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How about: Sectioning off of/possible banning of Fictional Universe articles

Information is, in general, good. But not all of it is really valuable.

And I, like many people, enjoy some computer/video games/science fiction/fantasy stories/worlds. But think about this: How much do articles like "Star Forge," "Luccia," or "Sarah Kerrigan" really add to our knowledge of the world?

I propose that there should be a separate "Fictional Universes" wiki. We know that games/movies like Star Wars, Final Fantasy and Lord of the Rings have influenced world pop culture, and that they often have huge amounts of detail, but with the goal of Wikipedia being useful knowledge, too much information about those things begins to seem frivolous.

Put another way, I don't think Wikipedia needs to be a competitor to Gamefaqs, or starwars.com, or battle.net.

I just think that Wikipedia, assuming it is an encyclopedia, might be best limited to at least real information about completely real things.

Please criticize/respond. --Zaorish 21:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• I am strongly opposed to this idea. First of all, we are an encyclopedia- and, as such, we need to contain encyclopediac information. Time and the Rani is perfectly encyclopediac. Second, anything that factions Wikipedia, as a community or an encylcopedia is a very, very, bad thing. So, again, I'm strongly opposed to this idea.--Sean|Black 22:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
• I support the idea to move this to a separate wiki. The information should not be lost, but it would be excellent to move it elsewhere. --Improv 22:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Ummm no. Mememory alpha is worrying enough. The articles are not doing any harm and tend to be fairly accuret. As long as thier minor characters lists don't suddenly tern into lots of stubs I don't see a problem.Geni 23:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I tend to adopt a mergist approach to these -- fewer larger articels are better than more smaller articles, particualrly stubs. I especially oppose the creation of stubs for minor fictional characters, adn will merge these with the appropriate article on the larger work. But fictional works are often of significant cultural importance and there is no simple way to draw the line between thsoe that are and those that are not. I do wish WP:FICT was more rigourously followed, however. DES ^(talk) 23:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Where would Sherlock Holmes, Horatio Hornblower, Elizabeth Bennet, Tarzan, and Sam Spade go? Dsmdgold 23:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I hate to discount you so lightly, but this is a perennial proposal and the subject of endless contention. See Wikipedia:Fancruft for example. This isn't changing overnight, and I personally favour the status quo. My policy is, if I see a topic about a fictional entity that is too obscure, I merge it with related entities into a summary/list article such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time characters. For what it's worth, I think Sarah Kerrigan is an excellent article consolidating plot information from diverse primary sources across many games (perhaps overdoing it a bit on the links). She may not be as notable as Link or Mario, but I hate to see good content obliterated. Deco 23:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

There is no problem with covering the subject matter of fictional characters on Wikipedia. The problem is instead how they are covered. It is mostly done with very little context—no attempt to firmly tie everything that is said to be true about the character to the works of fiction in which they are depicted. See Radioactive_Man_(Marvel_Comics) for an example of this flaw; excepting the word "fictional" in the intro sentence and the infobox details, the article is written as if the subject were real. No reference is made in the article text to a single writer, artist, or even comic book issue or title. See also the "character history" of Spider-Man, which starts with summarizing a plot about his parents having been spies that was not written until after over thirty years of publication history. These articles merely paraphrase fiction rather than describe it, and appear to be written from a fan perspective rather than a cultural historian.

Compare those with Captain Marvel, a recent featured article, or Superman. Both summarize the history of the characters in the real world, revealing the "facts" of fiction according to that framework. We need a very clear set of guidelines to make sure all articles about fictional characters are written in this manner. Postdlf 23:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, that's a problem, but that's what {{sofixit}} is for.--Sean|Black 23:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I think both fiction-oriented and real-world-oriented presentation orders are each appropriate in different circumstances, sometimes both in one article. Summarization of the plot of a fictional work in chronological order is an integral part of many articles on books, movies, and other fictional works. On the other hand, an article should never exclusively summarize the fiction, but should also talk about the entity's history, practical aspects of its creation (e.g. influence on gameplay), and cultural impact. Deco 23:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I just think that Wikipedia, assuming it is an encyclopedia, might be best limited to at least real information about completely real things. Someone better tell Brittanica that their article on Hamlet ain't encyclopedic. And I can't wait for the deletion wheel war on Jesus. android79 23:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: the interest in "fiction-oriented" presentation, I think the chronology we should be most concerned with is real-world. A story written later but "taking place" earlier should be described as such, but the publication order should dictate the structure of the article; fictional canons are not our concern, but instead how the character has been used at different times. A true history of the character will only get obscured if the present bleeds into the past. Why should a recent story lead the info given about a character that has a much older body of work depicting him? Summarizing the plot in an article about a book is necessary and appropriate. But in an article about a murder mystery novel, for example, you wouldn't start the summary by describing who done it and how even though the murder is what happens first in fictional chronology, if the book reveals the murderer's identity last. The order in which things are revealed to the audience, whether within one work or across a series, is of utmost importance.

