Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new 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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Flagged Revisions, Yes, but ONLY for Vandalism Troublespots

Wikipedia is like a city with mostly good neighborhoods and a few bad ones. Certain topical categories (neighborhoods) attract vandals repeatedly, and, when vandalized, cause the most damage to site credibility and to the living people or organizations vandalized articles are about.

So: Rather than impose flagging globally, which creates increased workload for approvers (whoever they are), and a bottleneck that doesn't exist now, why not identify high-crime categories and make them, and ONLY them, flaggable? This would keep most of Wikipedia free of flagging delays.

How? Start with a META-REVIEW to inventory all of Wikipedia's high-vandalism areas, all the corners of the ontology where vandals tend to lurk. Senior editors can do this using their experience, help from the community and robot site crawlers. Once a vandalism prone category is identified, institute flagging on the entire category or on selected articles within it.

An example: Articles about politicians in-office might be a flaggable category. Wikipedia could cordone off the "political officeholder" branches in its ontology, or hand-select especially controversial / edited / discussed people within that branch. All revisions in those troublespots would be automatically flagged. Then the flagged revisions can crawled, sorted by topic onto an ontology sitemap. Editors and/or user-voters can review/rate those revisions for fairness and accuracy.

Who does the editing? Any registered true ID user can volunteer for access to review flagged revisions in categories they know about. To retain their status as trusted de-flaggers, these reviewers would have to review many articles, not just revise a few. Steady interaction with a broad diversity of articles is a pretty reliable indicator of impartiality. (Limited activity in only a few entries of one political party would not be.)

Think of this as a Tipping Point approach to a Wikipedia clean up, like the 42nd street clean up in New York City during the 90's, or crime rates going down after subway graffiti is eliminated. Clean up the right areas and everything improves.

I'm against a policy of demanding real identities from every visitor who wants to contribute. Why eliminate spontaneous, anonymous user-editing just to deter a few vandals? Anonymous sources are essential to societies. Deep Throat helped expose Watergate. Witness protection programs exist for a reason. We would never have seen the Abu Ghraib photo disc if the soldier who turned it in felt his identity would NOT be protected. Yes, masked anonymous bandits can do damage, but a targeted neighborhood clean-up solution, like this, would eliminate much of that without fundamentally changing Wikipedia's look, feel or function.

Wikipedia knowledge is made possible by a self-correcting social sieve that allows free errors and correction to be added in the majority of its entries by the majority of users. Just because a few users can't be trusted, doesn't mean most can't. Most can, in fact. And most neighborhoods are safe. Just find out where the bad apples lurk and put more cops on the street there.

Tim M., Woodstock, NY

Gosh. A suggestion from another Tim. I agree that some people are more likely to contribute if they feel protected by anonymity (although true anonymity is rare and more or less an illusion in many societies). But I am apprehensive about identifying and targeting only 'trouble spots'. This might create the impression that areas un-marked as trouble spots are more 'truthful'. Which is simply untrue. Many controversial areas are targeted by vandals, but many controversial contributions are also made in good faith. For example users might reference source material with varying witness statements, and each witness might believe each has witnessed the truth. Because of Wikipedia's accessibility, it does attract an enormous range of people and an enormous range of views. Limiting contributions, and ensuing editorial discussions, on controversial topics could also limit a reader's access to 'the whole story'. So:

• Might this actually create 'crime spots', perhaps in unexpected areas, by creating areas that are more watched than others?
• Might this fool readers into believing unflagged spots are more truthful, because vandals in those areas have not been caught?
• On the other hand, might this give readers the impression that articles with 'flagged revision' are more trustworthy - even though those topics are prone to controversy and mixed truth regardless?
• Might contributions be 'bottled-necked' on controversial topics, if they are all flagged, preventing valid material from being seen?
• Controversial and troublesome topics can already be flagged as 'controversial' through existing Wikipedia processes. The banners are prominent and clear. Do those pages need further flagging?
• Would this force vandals 'underground'?
• How does this address vandalism in an unflagged area, or entirely fictional articles that are rarely picked up simply because they are rarely visited?

Tim Foyle (talk) 10:16, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Two Wikis: An Alternate Proposal to Flagged Revisions

I just posted a very similar comment to this on another site, so apologies if anyone has already seen it.

The Main Problem: Vandalism

Vandalism is a problem and no site is immune from it. Wikipedia has managed to form a good reputation for itself, in spite of these recurrent episodes.

The problem extends far beyond Wiki. Dedicated vandals and spreaders of misinformation can even infiltrate organisations as tightly controlled as mainstream news publications and government broadcasters.

Examining the Proposal for Flagged Revisions

Can a system of Flagged Revisions really deter the dedicated vandal? And could it create a new type of problem, in creating misplaced trust in content that is still prone to manipulation.

I believe a system of 'Flagged Revisions' could falsely validate content by improving user confidence in Wikipedia while failing to deter the devoted vandal.

A system of 'Flagged Revisions' could also shut out genuine contributions from knowledgeable users who spend less time on Wikipedia. This could mean content would be driven by Wikipedians who spend a lot of time on the project. Wikipedians who spend a lot of time on the project, while very experienced in using Wiki tools, perhaps spend less time gathering information or gleaning new article ideas outside Wikipedia. A system of 'Flagged Revisions' could exclude valuable material created by people with expertise in other areas.

Wikipedia entries have been created by many, many, unknown contributors and volunteers. 'Flagged Revisions' will be approved by one of these characters, or another, and will have, in my opinion, no more validity than an instant edit does now. It is hardly as if Wiki content is currently created by a small team of known editors who can be held to account. If Wiki does reduce content by limiting user activity and forming an editorial team, in order to monitor content and approvals, what is there to distinguish Wikipedia from any other encyclopaedia?

In Summary:

• Can Flagged Revisions really deter persistent vandals and agents of provocation?

• Should users be lulled into believing that content is more reliable just because it has been 'approved'. Or is it better that users retain healthy scepticism by being reminded with every instant edit, and every ensuing discussion, of content creation processes?

• Will Flagged Revisions limit Wikipedia crowd sourcing, and deter valid knowledgeable contributors?

• How trustworthy is the approvalist, and how can an approvee be held to account if placed in a more powerful position than other contributors?

• Would Wikipedia become 'un-wiki', and loose its point of difference from a paper encyclopaedia?

The Solution: Two Wikis and a Print Edition

Perhaps, Wikipedia could choose proven well edited entries and make a special more encyclopaedic edition from those. Instead of flagging all new or anonymous user Wiki revisions, Wikipedia could encourage accuracy by rewarding quality entries with inclusion in a protected 'feature' encyclopedia. Wikipedia proper could be retained as it is, as a sort of catchment area for articles in development. Instead of clamping down on all content, dedicated users could choose from the overall pool and elevate well researched examples to a more 'protected' status (while retaining working copies of these that can still be commonly edited).

Perhaps these well researched and exquisitely written 'protected' entries could become a benchmark for all contributors to aspire to. These entries could even be published, in a print edition, generating revenue to hire the team of staff that would be required to edit an encyclopaedia to this calibre. The publication could have a special name, and be distinct from Wikipedia which would retain all of the vibrancy that it has today - with its vigorous community dedicated to unbiased truthful content, accessibility and freedom of content creation.

A print edition of well written and researched pieces could also serve to attract more knowledgeable contributors to Wikipedia, and raise Wikipedia's profile amoung non-Wikipedians.

Because most Wiki content is generated by volunteers, totally for free, a print edition should steer towards being accessible in cost and not-for-profit. Aside from covering the cost of production, I believe that a sizable percentage of any profit should go to a worthy and charitable cause. Perhaps profit could help supply laptops to underprivileged children, or fund independent journalistic projects, or offset carbon emissions.

Key Solution Points:

• Two Wikis, an all encompassing Wiki and a 'protected' Wiki for high quality select items.
• A secondary working copy, openly editable as entries are now, of each 'protected' item.
• A print edition of selected, high quality, extraordinarily well researched and beautifully written entries.

Tim Foyle (talk) 10:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I was going to suggest a very similar concept: articles that have been rated at a certain level on the quality scale would be protected from editing by new/anonymous users (changes by registered users could also be flagged for review, although that might be a problem if it led to a small number of editors 'owning' an article and preventing improvements by other editors).

Allowing anyone to freely contribute is a great way to get lots of information into wikipedia quickly but there is a point in an article's development where any future changes (even good faith ones) are as likely to be detrimental to the quality as they are to improve it.

Under this proposal, the quality of an article would need to be more prominently displayed at the top of the main article page.

