in every article relating to it. But we should take this to the article talk page... You asked for our opinions, we gave them, and if you need to discuss further we should do so elsewhere. Blueboar 22:11, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:No original research: favoring secondary sources over primary and tertiary sources?

I just wanted to draw the attention of the broader Wikipedia community to a policy discussion at Wikipedia talk:No original research, having to do with the use of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. The dispute concerns an edit made in the summer of 2006 which says in bold: "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources", and indicates that primary sources should be rarely used. This is a policy statement, not a guideline, and the issue reflects countless Wikipedia articles that use citations to primary sources such as journal articles, poetry, novels, song lyrics, and historical documents. I personally do not think that this accurately reflects the consensus of the Wikipedia community, since primary sources are in wide use. Moreover, for some articles, such as current events articles, the primary sources are all we have to go on, because there hasn't been time for synthesis and commentary by third parties. Citations to tertiary sources, as well, such as treatises and textbooks, should be welcome in Wikipedia. The concerns about improperly synthesizing source material apply to apply to any kind of source, not just primary sources, and the policy should reflect that. COGDEN 21:44, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think one of the issues is that if we include information from primary sources that's not covered in any secondary source, we don't have fact checking, we don't have analysis, and we don't have a filter of notability. BTW, journal articles are not really primary sources, because while they're reports of research, they are writing about something else. For an article on a piece of literature, for example, that literature would be a primary source and a journal article analyzing it would be secondary, and a much better source than the work itself, as it provides analysis. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:07, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And we definitely don't report news from primary sources. Only what's in newspapers and magazines and radio reports, which are secondary. If you see a swindle going down, call the cops or the newspaper, don't put it in wikipedia. Dicklyon 22:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The policy does not mean we CAN'T cite to primary sources... sometimes it is appropiate to quote them. For example, in an article on the First Amendment to the US Constitution, it makes sense to quote (and thus cite) what the Constitution actually says. As long as we stop there, that is fine. What we should not do is use the primary source to back conclusionary statements or analysis of the topic. For that we need to use reliable secondary sources. Blueboar 22:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think "should" is the right way to say it. When we can, we should, but when we can't, primary and tertiary sources are acceptable when they meet the WP:RS criteria. ←Ben^B4 22:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The other point to note is the word "rely"; primary sources can thus be used to add to an article, but nothing in them (except, say, quotes, that can by their nature never come from a non-primary source) should be relied upon. We shouldn't analyse them ourselves, but simply reporting the content of them (if not a copyvio) can be okay. SamBC(talk) 22:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Purpose of arbcom and resolving disputes

It seems that arbcom is technically on the list of solutions for dispute resolution. However, it apparently cannot resolve disputes. I propose changing this, because apparently, there are some cases when all other steps in dispute resolution just fail for one reason or another. Of corse, it should only be done only after all other measures in WP:DR have been both tried and failed, and at the agreement of all involved parties to abide by the arbcom decision.--Sefringle^Talk 23:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, what are you basing these comments on? SamBC(talk) 23:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Currently I, and many other editors seem to be unable to reach a consensus over the allegations of apartheid articles, and we seem to be unable to reach a solution through regular means in WP:DR (only an unresolved content dispute). See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Allegations of apartheid. At first, I thought that was the purpose of arbcom, but apparently it isn't, and apparently, a lot of other people involved in the dispute thought so as well.--Sefringle^Talk 23:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]