But the lack of real-world context is not only a problem of academic integrity, but an issue of copyright infringement. Both of the major comic book companies, as well as the Star Wars, Star Trek, and other sci-fi franchises have officially published numerous encyclopedia-style books about their characters and associated fictional universes. I suspect that many of the cruftiest, context-less articles are mere paraphrases of these (or of video game manuals, role-playing games, etc.). Even those that aren't are still doing more than merely reporting facts—they are simply summarizing fiction without transforming it or adding new information to it. This arguably makes these articles mere derivative works of the original fiction.

This is a systemic problem probably because the ones most driven to write about certain fictional characters are fans who are mostly concerned with "knowing" the complete and "true" story of the fictional universe. We need a guideline page (something like Wikipedia:Writing about fictional characters) that sets out the principles I've described above, with an accompanying template that will label and categorize an article about fictional characters as lacking that context (the trick is finding the right concise language). We have Template:Fiction, but it needs to be made clear that inserting a "this character is fictional" disclaimer in the introductory sentence of a ten paragraph article is not enough. I lack the time to solve this problem on my own, but I will definitely assist anyone else who wishes to contribute to solving it. Postdlf 00:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I would favor soemthing of the sort Postdif suggests here. DES ^(talk) 00:31, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Uncle G/Describe this universe might be a worthwhile starting point. —Charles P. (Mirv) 14:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the examples of good and bad writing that Uncle G used make it clear that he's getting at the same point that I am. Postdlf 15:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

We do have the ability to create interwiki links to many, many other wiki projects, like those over at Wikicities (I'd like to see these become more transparent, but excepting MΑ and Wookiepedia, there's not much completeness over there). I'd like to see some of the cruft trimmed, true (and am working on it with The Wheel of Time series), but if it helps our regular editors to do a [Star Wars]] article or three before jumping back into quantum physics, it does little harm. -- nae'blis _(talk) 00:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I'm impressed that this 'perennial proposal' caused so much controversy. Looking over the responses, it seems that Consolidation of those articles might be best--ie, an article about "Star Wars," then maybe an article on "Minor Star Wars Characters" and not an article about every single Jedi and their favorite ice cream flavor. In the future I'll try to generally put this into practice, by suggesting merges.

It's true, assuming Wikipedia has unlimited space, then articles about fictional universes could/should indeed be unlimited, because there is no harm in posting them. I was just taking into account the fact that Wikipedia is nonprofit and that more space/server power costs significant amounts of money.

And obviously Jesus and Sherlock Holmes are more important than something like Star Forge. Your argument, friends android and Dsmdgold, is something called reductio ad absurdum.

Postdlf: Your idea on a new fictional character template could be valuable, to put fictional concepts/characters in their cultural context before delving into obscure details.

And thank you all for your (generally) well-reasoned responses. ; 3 --Zaorish 14:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm checking back. I found this article: StarCraft Secret Missions. It's literally a /verbatim/ transcript of a few levels from a computer game. I personally would move to delete it. Any objections? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.216.217.174 (talk • contribs)