Cosmo0 (talk) 11:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't this be more efficiently done by applying Flagged Revisions to featured content? That is the first proposal at the discussion on how to use the software extension. I fear there are some misconceptions amongst many people about what FlaggedRevs is - it does not have to be used over every single article, and noone is sugggesting it. Have a look at the linked page to reassure yourself. Fritzpoll (talk) 11:57, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for linking the discussion. I have to say I agree entirely and admit I hadn't read the discussion over flagged revisions and I was coming at the problem more from the point of view of ensuring the overall quality of WP (which is what is being discussed in other forums) rather than the specifics of implementing that particular system. Flagged revisions for featured articles could (and probably should) be a significant part of the solution. But featured articles are in the minority and I still think there's an argument for having some protection for those articles that are not yet 'featured' but are rated, say, 'good' or above and for making the rating more obvious to the casual reader. Cosmo0 (talk) 13:10, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

The 'two wikis plus print edition solution' is similar to these suggestions, and some trial suggestions, but a little different. The idea is to retain a working copy of feature quality work, that can be openly edited by anyone, as well as a protected copy. The aim is to more or less capture quality work that can be published in an actual encyclopaedic book (annually if possible), and to perhaps make use of functions already available in Wikipedia. For example, as each page is edited a copy of each edit is retained in the page history, so the capacity to retain a working copy and a 'frozen snip in time' is already built into the page. The thing is, these page histories can become very very long and not every user wades through one to get to a better or unvandalised version. In the two wikis proposal a feature article could be recorded at a particularly successful phase of development, and presented in a more readable format than the history page shows, while new live content could still be submitted to a working copy. This could minimise the impact of vandalism by protecting quality content and improving Wikipedia's reputation and profile, as well as retaining all that attracts a new user. It would be a pity to have to flag all new contributions to any article, and this is why I advocate retaining an openly editable copy as well as a more protected one. It would also be interesting to see how the 'two wikis' might evolve over time. If content was used to create an annual print edition, each annual edition of featured work could be updated from live working pages. In an annual edition of featured work some favourite or greatly changed items could be retained and updated, while newly featured or unusual items could replace others.Tim Foyle (talk) 13:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this will work per Citizendium. I know this is a short response... --Izno (talk) 18:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

A different idea again. Citizendium limits the pool of contributors, even more than flagged revisions would. The second Wiki I am proposing, would be more like a collection of 'portraits'. Each portrait would preserve a moment in the life of a living featured page or article. Readers and contributors could submit recommendations for inclusion or review in the collection. Guidelines could specify these articles be accurate, well written and very well referenced. Popularly visited or particularly unusual pages from Wikipedia could be scanned to see if they match these criteria.Tim Foyle (talk) 05:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Below in the section "Reviewed and To-the-minute editions", I have outlined the basic conflict between "to-the-minute" (latest) information and reviewed information. I have proposed that readers of WP be given the choice between these extremes via different "editions". Over time, for events that don't change rapidly and which are not controversial, this distinction would be erased, but articles which have not been reviewed or which pertain to very recent events (such as the alleged deaths of people) would automatically fall outside the "reviewed" or "settled" categories, and therefore would be flagged to the readers as not necessarily as reliable as others. See my detailed proposal below on this page. Modus Vivendi (talk) 21:15, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I replied on your proposal.Tim Foyle (talk) 06:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I did think two wikipedias would be excellent, but I thought they should be: 1. the current model anyone can edit and edits are published immediately, and 2. revisions approved articles. With only content which has passed some kind of review. (and give the user the option of which article to read, and a default choice for users who log in.) orathaic —Preceding undated comment was added at 23:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC).

As I have outlined in more detail in new remarks in my "Reviewed and To-the-minute Editions" section below, I do not so much propose completely separate editions as much as pages with different status, and policies from the reader of what they wish to see. For instance, if the latest version of a old, uncontroversial subject is in its reviewed state, then the reader simply sees a page with a review marker showing that. For a more dynamic, or controversial subject, then tags at the left would show what the reader is seeing, and also offer him/her the choice to switch to a different view. Modus Vivendi (talk) 06:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I took a look and left a note on reference and source material, maybe these could be tagged in a more prominent way for changes or review as well?Tim Foyle (talk) 11:17, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I Propose a Better System as a Compromise between flagging all new entries and having no system for verification

I see that people contributing are quite prolific writers but I will keep this short.

What is special about Wikipedia. People can see their contributions as soon as they have finished editing. So preferably new entries must be immediately displayed but with some kind of clear indication that they have not been fully approved. This could take the form of color-coding. With this system all new entries would appear red for example, distinguishing them from the standard text. Readers therefore know very clearly which parts of the article they can trust and which they should be a bit more cautious about.

Problem solved without any radical and constraining use of flagging. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Omarcoaa (talk • contribs) 20:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Two suggestions from joeytwiddle: What about a little red message at the top saying "Recent changes to this article have not yet been verified as accurate. You may wish to view the _last_confirmed_version_." ? Visitors to the site could also thumbup or thumbdown changes, so that vandalism could be automatically removed after enough thumbdowns.

I heartily concur - no serious instances of vandalism remain uncontested within the first 24 hrs, or 48 : text that appears red for the first 48 hrs of its existence, and then replaces the intended previous sections automatically provided no complaints have been received... automatic, transparent, and largely foolproof? much better than all the beauraucratic mucking about suggested above, with no-one sure which edition they're stuck in. [Breaking news like sudden deaths should anyway be left to the news desks, but if they're not, at least being coded in red would make things clear!] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.143.203.88 (talk) 10:01, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

If this were to be implemented, I would suggest colour the text grey so it doesn't stand out so much, leaving the prominent black (reliable) text as what catches the readers eye--ClubOranje^Talk 09:41, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

What's the deal with IPA?

I've noticed all the word pronunciations on Wikipedia use IPA exclusively.

I've also noticed that I've never once been able to figure out how a word was pronounced by looking up its entry on Wikipedia. Ever.

Is there a reason that the English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) does not provide traditional (pre-IPA dictionary movement) English dictionary style pronunciation guides in addition to IPA? I can see the usefulness of IPA for entries that have foreign pronunciations, but the simple fact is requiring people to learn an entirely new alphabet to figure out the pronunciation of the word doesn't seem that useful.

I'm not saying that IPA isn't useful. I'm saying that it would make sense to put a slightly more useful pronunciation guide along side the IPA one when appropriate. I'm basing this on the assumption that a very, very small fraction of people that visit Wikipedia actually know how to read IPA pronunciations. I may be wrong, in fact, I may be one of only a small handful of people that read this that don't know IPA -- and in that case, well, apologies for my ignorance.

This: /meɪnˈjɛərz/ really doesn't tell me much of anything, and I suspect it doesn't tell much of anything to more than a handful of other people.

What was the rationale behind only providing pronunciations with IPA?

I'm talking about the English version because I read English, but the same applies to any of the other languages as well.

--24.190.217.35 (talk) 14:56, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

You're not ignorant. Out of deference to the style guideline, I include IPA pronunciations when I think a pronunciation is needed (see Primate), but because every dictionary that's popular in the U.S. uses a style that's generally called a "respelling", I always list the respelling before the IPA pronunciation. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:24, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

en.wikipedia is not a U.S. specific wiki, so judgements based on "its used in U.S. dictionaries" are false. Please do use IPA as an international standard, and avoid making U.S. based assumptions on readership. As a reminder, the number of native speakers of British English is in vast excess of American English. --Barberio (talk) 16:23, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I agreed with you up to the last point. Take a look at English_(language)#Dialects_and_regional_varieties. Even if I am charitable and count all native speakers in Canada, Australia, and India in the "native speaker of British English" category, American English predominates by 215,000,00 to 95,000,000. British English is more widely taught as a second language than American English, however.—Kww(talk) 16:35, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to type, native and second language speakers, but my typing skipped ahead when I was deleting something else. --Barberio (talk) 16:50, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and it's a lot more lopsided than 215M to 95M. The idea that Canadian journalists and writers chiefly follow British English is a common misconception, but certainly understandable: you see similarities such as use of -our instead of -or and °C instead of °F, but Chicago and other American style guides have been more influential among professional Canadian writers than the various Fowlers or Harts or the Guardian for a century. Indian English is absolutely not British English, but there are a lot of people (including bureaucrats and arbcom members) who are Indian or living in India and can argue that better than I can. Another point I'm not qualified to argue, so let's ask some Brits, is that I've seen Germans not understanding Brits online many times because the Germans were taught British English in school, but the Brits were using Americanisms because elements of American style predominate online, and Wikipedia is front and center in the conflict of online vs. offline content. On the point that what dictionaries say is irrelevant to Wikipedia ... sigh. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 16:59, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the initial writer that the "required" use of IPA creates a lot of problems. Only a tiny minority of English speakers (i.e., our target reading audience) have any understanding of IPA. Many browsers in current use do not support the character set unless specially loaded, rendering it impossible to read the IPA pronunciation even if one understands the "alphabet". The theory that it will aid non-native speakers of English is again dependent on the likelihood of their knowing that format; I work with a large number of well-educated non-native English speakers and not one had ever seen it (aside from a speech pathologist, who uses it in her work). Given that there are often multiple pronunciations of the same word, dependent upon regional dialect, the "one size fits all" premise of including a single IPA pronunciation isn't necessarily all that useful. (Compare the pronunciation of the word "drawer" in Boston, London, Winnipeg, and Sydney. They're all different.) Summary: I don't know anyone that an IPA pronunciation has helped, but many people whom it's confused or frustrated. Idealism is lovely, but not necessarily reader-friendly. Risker (talk) 18:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, IPA's are a little more bitter than I care for---and definitely too hoppy.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloonCSD Survey Results 18:23, 5 January 2009 (UTC) EDIT: I was a little disappointed that only one person picked up on what I said (on my talk page)... everybody else responded to this erroneous.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloonCSD Survey Results 15:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered that their might be people who understood your remark but didn't want to derail a serious discussion for the sake of a joke? Algebraist 15:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