What an awful article. The text forgets that it's describing a video game and instead tells a story. I can't even tell who the player is supposed to be, what the player controls, what events are mere contingencies, or what events are actually experienced in game play versus read about or seen in movies. This is not an article. Postdlf 15:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose such an idea. Fictional universes are an important part of our culture. I would possibly support the merge/removal of fictional stubs, but content which can make a decent article should be kept. -- Astrokey44|talk 15:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree. Wikipedia is not paper and to make restrictions of this sort on content would, IMO, open the door for further content restrictions to the point where Wikipedia will become nothing but a bunch of articles on nuclear physics and Shakespeare (and even then, banning an article on, say Mr. Spock means you'd have to ban articles on Shakespeare's characters, right?) and that's not what this place is about. I've already seen some people grumbling about banning articles based on film and TV shows, for example. I've nothing against guidelines, but creating a separate wiki for this would be a mistake. The priority should be on improving articles if substandard ones arise. 23skidoo 15:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Two points:
  1. Wikipedia is not infinite, but we are specifically advised by WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia not to worry about space limitations. Our concern should always be only on the encyclopedic nature of the topic and the quality of the article.
  2. I think the real problem is not so much that there are all these fictional-universe articles, it's that so many Wikipedia editors lavish so much attention on them rather than the more mundane topics like "Gary, Indiana" or "Container Security Initiative". But there are many dimensions of perceived imbalance in Wikipedia, like "not enough people articles" or "too many stubs" or "not enough cleanup being done" or "too much focus on the manual of style". We must remember that the whole project operates on the assumption that a worldwide community of freelance editors will eventually get around to working on any perceived deficiencies — and do them justice as well. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • • As a sub-point to this one, I thought I should mention that although Wikipedia's space is unlimited a lot of people still think that the effort spent on editing stuff is zero-sum - ie, that if someone spends an hour working on a Star Trek article, then that's an hour they didn't spend working on something of "real importance." I think this is not the case, personally, and eliminating the "unimportant" articles would have the opposite effect; people who come here to tinker around with Star Trek articles and every once in a while toss something useful into one of the real science articles would just leave altogether. They almost certainly wouldn't turn all the energy they spend refining articles on their favourite fictions toward topics they aren't interested in, these are all volunteers here. Bryan 16:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose this idea, but also empathise. I think a compromise is good. A lot of Fictional Universe articles and all their linked sub-articles have too many sub-articles. For instance, you probably don't need a sub-article for a character that appeared once on a show. Or in Stargate Atlantis, for instance, you probably don't need an article for the minor few-episodes character Bob (Wraith). So scrap the stubs and unneeded articles, but certainly keep the main bulk. Fiction like Stargate, Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and so on are massive cultural influences and have shaped both our history and television/cinema's history. And to be honest, I feel that most of the articles under these are concise whilst being detailed, informative, without POV or fancruft, and ultimately also useful. -- Alfakim --  talk  16:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This proposal is hopelessly bad, IMO. But if it does make any progress towards being implemented, by some chance, I insist that we also include sports-related articles under its umbrella. There are thousands of articles in Wikipedia about trivial unimportant sportsmen who play trivial unimportant games that have nothing to do with curing cancer or military battles or whatever it is that're supposed to be "serious" subjects. Since I have no interest in sport, there's obviously no value in having articles about it and it's just a waste of everyone's time writing them. (The preceeding opinion is only a semi-parody :) Bryan 16:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. Templates are always a good idea, though. --Happylobster 18:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, deja vu all over again.  :) I well remember the contretemps at Talk:Mithril, lo these over three years ago.  :) User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Ultra-extreme oppose This is an incredably bad idea. Here is why:
  • Some articles provide practical information, like where to watch TV shows, or backround info to unconfuse new fans. An example of this is: List of Stargate SG-1 episodes
  • Many fictional articles are about classics and are naturaly part of history.
  • Many are so largely know, like Harry Potter that it would be stupid not to have an article on them.
  • Fictional articles on video games act as a guide for players to do better in the game.
  • The whole reason I contribute to wikipedia is that wikipedias vision is having all of humankinds knowlage in one place is an achiveable goal, which I try to work towards. If we start exporting info, this goal will be lost, and many users who follow this vision will stop contributing. Tobyk777 01:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose - I disagree with the idea that we should delete articles on fictional places / concepts / characters &c. I do however agree that it should be clear in the opening paragraph that the subject is fictional and what particular fictional universe it relates to. As for having lots of stub articles, surely this was why the Wikipedia:Fiction guideline was written? -- Lochaber 15:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
• I generally agree with what User:Sean Black said above. Articles on fiction need to be presented in that context. They exist in a fictional universe but were created by someone real and the article needs to convey that connection to reality. These fiction articles on popular culture draw in a lot of potential editors who can (theoretically) practice their wiki-skills on these and satisfy their fanboy urges before moving on to real-world articles. Also, as User:Nae'blis mentioned above there are wikis dedicated to each show, like Wookieepedia and StargateWiki. --maclean25 05:04, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