But since the IPA is more consistent than any natural language it would be the easiest for a text-to-speech software to read from. It could automatically generate sound clips as a pronunciation guide, no microphone needed, (just like we use <math> tags to generate .png images of complex formulae rather than manually uploading something from a paint program). I'll need to annoy the devs again about this. — CharlotteWebb 18:25, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm the person that wrote the initial post in this section; I'm reading all the responses now. It's funny, because I was thinking precisely this same thing before I read your comment. IPA, while tough to read, has the benefit that it unambiguously represents the pronunciation of a word. I'll do some more research here, I'd love to be able to click on an IPA string and hear it's pronunciation, and a feature like that would certainly justify the use of IPA in the first place. --24.190.217.35 (talk) 03:20, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we should include IPA as an international scholarly standard, but I think it would be useful to readers also to include less technical pronunciation guides and to include regional variations where appropriate. Aleta ^Sing 18:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

A lot of the problem of regional variations can be dealt with by remembering that Wikipedia should not contain pronunciation guides for common English words (like Risker's 'drawer' example above). That's appropriate material for a dictionary, but this is an encyclopædia. Algebraist 18:32, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Surprisingly enough (given that there's a lot of disagreement when the subject comes up in policy or guidelines discussions), people don't argue much about this on article talk pages, or do much reverting over the issue in articles. People tend to give pronunciations in the lead sentence if they think there's a good chance the word will be mispronounced. In other sentences, people don't usually give pronunciations; if anything, they're more likely to link to a Wiktionary page or another Wikipedia page that has a pronunciation. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 19:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Alternately, editors just leave out pronunciations of surnames, place names, etc., because they don't see added value in the mandated IPA pronunciations, which tend to clutter the first sentence of an article. Is there a way to track use of IPA pronunciations in articles? Risker (talk) 20:17, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

"what links here" from {{IPA}} and {{IPA-all}}. But they must be legion... [1][2]--dab (𒁳) 20:41, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

it would be an excellent addition to Wikipedia's toolkit to have a text-to-speech generator rendering IPA strings on demand. --dab (𒁳) 20:40, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

May I suggest using the DPA? (Yes I do have too much time on my hands). On a more serious note, a SAMPA rendering could be more easily read by a text-to-speech program, and shouldn't be too hard to convert. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 20:50, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Wiktionary is. And over there not only do we use multiple pronunciation guides, we even have sound files of native speakers in different dialects speaking the words. (And we welcome the efforts of anyone who wants to add more of the same to the articles that don't yet have it.) See d:mush#English and d:clique#English for two randomly-selected examples. You want to find out how to pronounce a word? Look in a dictionary, not an encylopaedia. Uncle G (talk) 05:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

• Believe it or not, we also have sound file prononciations in Wikipedia (especially for things that don't warrant dictionary entries like Knut (polar bear) and X!NK (two I've done) and Motorhead, a band name, which has also sorts of funky diacratics if spelled properly.- Mgm|^(talk) 14:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
• I agree, with exceptions. Most people assume that the taxonomic order Primates is pronounced like "primates", but it's not, which is why I gave the pronunciation. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 19:32, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
• I personally have to say that I find IPA very weird. It's not just all the non-ASCII characters, I think ( I never went too deep into linguistics so don't quote me on this ) that IPA may not distinguish between phonemes and allophones. A phoneme is a unique sound, in a perfect world it would be matched to a unique letter, and there's maybe 50-60 of them in all the world's languages. An allophone is a certain way of pronouncing a phoneme. A phoneme might have several allophones for different accents, but they're generally recognized as meaning the same "letter". I think IPA has some symbols that correspond to phonemes and some that correspond to specific allophones, but not all allophones. The most sensible phonetic spellings I've ever seen were in the datasheet of a 1980's-vintage speech synthesis chip. They had two-letter respellings for each phoneme ( EE, EH, and so on ), and the allophones were like "EE1, EE2, EE3", and so on. Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:53, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Uncle G's comment (05:25, 6 January 2009) is on target, if only Wiktionary were comprehensive enough. A single IPA transcription does not handle dialect differences, for example "standard US" English pronunciation is more nasal than UK "standard English" pronunciation. Being a Brit, I was quite amused to see that the Spanish-to-English half of one dictionary gave US rather than UK phonetic representions of the English words. And of course there are strong regional dialects both sides of the Pond ("och no, it's jest the way Ah roll mah rrrrs"). Wikipedia could handle pronunciation correctly only by giving a footnote with the "most important" variants. I suggest it would be better to replace pronunciation guides with links to Wiktionary where possible, and for Wiktionary to include sound clips rather thna IPA where possible. --Philcha (talk) 14:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Wiktionary is reasonably liberal in this regard. It includes both symbolic pronunciation guides and sound files. Uncle G (talk) 10:54, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
    • His comment does not appear to be on target as I cannot seem to find the "Ménière's Disease" entry in Wiktionary. Pronunciations for common words certainly do not belong in Wikipedia, I could not agree more. Pronunciation for a proper noun like this, however, certainly belongs in an encyclopedia entry on the topic (where pronunciation information is entirely relevant to the topic). "Ménière's", by the way, is what /meɪnˈjɛərz/ was referring to in the initial post. There is only one correct way to pronounce the French name "Ménière", regardless of local accents. That said, dictionary.com does contain an entry for this word, and provides a more readable, albeit ambiguous, pronunciation, as well as IPA and an audio sample. --24.190.217.35 (talk) 03:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Expecting an article on that would be just a perverse mis-use of a dictionary. Of course one won't find an encyclopaedia article title in a dictionary. In a dictionary, one looks up the individual words and idioms. You'll find that Wiktionary already has d:disease#English, which already contains one set of pronunciations. And it will take d:Ménière, if you want to do your lexicography in a dictionary where it belongs. (Your argument that the pronunciation, which is just the general French pronunciation of a surname and not something that is specific to the name of the disease, belongs in an article about a disease, is bogus.) Wiktionary takes proper nouns. Proper nouns are, after all, parts of speech too. It simply doesn't write encyclopaedia articles about the things, places, concepts, events, and people that such proper nouns denote. Instead, it has articles on the actual words themselves, which can include pronunciations just as for any other dictionary article — as well as etymologies, translations, inflections, usage notes, quotations, and all of the other things that dictionary articles contain. d:Ménière will go in d:Category:French proper nouns, alongside the likes of d:Jacques#French and d:Bretagne#French. Uncle G (talk) 10:54, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I've always said the IPA pronunciation was completely hopeless to anyone who'd normally be reading Wikipedia. Those should go away, and either be replaced by what you'd see in a dictionary or a link to a site like Wiktionary that handles it more comprehensively. Adding information that's of use to no one and confuses most people is just bad policy. DreamGuy (talk) 15:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I support the use of IPA. It is not "completely hopeless" to have a standard way of explaining how a word is pronounced across the project. We have enough issues with not having standard techniques across articles without trying to jettison IPA. doktorb _words^deeds 11:02, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Likewise. No pronunciation system is understod by everybody; the international standard (IPA), with links to a key that explains it, is the best we can do.--Kotniski (talk) 11:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Statistically speaking, nobody understands IPA and nobody uses it. I agree with the original poster and I resent greatly that several persistent PhDs in linguistics have foisted this upon the community. Tempshill (talk) 21:52, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

That idea isn't workable. Lots of small cities are equidistant from a variety of different airports. And if we're doing airports we'd have to debate whether to include general-aviation airports, etc. It just doesn't make sense to put airports in suburbs' infoboxes. It's not like a regional mass-transit system where each suburb that wants bus service has to contribute to the transit authority. Suburban governments typically don't have a relationship with airports dozens of miles away. Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:59, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

(edited)Each seemingly random collection of IPA symbols tells the average reader absolutely nothing . "/meɪnˈjɛərz/ suggest "mein-jeers" to the average reader. At the Wikipedia:IPA page, clicking on the sound file for one of the symbols only takes me to a "Windows Media Setup" page where I am told the computer was unable to find the necessary files, so it is doubly frustrating. The next thing for most readers would be to hire someone for $50 per hour to assist in installing the necessary files so they can find out how the damn word is pronounced. Not very useful, all in all. Edison (talk) 03:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Update: got the sound files playing. But listening to the sound of the symbols separately does not give much of an idea of how they would sound in connected speech. Would that some clever person would create a concatenator to retrieve the sound files and play them as a combined unit. Edison (talk) 04:12, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

"mein-jeers" is pretty close to how /meɪnˈjɛərz/ is pronounced, at least the way I pronounce "mein-jeers" is. –OrangeDog (talk • edits) 22:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Reasonsing for mandatory IPA is flawed

I strongly agree that the primary pronounciation guide should not be IPA, but something intuitive that an average reader can understand and use. Mainstream media doesn't use IPA for exactly this reason. Consider a current article on the BBC website on "How to pronounce Davos" [3]This is simple to understand as it is intuitive. There is nothing intuitive about IPA and thus it doesn't serve the key purpose of enabling the average reader to understand how a word should be pronounced. Savlonn (talk) 01:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The technical justifications for using IPA are flawed as they put this criterion above the core principle of having an encylopedia that is easy for people to use. Savlonn (talk) 01:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The use of prescriptive notation at the cost of readability has been addressed eslewhere within Wikipedia, with overwhelming results favouring readability over the use of obscure standards. This should be the case with IPA as well.--Savlonn (talk) 01:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Greater consultation on any changes to Wikipedia Guidelines

In a recent dispute with another user, it was noticed that this user had changed some of Wikipedia's guidelines to support this user's argument. I believe that the guideline articles are different to an average article in Wikipedia. They are our rule book, perhaps even our constitution, and they have already been refined to a high standard. Like all constitutions, I think a more elaborate process is needed to change them. I am concerned that someone could slip in an innocent looking change with unforeseen repercussions without a serious review having taken place. Even if this change were reversed a few hours or days later, in the meantime someone else might have been forced to concede a change to an article which would not have been justifiable before guidelines had been amended. I therefore propose that any change should be justified in advance with several examples to illustrate the current problem and why the proposed change would solve it. Since the guidelines are important, I would also like to suggest that a longer period must elapse than for, say, a article for deletion. Please accept my apologies if this is a perennial suggestion. JMcC (talk) 12:11, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that's already the understanding. I think policy and guideline pages already have a template at the top saying something like "Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page." People shouldn't change policies or guidelines in order to further their side in a dispute they're currently involved in. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:31, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, people shouldn't change the guidelines to help their case, but it happened. Consequently, I think a more formal process is needed, instead of a template. Does the template mean that if you are sufficiently arrogant to have no doubts, you should just go ahead and make the change? A process similar to AfD would create greater safeguards. JMcC (talk) 13:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

truth versus verifiability

WP:VER says "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true."

Today an editor made a change to Lucena Position, saying that the old moves were wrong. I checked and that is the truth. However, the moves he replaced are verifiable - they are in the source, the book by de la Villa. So what do we do in a case like this? Truth or verifiability? Bubba73 (talk), 17:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

How do you know that it's the truth? In theory this should lead you to a different source which can be invoked instead. Mangoe (talk) 18:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I am the one that originally added the material to the article. I got it from the source, which turned out to be incorrect. As the edit comment today says, what was given the last move is actually illegal, not a valid move. I don't have a second paper source for that position, but there are endgame tablebases for all positions with six or fewer pieces that give the best move by each side in each position. These tablebases give the "truth" about the positions with few pieces. The editor today called the fourth move "stupid", but actually it only delays winning - wasting two moves. The fourth move given by the editor is the optimal move according to the database. Bubba73 (talk), 19:24, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

If this chess position is notable, then by definition multiple sources should have written about it. If the currently-cited source contains an error, then why not find a source that's correct, and cite that instead? SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 19:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

There are a very large number of chess positions. There are plenty of sources for the "Lucena Position", which is really a technique rather than a particular position. It works in all sufficiently similar positions. (Or you could say that any position of a large group of positions is a "Lucena position".) I wrote a good deal of the Lucena position article. About 1.5 to 2 years ago someone commented that the bridge can be formed on the fifth rank too. I have nearly all chess endgame books published in English (see chess endgame literature) and I searched for one covering the bridge on the fifth rank and this one was the only one I could find.

I'd like to add that if there were two more pieces on the board then the tablebases would not provide a definitive answer. But on the other hand, any decent chess player could have seen this error. I didn't see it because I was simply copying the moves from the source. So what are we to do when we know it is wrong, but it is verifyable? Bubba73 (talk), 20:35, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, verifiable means it can be verified in a reliable source. That means reliable, not infallible. If there is clearly an error in the source and you're sure that no other source is available, then it seems to me that your options are to either remove the material entirely, or (if it is clear what the writer meant to say) make the correction, probably noting that you've done so in a footnote. A talk page discussion is probably the best way to determine which course is better. Presumably the editors at WP:CHESS can help you with that. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 20:42, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Quotations include the exact words of the author, even where it contains spelling or grammar errors - these are usually indicated with "sic". An analogous principle applies here; quote the source, but note in a footnote or in brackets alongside it the likely real move. Alternatively, correct it in place and note what the source said in a footnote. Dcoetzee 20:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Removing it is an easy option. Just because something has sources, doesn't mean that it is worth keeping---especially if you know its wrong. The issue arises if you think it is wrong and somebody else says, "No, it's right and should remain in the article." In that case, they will have the advantage of having the sources while you only have OR.---Balloonman ^PoppaBalloonCSD Survey Results 20:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it should be kept, but I will add a footnote, as a couple of people suggested. Of course, this is a bigger issue than one article. Bubba73 (talk), 21:38, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The Wikilawyer in me says "If an otherwise-reliable source says something that turns out to be false, then for the purposes of that statement, the source is not reliable." If a source is not reliable, verifiability doesn't matter. Even The Chicago Tribune can blow it occasionally. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Reliable sources can be wrong for several reasons. That does not mean they are not reliable. They can be wrong because:

- An honest mistake, typo or similar

- The best available information at the time of publication (e.g. in 1400 flat earth ideas conformed to this, no longer)

- Empirical evidence that is due to statistical error. (in statistics we generally accept a 1 in 20 chance that data interpretation points to an effect while there is none, thus 1 in 20 papers may report an effect that is not really there.

In all cases the solution is simple if there are several sources take the consensus among (reliable and independent!!) sources as additional information to determine the relevant reference. If there is only one source, it should be taken on face value for the time being (which is very scientific, a hypothesis is true untill proven otherwise) Arnoutf (talk) 00:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I think what I meant was that when a reputable, reliable source gets it wrong, the source should not be used as a reference to support the false claim. In other words, if RS x says y, but a not so reliable source says "not y," and you have good reason, perhaps personal knowledge*, that "not y" is true, it's okay to remove y. This is particularly true of current events, where the reliable sources may not have caught up with reality. *Note: Personal knowledge shouldn't be used to add material, only remove known false material. Anyone revering RS'd false material in favor of personal knowledge or a less-than-reliable source should leave a note on the article talk page saying why the material was removed. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with davidwr and Balloonman: we can remove material from a page if there are good reasons to do so, especially if there is consensus among the editors of the page that the material is not of good quality. Sometimes another good option is prose attribution: instead of asserting Y, we can assert "source A says Y"; it's true that it says Y, even if Y is false. Sometimes completely removing it is better: if Y is false it's often not sufficiently notable or interesting to include. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 16:17, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

If ten otherwise reliable sources say something that's false, and only one says the truth, it may be worth mentioning that in the article. -Freekee (talk) 22:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

But how can you know that the one source is telling the truth, and not the ten others? Arnoutf (talk) 22:41, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes the evidence is strong. Research can turn something up. There are many cases of things that are believed, and after a long time, the real story turns up. And often, the revelation is important enough that it makes news on its own. Sometimes we must write about it by attributing the minority-opinion statement. Sometimes we can actually tell the story of the change of belief. -Freekee (talk) 22:59, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, indeed for evidence - agree; re advancing insight, agree; another situation maybe if the 10 sources are actually copies of the same underlying source (e.g. the same press release). I was just raising the point to make sure we do not use subective criteria to select sources to our liking and disregard others, as that, of course, is not a good way forward introducing non-neutral point of view. Arnoutf (talk) 23:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Good point. And explaining the differing sources can go a long way to avoiding the appearance of choosing a non-neutral POV. -Freekee (talk) 23:20, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes a certain amount of subjective is jugdement is unavoidable. Deciding which sources are more reliable or authoritative than others is one of the necessary evils we have to live with. The New York Times is more reliable than the National Inquirer, and in the UK, the Times is more reliable than the Sun. And they are all less reliable than peer-reviewed academic articles. — Blue-Haired Lawyer 15:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. And note that especially newspapers/websites may have slightly different versions of the same news, while all reports are based on the same press release; so in cases where Sun, Times, NYTimes and National Inquirer all say the same; it may actually be based on the same single source (e.g. a press release). Arnoutf (talk) 15:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I've run across two cases where I've had run-ins with the verifiability police. In the second case, there was an interview with the subject where the reporter stated that the subject had attended a school that was a hundred miles away from where she lived. It literally took going to an online copy of a school yearbook to suppress this. In practice, there seems to be an assumed guideline (if not policy) that material from a "verifiable" source has to be included until it is proven incorrect, and that the only allowable proof is a "better" source. Mangoe (talk) 13:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Re. Mangoe: Is there a verifiability police?

Having an otherwise reliable source that has made an error (or a strongly suspected error), is not a good reason to to copy that error into Wikipedia. However, if you can't achieve consensus (on the article talk page) to delete the incorrect school, then there is not much you can o except write a brief footnote for readers. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 16:14, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Reviewed and To-the-minute Editions

Concerning the reliability of Wikipedia, we should consider a concept similar to releasing software. In that realm, "release candidates" are cut, and revised within narrower constraints until there's a consensus that it's releasable. To this goal, Wiki could introduce the concept of "editions" being cut somewhat infrequently (monthly, quarterly, annually) and refined to remove inconsistencies, errors, but having greater editorial control (for instance, concurrence of others to make changes). The public would continue to have the present "cutting edge" edition available as always, but for the purposes of "peer-reviewed" reliability which some might require, the more closely edited "release candidates" should gain greater acceptance. This could solve not only the problems of knee-jerk updates about famous people, but also allow the Edition to be vetted for internal consistency (broken links detected, removed).