As part of this (perennial) discussion, I'd just like to briefly discuss a retort to the classic Wikipedia is Not Paper argument. It is true that we have an unlimited capacity for topics, and I frankly don't buy the "articles use resources" argument (the total sum of all articles ever deleted is unlikely to exceed a few megabytes in disk space and network bandwidth). However, topics on obscure fictional entities can be disruptive for several reasons:

• Each article must independently establish the context of the universe, leading to a great deal of redundant content which is difficult to maintain.
• These articles can be very difficult to expand. In the real world we can always derive new information about real people, places, and things. In fiction, we know only what the creator tells us; if a character appears in only one chapter of a book, it's quite unlikely that after proper summarization we'll be able to say more than a paragraph about the character, ever. Articles this short are not particularly useful, spending more time establishing context than describing the subject.
• Attempting to learn about the universe as a whole involves a difficult, unorganized navigation between many small articles, each different in its style and assumptions, that can frustrate readers.

This is why I recommend that groups of related articles about obscure fictional entities be merged into a single summary or list article, or into a "parent" article: the context need only be established once, all together they have enough detail to fill out an article, relationships can be established between entities by direct reference instead of cumbersome links, and the order of presentation can be controlled for maximum brevity and clarity. In fact, I recommend this approach for any group of strongly related small articles - if one of them later outgrows the list article, it can easily be moved back out, as occurred for example with Agahnim. Deco 05:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of using sub-pages, e.g., Stargate/Daniel Jackson instead of Daniel Jackson, and having big colorful templates at the top of all the fiction-based articles clearly indicating that they are fiction-based with the name of the source work (book, show, etc.) and genre, to aid the many clueless wikisurfers out there. James S. 10:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Subpages in the main namespace were deprecated long ago, and with good cause. Should Daniel Jackson be a subpage of Stargate, or a subpage of Fictional character, or a subpage of Michael Shanks? As a subpage it can only be under one of these, and I hate to imagine the many pointless and time-consuming arguments all over Wikipedia about which articles should be subpages of which other articles. This is the sort of thing that categories are for instead. Bryan 20:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose: I've heard this argument many times and I always have a few unanswered questions.
  • I never understand why people want to move this information to other wikis. Why not have it here? It still uses 'resources' if it is hosted on a separate wiki. Considering how articles should have their sources cited, most of the information that is available on Wikipedia is indeed available elsewhere. Instead of having a (mostly) pointless article about Still Sick... Urine Trouble (which was the first article forthcoming from the Random Article link), why not just tell our browsers to go to another site? Is that not what hosting on another wiki would do? I thought that one of the goals of Wikipedia was to consolidate knowledge so that people do not have to search around on multiple websites.
  • If you do move such information to another wiki, what's to stop users from recreating the articles? Would a "crime" that be treated as innocent ignorance (we do, after all, encourage new users to try the wiki out) or as something more serious, like vandalism? I'm sure those editors will want to return after they receive a friendly warning not to edit "like that" again.
  • As well, I've never understood why fictional information is targeted. Why not also move everything that is mathematical to another math-related wiki, as Bryan has said? Or sports? Where do we stop? Where do we draw the line? Before we can decide exactly what constitutes "irrelevant and over-obsessive fancruft" and what is "actual fact belonging in an encyclopedia", we should not remove anything.
  • I’m also worried about estranging users by moving/removing information. Certainly there are those who only contribute to fiction-based articles such as these, but others help out in other areas as well. I'm proof of that, for I've touched up a Jedi article or two while also restructuring the ringette article at the same time (not yet done, btw). What message are we sending to potential editors if the "global encyclopedia" does not allow information of one of their many preferred subjects?
  • However, I do have to agree with what others have said before me about quality. There are certainly articles that are unwikied, unclear and unintelligent. Every article that fits that description should be deleted. Some articles do not have enough information to justify their existence and that is the nature of fiction: we can only document what the creator gives us. I still would like to see articles of high quality created and maintained, and some of these fiction-based stubs have merit. While a few/some/most articles should definitely be merged and combined, others have potential and should be expanded upon, not banned. Maybe we cansystematically check every What Links Here section as potential critera for what can be merged? Take the HoloNet article, for example (a Star Wars one; I followed links for a stub, trolling for an example to use here). I initially thought that it could be merged into a larger article, but with twelve "real" (i.e. non-user) articles citing it, I don't think that moving it/removing it would be a simple task, especially if you consider all the articles that a major sweep would entail.
  • In short, I don't see the point of moving/removing articles resulting from fictional universes. Moving them still uses resources, while removing them detracts from Wikipedia's main goals. Both need clear and precise guidelines; else, everything will eventually be sectioned off into other wikis or even deleted entirely. And both moving to another wiki or deletion will alienate editors who bear knowledge; a precious commodity. I vote that we keep all articles derived from fictional universes. –Aeolien 04:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Seriously Very Strongly Absolutely Agree and am Willing to Killl People to Make it Happen. I say we get rid of all the fictitious crap in Wikipedia. Dumb fictitious stories and twerps who write nothing but crap they make up, based only some-what on the truth. Who needs any of it? I know I could've done without it during my life-time... *ahem* Sorry, the urge to comment was overwhelming. Heavy dose of sarcasm. 203.173.22.63 08:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose: Many have rebutted the motion in general terms, Let me answer the direct question asked by the original poster of this topic.