For practical viewing purposes, a person viewing an article might first see the latest (as now), but also links on the left pointing to the last several "reviewed" editions of the article. In particular, this would be a way to test-drive peer-review policies without removing the "edit at will" principle. In other words, (almost) anyone can edit at will, but these may not make it into a monthly/quarterly edition, both by the ordinary course of events (corrected) and by additional review.

An objection to this might be the scale of the endeavour: subjecting a monster like Wiki to a new edition very often could impossibly increase workload of contributors. To this end, it might be necessary to introduce the feature to particular "zones" (subject areas) such as "Mathematics", "US History", with the list extended to those subjects with a "sponsor" (someone "credible" with the bandwidth to devote to editorship).

I'm particularly mindful of the need to have a frozen/settled set of consistent pages to properly cover a scientific area, especially something like an area I know well like advanced mathematics in which we not only have to have accurate pages, but complete pages where all the cross-references work.

Modus Vivendi (talk) 05:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

You point out the great volume of work that an entire reviewed edition of all Wikipedia pages would create. What I suggested in a proposal for two Wikis and a print edition, and it might help minimise this problem, is to select articles that have already been reviewed and featured or that could be nominated for peer review. This would reduce reviewed edition content considerably. I like the idea of keeping the two editions linked within Wikipedia.

Tim Foyle (talk) 06:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Let's put it this way. From the perspective of a particular page, it can have two statuses: reviewed, and current. Every page is "reviewed" in an ad hoc manner, and this is what makes Wikipedia work. However, we're envisaging a "reviewed" status which implies greater scrutiny and also stability. I think we can look forward to a time when the majority of uncontroversial subjects have stable and well-reviewed corpora of associated pages. It remains to describe the way to get there, the view to present to the uncritical public for currently large body of pages not in this category, and finally how to deal with pages which will always, by dint of controversy or the march of events, be unstable. When I speak of "editions" I speak of the status of having a review concluded on a certain date. The initiative would come from people in particular subject areas to elevate, for instance, the Nero Wolfe pages to being reviewed, internally consistent and not needing additional change to meet quality control standards. This would create a "fork", and new Nero Wolfe pages could be created at any time, but would not be added to the reviewed corpus. After some time had passed, contributors in that area would undertake absorbing/fixing changes since the last "code freeze". In other words, the work that is needed is the same work needed to apply quality control to any subject area, and the possibility of a "code freeze" and associated fork provides, in principle the capability to bring a set of related pages in line. Now having talked about this one subject area, consider the larger picture. The "Jan 2009" edition would consist of all reviewed subareas frozen on that date and subsequently reviewed. Each "reviewed" page would carry review details so that the reader could tell how recently the material was brought up to date/reviewed. In the case of highly controversial subjects, the impossibility of achieving consensus might devolve to the existence of separate corpora for those subject areas under different editorial control, with the bias/editorial lead clearly shown for such pages along with the alternatives.

Modus Vivendi (talk) 04:42, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that controversial subjects should be treated in a different way. The way Wikipedia treats controversial material now seems to be reasonably effective. In spite of the troublesome nature of some pages, Wikipedia does alert the reader to bias - by encouraging the reader to be an active participant as well as with sign-posts. I would expect pages dealing with history to be more controversial than others. The other tricky area, might be reference and source material. I suspect these are checked less than the main bodies of text in Wikipedia. As a reader, I notice Wikipedian bots seem to pick up source and reference material where it is scarce, but could be missing the mark where referenced material is questionable in itself. I'm not fully fluent in all of Wikipedia's editing mechanisms, this is just an impression I have as a reader. I would expect source material on a peer reviewed page to be subject to more scrutiny, and hopefully more accurate or at least discussed where inconsistencies become evident.Tim Foyle (talk) 10:55, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Improving Wikipedia's credibility

Merged to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) - please avoid Wikipedia:Multiposting

Crowdsourcing Moderation: An Alternate Proposal to Flagged Revisions

Wiki's are community driven websites, and it is for this reason that I think moderation should be a task for the community. Wikipedia should develop functionality that is similar to the Flagged Revision, but improves upon some of its shortcomings.

I propose:

1. Every edit goes into a queue for moderation where it will stay until it gets reviewed and committed/published.
2. When a user makes a change to the article, a message appears on the top of the article telling other users to review the modification on the diff page.
3. The diff page has a voting form on it allowing users to "approve" or "deny" modification which need to be reviewed. Since they are presented only two options, this simple review process will make it easy for users to participate, unlike the overly complicated categories of Flagged Revision (accuracy, depth, readability). After all, suggested modifications are either worthy of being accepted, or they are not.
4. After a certain number of users approve the modification with their votes, it will be committed/published to the public article content. This democratic approach will help get a general consensus of users in a short amount of time, helping enforce all the standards of Wikipedia.
5. If a certain number users deny the modification with their votes, it will be deleted from Wikipedia.

There should be three criteria in order for modification to be committed/published:

1. Minimum number of votes needed to consider wiki modifications for approval?

   i.e. "4" users need to vote for the wiki modification to be considered for approval.

2. What threshold of voters need to approve the wiki modification for it to be published?

   i.e. "70%" of voters need to approve wiki modification for it to be published

3. What threshold of voters need to deny the wiki modification for it to be deleted? (Use "0" to never automatically delete nodes)

   i.e. "70%" of voters need to deny the wiki modification for it to be deleted from the database

Here is a break down of the system using the settings used in the examples above.

• Good Quality Modification (i.e. Grammatical Enhancements): If 3 or more of the 4 required voters approve the modification, it gets committed/published.
• Controversial Modification: If 2 of the 4 approve it, than at least 3 more users need to approve it before it gets published. For instance, if 5 out of 7 users approved, it would be published. The voting could continue further until the 70% approval is obtained. This also goes for deletion. If only 2 out of 7 approve the modification and the other 5 deny it, then it is deleted.
• Poor Quality Modification (i.e. Vandalism): If only 1 of the 4 accept, the modification is deleted.

Since all users of Wikipedia are involved, there is no bottleneck of modification for "trusted" users to review and moderation becomes a task for all users, even anonymous ones. In addition, new contributions are instantly made visible to readers through the notification system while still leaving them obscure from the main content in order to deter vandalism. This system will encourage users to get involved by reviewing modifications, even if they don't currently feel comfortable contributing their own edits. Also, the review process will help all editors become familiar with Wikipedia's standards and will improve the quality of their own contributions.

Pbarnes (talk) 04:28, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem with such a proposal is it isn't looking at quality of votes, but quantity. Grawp has hundreds of sockpuppets, how could this system stop him from replacing the content of pages with HAGGER?????? via sock or meatpuppets voting. Adding definate rules on ability to vote (like autoconfirmation) will not help, as that is not judging the quantity of contributions, as a user can have 4 edits, each of them turning a stub into FAC material and a Huggle user can have 100,000 meaningless antivandalism contributions or perhaps even just run a bot on their account that performs pointless edits. Also with this system, the queues will be huge, as having a big vote is going to slow things down to an unacceptable level. Even having crat discretion in choosing who can vote will not help that. Foxy Loxy ^Pounce! 05:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

What's ironic about your post is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that concerns itself with the "quantity" of authors and not the "quality" of authors, so your first sentence doesn't resonate well with the Wikipedia model. In addition, if someone is going to go to the trouble to set up multiple computers to vote for malicious modifications, than only draconian regulations is going to prevent them from accomplishing their goals. Wikipedia is all about letting everyone contribute, so implementing a system to force every entry to be screened "trusted" users seems counter intuitive. It also begs the question, who do you trust? What's to keeps the "Grawp" from becoming a trusted user and making the same malicious edits to further his/her agenda? Pbarnes (talk) 04:50, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia may want lots of authors (quantity), but they want quality edits from those editors. The rest of your statements seem to affirm my points, the real question to ask is why implement a system that can be easily gamed by those very users who the system is trying to block out? all it would add is a backlog. Foxy Loxy ^Pounce! 11:22, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's the backlog that makes proposals like this unacceptable. Take this article for instance: Dane Rudhyar; it's something I did a bit of work on about three years ago and keep on my watchlist. Look at the recent revision history: [4]. See the amazing work that Keraunos has done this week improving and expanding it. Now, Keraunos did this work in 70 edits in the course of less than 3 days—a closer look shows that the work was done in 4 intense spurts, where one edit would follow the next by just a few minutes. This happens to be how many of our articles are improved every day. Do we really want a system that would oblige a highly productive editor like Keraunos to sit around and wait on every single damn edit to see whether it is "approved" or not, so as to determine how to properly proceed with subsequent edits? No way! Please remember one of our most fundamental principles:

"You can edit this page right now" is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred.

Often, when we discuss this principle, we focus on that "you". Let's not forget that "right now" is just as important to the work being done here.—DCGeist (talk) 13:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The issue you bring up with Keraunos' work is easily solved by combining sequential edits made by the same person. And if democratic review is not fast enough for the "right now" philosophy of Wikipedia, this proposal could be combined with another (which I can't find at the moment). Instead of new edits being queued on the history page and hidden until reviewed by other users, they will be displayed in the article, but with color coding. If content is recommended for deletion, it will turn red; if someone wants to add content it is displayed green. The voting form could be displayed next to the edit button on each section and approval could be changed to only accept modifications within the section. Unfortunately, since edits are made public instantly, vandals have more incentive to beat the system and make their malicious edits, which is the primary problem we are addressing with these proposals. It is for this reason, I propose a buffer system for all editors, because anyone with the power, even "trusted" users could potentially make malicious edits to further their agenda. 199.106.86.2 (talk) 18:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

This proposal is prohibitively complicated. Nobody would know how to use it except for trolls who know would know the loopholes by heart. rspεεr (talk) 05:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

JAXA photos

Ibuki (satellite), which recently launched, lacks a photo. JAXA, Japan's space exploration agency, holds the copyrights for numerous photos on their website. Their Terms of Use page (in English) makes it sound to me like they are giving permission for anyone to use the photos for educational purposes (see section 2(1)) under a license similar to CC-by-nc-nd, except that (a) it's educational, not noncommercial; (b) they reserve the right to change their Terms of Use at any time; and (c) there are a few miscellaneous odd prohibitions, like, the user isn't permitted to use the photos for "Acts which are conducted for the purpose of or in a manner offending public order and morals".

Long story short: I think there's a good argument for allowing JAXA images on Wikipedia and would like to know where to post about this, and if others agree, then adding a JAXA tag for photo uploads. Thanks - Tempshill (talk) 06:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

If they're restricting it to educational use only, that's been an unacceptable license term for years now, and the images will be subject to the non-free content rules. --Carnildo (talk) 06:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunate. Thanks - Tempshill (talk) 19:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

why all the fuss

I dont see why there is all this fuss. Why not simply fork the data and leave wikipedia to stagnate and die under a mountain of extra work that will come about from closing the edits to the general populace. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.76.247 (talk) 10:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Because with a 60:40 split, forking the content will fork the community, bringing inefficiency and chaos. Plus the WMF uses a huge cluster system to keep Wikipedia active with all the queries it receives, if we fork to one server, with the amount of traffic it would receive, it'd be dead in a day. Also, that is counting on the community forking with the content, which is unlikely. Foxy Loxy ^Pounce! 11:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Because no-one wants to do that. If you think the world needs another Wikipedia fork, then by all means go ahead and make one. Algebraist 13:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Editing policy: Demote to a guideline

At the moment the Wikipedia:Editing policy seems to be a little overlooked and that it contains sections that give advice that is contrary to the advise in some of the three content policies (WP:NPOV,WP:NOR and WP:V)

So that there can be no confusion, between policies, I have proposed on the talk page of the "Editing policy" that it be demoted to a guideline, because AFAICT it does not cover any areas which are not already covered by other policies and guidelines so there is no need for it to remain a policy.

Even if the current problems are fixed, it will have to be kept up to date with the content policies, which means that if it remains a policy it will always be in danger of giving contrary advise to that of the main content policies. If it is a guideline then this is not such a problem because "Policies and guidelines express standards that have community consensus. Policies are considered a standard that all editors should follow, whereas guidelines are more advisory in nature." (WP:policies and guidelines)

So that all the conversation is centralised please make any comments on this suggestion at Wikipedia talk:Editing policy#Demote to a guideline --PBS (talk) 11:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:MAINSTREAM

an active proposal that sais Wikipedia should be a mainstream encyclopedia. Comments? 212.200.243.116 (talk) 13:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Verifiability taken too far?

Especially when discussing cultural references in popular media, I find lots of useful information is deleted by editors complaining of a lack of citations. This tends to end with the article consisting entirely of a re-iteration of the plot (e.g. various South Park episodes). Most of these are along the lines of "this scene is the same as that scene in a different work", or "this character also appears in that work". These can be verified by simply looking at the two works in question. In many cases it would be difficult to find an acceptable source that explicitly points this out. Should every example of this have an in-line citation for both works, left alone as obviously using the named primary sources, or deleted pending a secondary source? As a corollary, statements such as "in this episode this happens" shouldn't need in-line citations. Discuss. –OrangeDog (talk • edits) 23:01, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Statements need to be verifiable but that doesn't mean sourced, as long as the source is obvious, like in the cases you mentioned. If this type of statement is deleted, a more rational explanation is that it's not important enough to justify inclusion (even in the context of the topic). For example, I've occasionally deleted a one-off or very subtle pop culture reference to an enduring topic since they don't really say anything about the topic. Other wikis can certainly cover this info though. Dcoetzee 23:14, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

"Statements need to be verifiable but that doesn't mean sourced, as long as the source is obvious, like in the cases you mentioned" Er, no. His case is that of original research and synthesis. Making connections which are probably there but haven't been mentioned anywhere for Wikipedia to comment on is the incorrect behavior and should not be endorsed.

That said, such connections are usually quite welcome on fan-created content, particularly wikis dedicated to the subject. --Izno (talk) 23:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Admittedly, I was a bit too generous there. It is common to not cite sources that are obvious; for example, no plot summary cites the work that it's summarizing, because it's obvious. There is also limited synthesis permitted in cases where it's not "advancing a position." I would consider "this character also appears in work Y" to be a perfectly acceptable example of synthesis. Other examples might be more questionable. Dcoetzee 00:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Izno, with all do respect to WP:NOR, there is also the spirit of WP:DUCK. If a given South Park episode is a blatant and obvious spoof of some other topic, especially a well-known topic, it's fair to say so without a reference, because if it's that blatant anyone who saw both the spoof and the original would draw the conclusion instantly. Similarly, Saturday Night Live has some obvious spoofs. You don't need a reference beyond the skit itself to say "in XYZ skit on date mm/dd/yyyy, actress ABC spoofed Hillary Clinton," it's obvious to anyone who saw the skit and who is remotely familiar with Hillary Clinton's mannerisms. Now, some spoofs are a bit less obvious than others. I think common sense should prevail here. If a reasonable person has seen the spoof and is familiar with the original and they don't get it, then it's not obvious and needs a verifiable citation. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

If it's that obvious, someone would have said so, no? :) Even the writers, creators, or the other staff themselves; I'm not particularly picky on who, only on that someone else said it before we did. Except straight plot, without connection i.e "Kenny died of poison this episode" and not "Kenny died of poison this episode, which is a spoof that <some person x> died of poison." From what I've seen, it's routine to leave the story un-cited, but when we start making connections we shouldn't... --Izno (talk) 03:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Not always; sometimes the work isn't significant enough to have a reliable source explicating all of its content. While your example is clear speculation, to continue the example it wouldn't be OR to give a list of episodes in which Kenny dies of poison (although it would be a rather useless list). Dcoetzee 03:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Here's a similar situation: In an article about the United States Dollar Bill, I can say it has a picture of former United States President George Washington on it without citing a reference. The bill says "Washington" on it and anyone who saw official portraits of President George Washington and the Dollar Bill would instantly draw the connection. The bill itself plus Washington's face serve as the reference. Yes, links to another source are available and they are helpful but they are not necessary in such obvious cases. If WP:NOR + WP:V prohibit this, WP:IAR allows it in cases where removing the material on the grounds that it is not explicitly sourced from an "outside" source hurts the encyclopedia. Of course, adding a source is preferred. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

As far as usefulness goes, if someone didn't know who George Washington was and wanted a greater understanding of the dollar bill, then including this link in the article would be very useful. This argument should extend to the majority of cultural references sections across tv/film/music articles. –OrangeDog (talk • edits) 03:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) In regards to trivia, cultural references and fan cruft-if something isn't notable and relevant enough to be mentioned by reliable sources that can be verified, is it really something worth being in an encyclopedia article? I mean if no one else in the world thought that such and such reference, parody or what not was important enough to write about in an independent reliable source, then why should Wikipedia be the first? That seems like cut & dry WP:OR. If a cultural reference is truly notable, someone else will be talking about it that we can attribute a verifiable reliable source to. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:50, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I assert yes; the standard for notability for including a fact in an article is considerably lower than that for articles themselves. There's no need to make a list of every reference an episode of a TV show makes (that's what other show-specific wikis are for) but I wouldn't want the kind of limited, useful synthesis that is permitted by policy curtailed. Dcoetzee 04:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

At the heart of our original research, citation, verifiability policies is the inherent expectation that the content of our article is going to be notable enough that there will be some outside verifiable source, apart from Wikipedia, that will be talking about the subject. If no one is talking about this "cultural reference" or "trivia" then there is not going to be a verifiable source and therefore it is not something that should be in an encyclopedia. Wikipedia should not be the first place to publish content and proclaim something "notable". It should have its notability and relevance already established outside of Wikipedia--THAT is why we ask for reliable, verifiable sources for our content. It is proof that the encyclopedic relevance of the topic exist beyond Wikipedia. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 04:23, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

For items that are very new, the discussion may be happening in "unreliable" or even "unavailable" sources, like the water-cooler or fan-based mailing lists. I would contend that if someone wrote an article about tonight's South Park using material from the episode and nowhere else, and he did synthesis things like "this episode spoofed such and such" and the spoof was blatantly obvious, it would be more harmful to remove the material and re-add it after a day or two when reliable sources started talking about it than it would be to just leave it in and maybe slap a "citation needed" tag on it. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:50, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I like trivia sections, but you're never going to get a policy or guideline to OK them. I think there was a big fight over this a year or two ago. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:53, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) This shouldn't be an argument about trivia sections (I agree that they're a bad thing). This is about whether synthesis verifiable by anyone who has seen both sources, but non-obvious to someone unfamiliar with one of them, should be included, even if a reliable secondary source cannot be found. Assuming both sources are notable.–OrangeDog (talk • edits) 19:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I generally think synthesis is a bad idea; it is misused so often (for an essay-under-construction with some examples, see WP:ORIGINALSYN). If the connection is valid, someone will have made it; if no one has made it, it is either flawed or not notable enough to be included. Jayen466 19:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem then is which ones to include. South Park episodes have 10-50 references to pop culture per episode. If editors had been able to keep commentary on such things streamlines, there wouldn't have been the big backlash. Unfortunately, if you add one, people will add the other 49. Exactly where obvious changes to OR is another problem. Because of these two problems, trivian pop culture references are frowned up. The Simpsons do a good job with references in their episode pages, but it can only be done well after the DVD commentaries come out. I think they're on season 10 or something now, which leaves the later ones out in the cold. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it partly depends on what sort of article it is. If it is a computer game, and some fan writes "that level is a bit like level 3 in game X", I shan't lose any sleep. If it is a topic that has a body of scholarly literature devoted to it, then it's different. Jayen466 19:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

As for the Simpsons example, if the required secondary sources have not been published yet, then the basis for an encyclopedic article isn't there yet. WP shouldn't be ahead of the secondary literature. Having said that, I often enjoy reading OR – c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas l'encyclopédie. Jayen466 20:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Online news subscriptions

Is it at all feasible for the Wikimedia Foundation to purchase online news subscriptions for the purpose of referencing? It would be nice to be able to use articles like this one for references. Grandmasterka 20:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately anything that might cost money is a bit difficult, given that it's difficult enough keeping the servers online as it is. But do have a look at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange — Blue-Haired Lawyer 20:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Also be aware that shared subscriptions are prohibitively expensive. For example, a medium size University will easily pay far over 1 Million Dollars / Euros for its selection of online scientific journals (contents of which is written free of fee by its own researchers....). As Wikipedia's budget is only a few million, such subscriptions are way beyond anything affordable. Arnoutf (talk) 21:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Are there any tricks or alternatives? Some academic journals/databases don't even offer individual paid subscriptions, restricting themselves to institutional access. Annoying sometimes. Questia.com is useful in the social sciences e.g., but it is also incomplete. Any hints (other than going to a library) gratefully accepted. Jayen466 05:33, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

This is ridiculous

Braffais

The infobox is longer than the article and it makes whoever made the stub look like an absolute idiot. 99.50.50.41 (talk) 23:11, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

That page doesn't have an infobox. And why are you posting this here anyway? Algebraist 23:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

He means the navbox at the bottom. And, it is huge! (Though it's collapsed by default in my browser.) SharkD (talk) 23:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a temporary state of affairs. Cantons of the Manche department is still in the early days of translation. See fr:Braffais to get a better idea where it's headed.LeadSongDog (talk) 23:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow. That's silly, when Category:Communes of Manche does the same thing. --NE2 01:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

No it doesn't - it's a category not a navbox. – ukexpat (talk) 01:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

And the linked article includes a category wrapped around a navbox. That is a terrible template, quite frankly. I am glad to know it is a "temporary state of affairs". Resolute 02:42, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Just for clarity, my statement above was an interpretation of what I read, not my promise to personally remedy it. Now I'll go see what I can do.LeadSongDog (talk) 03:31, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Eeew! It's way a bigger issue than I thought. Communes of the Manche department is a list-class article, listing all 602 communes, each of which seems to have an auto-generated stub, corresponding to a more comprehensive article on fr:. And that list is just for Manche, number 50 of 95 departments. If it's representative, we're looking at nearly 60,000 stubs, one for each commune in France. And similar patterns repeat across most of the EU. See and browse down for samples. It looks as if User_talk:Detroiterbot#Detroiterbot explains some of what's going on.LeadSongDog (talk) 04:53, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Massive navboxes have become endemic on almost any topic where there are a finite number of "peer" articles, I tried to argue against it for a while pointing out that this was what we had caregories and/or list articles for, but people don't seem to like the extra click required (conveniently fogetting that most of these are hidden by default and require an extra click to expand anyway). It's too widespread to go after individual uses though I think. Only way to get any change would be to establish a MOS or guideline depreciating the use of navboxes that have more than X (to be determined) links or some such. --Sherool (talk) 19:27, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Afd closures - time for a change?

One of the things that I have noticed during my time on Wikipedia, is that AfDs should run for 5 days, and should be closed when they get to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old (as per the deletion policy) but AfDs rarely actually reach that page.

Some recent stats for you:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 January 25 (1 day before closures should occur), all of the 75 AfDs on that page have been closed (100%).
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 January 26 (2 days before closures should occur), 43 out of 117 AfDs on that page have been closed (36.7%).
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 January 27 (3 days before closures should occur), 33 out of 114 AfDs on that page have been closed (30%).
• From my test sample (January 25 - 27) the average AfD was only open for 3 days, at least two days short of required.

Now I don't know about you guys, but to me, this is indicative of a system that does not work correctly. The whole point of AfD is the discussion should run for 5 days, unless the article meets speedy deletion criteria, or the votes are snow votes. Now I highly doubt that all of the deletions in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 January 25 are clear cut (in fact it's a basic certainty), so why are they all being closed early? With this I believe we have two options,

• either change the date in guidelines so that what the people closing these AfD's are doing is within policy,
• or stop people from closing AfDs early unless it is a clear cut case, and undoubtedly meets WP:SK or WP:SNOW.

Opinions? Foxy Loxy ^Pounce! 10:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that here. This problem is also being discussed at AN and the current consensus is to stick to existing policy. Feel free to remind administrators that they do not have the right to unilaterally shorten debate times unless there are specific reasons such as speedy or snow closures which should be marked as such.--Tikiwont (talk) 10:57, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

For another view on AfDs, see my reseach: User:Ikip/AfD_on_average_day, although I am still compiling the information, it shows clearly the majority of articles put up for deletion are created by new editors, anyone is welcome to expand this research.

Also see my comments here: WT:Articles_for_deletion#How_to_create_real_change_at_Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion Most "elite" editors are going to be resitant to change. Editors who frequent Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard and Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion are elite editors (editors with 10,000 or more edits), so although there is consensus on those two pages against change, that does not mean that wikipedia as a whole would embrace such change. If you are willing to create a RfC in a week or so, keeping in mind my suggestions in my posting, I would support it. Ikip (talk) 16:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, this thread isn't really about any previously proposed change to policy regarding AfD but about a change in practice of not respecting the times of debate. While adapting the times to reality (which would mean shorten) has been mentioned above, whether the prescribed time is 3, 5 or 7 days doesn't really change the problem: there should be and actually is agreement that closers should follow actual policy with repsect ti debate times until it is changed. That doesn't exclude any change to policy.--Tikiwont (talk) 16:24, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for the clarification, that makes it easier for this problem to be solved. thanks.Ikip (talk) 17:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

How much is enough for a proposal to become a guideline

38 support - 27 oppose - 6 neutral. =71 total

27/ 71 = 0.38028169 % oppose 38/ 71 = 0.535211268% support

Is this enough to make it a guideline? Yes, I know there are other factors, including the comments of the editors, but as a general rule, based on past guideline rfc's is this enough? Ikip (talk) 15:57, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know past history but just looking at these numbers, think this is "make it an essay and encourage people to read it" territory for a new proposal, and depending on the arguments pro and con, possibly promotion territory for an existing essay. It's definitely in the not-crystal-clear territory and should not be judged merely by the numbers. If the objections and neutrals are due to things that can be changed, then perhaps a compromise can be reached. If they are due to fundamental objections, then I'd say keep it an essay or fail the proposal altogether. A guideline where over 1/3 of editors are fundamentally against it will be divisive. Depending on the content, even an essay with 1/3 of editors with fundamental issues with it could lead to disputes.

Another thing to consider: If the proposal has had significant changes, some of the issues raised in early discussions may have already been addressed.

Which proposal are you referring to?davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I thought it was up in the air. Ikip (talk) 18:08, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

In general (for consensus outside Wikipedia) 2/3 support (ie 67%) is considered the lower limit for minor consensus; with 75% or even higher (e.g. 85% or 90%) support as lower limit for major consensus. So I agree with Davidwr that there is too much opposition in this case to make this a consensus decision and as such should not be considered enough. Arnoutf (talk) 19:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

No doubt referring to WP:FICT, David. --Izno (talk) 23:03, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

If we are talking about that, the difficulty is that the agree and disagree votes are to various aspects and version of the proposal, and it is not eliminated that there might be a core than most people would agree. But this seems a nice illustration of the extreme difficulty in adopting new policy, eve when the old is widely considered unsatisfactory. Myself, I think that those kind of majorities are higher than needed, and 60% is OK for minor and 70% for major--almost no decision making process in the real world asks for higher than that. but it isn't a matter just of the count of votes, but how hard the opposing positions are. Myself, I dislike the proposal and think we could do much better--but at this point i think its enough of an improvement to be worth the doing, so in practice I support. the proof that its fair is that the opposition comes from both sides equally. DGG (talk) 09:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly the problem here. Take something like flagged revisions - you can be for it, or you can be against it, and there's really only two sides to the issue. Even though we are !voting, a 60-70% number would probably be a good indicator. On the other hand, FICT specifically is a middle ground solution, and we are facing three possible stances: either one's OK with it, one thinks its too strict, or one thinks its too lenient. In this case, the votes are less important than making sure the comments provided are considered as part of determining if it has consensus. For example, there's a number of !votes that say "oppose because I don't agree with any notability guidelines". We are never going to be able to appease people like that with a sub-guideline of notability, or without significantly causing more on the other side to oppose it. It's a compromise position we've had to craft over 3-some months now, so it's not as simple as !vote counting. We are actively addressing such comments and attempting what wording changes might help. Thus, in this case, counting the !votes is less helpful and instead we'll likely turn to a neutral admin who can read through the RFC comments and determine if there's consensus to move forward from those. --MASEM 13:19, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Company

Say an IP registared to Ford Motor Company edits a page on one of there cars. Would that slightly be WP:Autobiography?HereFord 18:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

No, because cars aren't living. It would be a COI matter. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 00:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Question

I'd like some help regarding Wikipedia's structure. I cannot locate the relevant person to deal with a problem I would like to raise. Who does one contact about the subjectivity of administrators? If administrators appear to have operated outwith their sphere of knowledge and therefore are making inappropriate editorial decisions which mean that information which has no factual basis is not presented as such and that factual information on the subject is being withheld from the public because it disagrees with the viewpoint of the administrators, is there anything that can be done about it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.252.39 (talk) 23:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC) (Moved from section above by Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)})

Bring it up at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. But be aware to provide evidence in the form of diffs or else your complaint may get ridiculed. Also, try to avoid making it an issue over content. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 23:26, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. However, I'm still trying to find out who would be the relevant person to deal with. For example, in certain parts of Wikipedia, particularly those of minority cultures, the number of administrators is not large and any weakness in their capacities as administrator is difficult to challenge within their own domain. The problem with a board like the one you suggest in that kind of situation is that it depends on the complainant having i) the requisite information and experience to pursue his complaint (a newbie wouldn't necessary be able to acquire that quickly enough before encountering the problem) and ii) that the non-responsive person or persons with whom the complainant is having problems with would be the person(s) that the complainant is having to deal with in such a forum. In short, knowledge is power and the complainant would have a de facto weakened position. Is there not another means by which a genuine complaint can be fairly and evenly addressed within Wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.252.39 (talk) 00:52, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia policy on resolving disputes is at WP:DISPUTE. It's probably best to read it through and find the best approach for your case. — Twinzor ^{Say hi!} 02:45, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

You might try asking on the talk page for the relevant WikiProject. Most large countries have a WikiProject. For example, India's is Wikipedia:WikiProject India. You can go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject India and ask if there are any administrators who are familiar with India-related topics who could help out with the article you are worried about. You can find a partial list of WikiProjects at Wikipedia:WikiProject. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 06:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the above advice. However, I am still unable to identify the relevant person to deal with over the issue of the subjectivity of administrators. Most of the disputes referred to on the dispute page are over material content and not over the subjectivity of administrators. Not only do the suggestions above seem to disadvantage the newbie but administrators can make their impact felt over any number of pages. Potentially one could sort out an issue on one page while the administrator(s) concerned proceeded to create the next of the many issues on yet another page while still receiving no peer assessment as to their fitness as an administrator. Am I to take it that Wikipedia has no system for dealing with this problem of the subjectivity of administrators? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.252.39 (talk) 19:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Well administrators are experience editors of good standing (otherwise they do not become administrator), so in general indeed the admin will be seen as the voice of authority in a conflict with a newbie, unless that newbie can provide strong evidence. There will always be some subjectivity involved. Admins that unfairly treat many editors can get demoted; but this is no likely to happen based on a conflict with a single anonymous newbie.

My advice to you would be: Learn to know the project, learn the rules of conduct, work hard to become a respected editor; and if you still collide with admins after that (which I somehow doubt) than you can try these kind of actions. Arnoutf (talk) 20:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

You will also note that wikipedia is a community driven project. As such there will not be any single person responsible for the subjectivity of administrators. Taemyr (talk) 21:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

it is easier to deal with issues in the concrete, and at a single place. as you've just been reminded, there are a number of places. Pick one, and be bold, and raise the question. If it is about a single administrator, though, the first step is usually to ask for a more detailed explanation--more of us than you might think are open to having our interpretation revised, and almost none of us think we are absolutely perfect. Give it a try as an inquiry first. DGG (talk) 08:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Advice for wikipedia

I like the lack of commercial ads, but you should have an ad of the week at the home page where you have all of the other facts of the day. It would not get in the way of wiki-users and would be a solid source of income to keep wikipedia flourishing. And by keeping the ad out of the way of most users, the purity of wikipedia would still be preserved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.148.22.99 (talk) 15:27, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Policy on tallying votes

Isn't there a policy or guideline which looks down on tallying votes during a RfC? I swear I read it somewhere before. Ikip (talk) 18:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Well there is WP:NOTDEMOCRACY for and WP:VOTE for starters. --Sherool (talk) 19:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Sherool, I appreciate your time. Ikip (talk) 20:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Later. I never found what I was looking for :( Neither page lists this information. Ikip (talk) 22:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Attack Pages, Libel, and Speedy Deletion Templates

When a page is posted on Wikipedia it is picked up by (eg) Google very fast indeed. in general that is a great thing. In the case of an Attack page it is not. With an attack page this spreads the libel far faster than one could possibly imagine.

Is it technically possible to remove search engine's ability to spider such pages, even in the often short time they stay online here?

My thinking is that the speedy deletion template might contain a trigger to mark the page as "not to be spidered" in some technical manner that is recognised by all major search engines. This means that individuals flagging such pages and admins deleting them require no special knowledge.

Of course this may be done already. But, if it is not, might we form a consensus over it and then ask a knowledgeable person to implement it if the consensus is favourable, please? Fiddle Faddle (talk) 13:54, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

This has already been done, anything with {{db-g10}} transcluded on it will not be indexed by search engines. Hut 8.5 16:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Is there a way to make this obvious to those such as me? Fiddle Faddle (talk) 16:21, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

For clarity, does that mean that the previous version (with attack) prior to the addition of the templte will remain indexed by search engines, or is there a hidden courtesy blanking arranged that the spiders will pick up?LeadSongDog (talk) 17:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Does __NOINDEX__ work?--Ipatrol (talk) 04:01, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Naming conventions for organisms

The plant editors have been hounded for going on three months now by a pair of editors (who also disagree strongly with each other and include their battles on policy/guidelines talk pages, too) about their disagreement with the naming conventions for flora articles, namely, that plant editors have established naming guidelines that scientific names should be used. They have strongly convinced me that the conventions should be changed and scientific names should be required for all organisms. I have started a talk at Wikipedia naming conventions and invite other concerned editors to weigh in. --KP Botany (talk) 21:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, because having a page called Canis lupus familiaris just makes SO much more sense than what it's called now. *rolls eyes* ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 21:57, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. Actually, even plants, which is a stickler for scientific names, uses the common name for the most common organisms. Oak is under oak, not Quercus. We don't consider that a big issue, but, again, it's used against plant editors in the naming policy in an attempt to create an unworkable policy. Why use a three letter word when one can use three names in Latin and make it sound so much more important and exotic? Come on over and fight for your right to woof! --KP Botany (talk) 23:45, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Strange Host server proccess operate in SamSung NoteBook

I don't want describe long.

referce www.cyworld.com/acdc9 diary movie board in Korean

Good luck! — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

I have no idea what this means, as my skill in reading Korean characters is not up to deciphering this cite. Arnoutf (talk) 21:48, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Noindex of brand-new pages

Would it be helpful or hurtful if brand-new pages and pages recently moved into article space, say, pages less than 6 hours old, were not indexed? I'm not sure how this could be done or even if it could be done, but supposing it could, is it a good idea or bad idea?

The goal is to deter search-engine vandalism. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

How about NOINDEX being set until the page is patrolled, and then it reamins for one hour in case it's CSDed?

Civility

Yes, civility is a policy, an official policy here, and it is supposed to be a widely accepted standard that should normally be followed by all editors. However, it is not.

No matter how much you are annoyed by someone, no matter how much someone bugs you, be civil. Because someone is in your eyes a jerk, that does not make it okay to bad mouth the person in talk pages, nor does it make it okay for you to engage in mean-spirited banter with others. Set a good example of behavior. Even when dealing with the worst of the worst, don't stoop to that level. Some threads out there mocking other people are really quite repulsive. Kingturtle (talk) 06:49, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Unanswered questions on project talk pages

If there are unanswered questions on the project talk pages, is there any central place where this can be highlighted, so that volunteers can help answer them?

For instance, there are two questions on Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy. Jay (talk) 08:17, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Very commons problem. It would be cool to have some solution. Maybe transclude them somewhere? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 08:22, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Should WP:Editing_policy be demoted from the policy status?

Discussion is here 212.200.243.116 (talk) 12:02, 2 February 2009 (UTC)