How much do articles like "Star Forge," "Luccia," or "Sarah Kerrigan" really add to our knowledge of the world?

• • When I hear or read one of these terms and I have no idea what it is, so I look them up in wikipedia. It tells me first off that they are Fictional devices or characters. The some basics about them so I can understand the reference to the character location or item without having read the original fiction. If I am then interested in this particular fiction it then gives me the reference (i.e. the original books/games/movies/etc) where I can see/learn experinece more about this fictional item/character and/or location.
  • It is true that anyone particular article on a fictional thing is not likely to be relevent to any particular person. But by the same token almost all articles on fictional things will be relevant to some person at some point when they come across something which they may or may not realise is a reference to a fictional thing.

Waza 04:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This is the worst idea ever strongly oppose -- Truth is, we don't even know if Moses is real -- should we get rid of the article? After all, he's probably just a character in some really old book. What about god? Just because these ideas may be fictional doesn't mean they shouldn't be included. Same goes for all of these other notable works of fiction as well -- I love that Wikipedia has an article on chewbacca and pikachu. -Quasipalm 04:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY OPPOSE for reasons stated above. The Wookieepedian 01:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY AGREE I have seen poets, authors, socially relevant people, events and historical articles, all deleted in this Wikipedia, all while Pokemon and other such articles survive? No doubt Pokemon (and Star Wars) are of interest to people, but you have to wonder what their roll is here. Take Star Wars for example, Star Wars was socially significant in the 70’s, 80’s and made a comeback in the 90’s. But in the big picture of humanity (and Wikipedia), it merits recognition in its proper context. It does not merit having every bit of its minutia trivia recorded here, and there has to be some limit. A separate Wikipedia (with reasonable policies) for subjects like this would enable those interested in recording the minutia of perhaps socially interesting but not socially significant things would have that forum. When Pokemon is displacing real life people and events, our priorities have become skewed. (Incidentally, I LOVE LOTR, however would count it in the same category as Star Wars. Interesting, worthy of note perhaps, but should not consume, monopolize or displace more relevant articles. LinuxDude 08:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY GROK like I get really tired of seeing the fictional stuff when I plunk Random Article, and I would LOVE to have a choice, a check box, where I could tune my Randoms (this idea could be expanded further) ... And would anybody really mind having a different color background on ALL of the fictional stuff? (let's argue about the color for a few weeks, but would you believe "#CCFFFF" light cyan? ;Bear 02:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Whilst I agree in principle with the concept of readily identifying articles about fictional things, this is a slippery slope because there will then be lots of argument over what is fictional. This will include almost all religious articles. And where does a technical article about, say, a fictional film film go? (BTW1, I think the fictional artciles should be in the main wiki, but fewer larger ones is best.) -- SGBailey 08:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Wait a minute, I sort of get what you're saying, Bear, but what's that grok word mean? I know, I'll look it up on the Wikipedia. Hmmm, "...was coined by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where it is part of the fictional Martian language..." Oops, it's about fiction. I better go and nominate it for deletion now. Anville 15:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

A word can be sourced from fiction and yet become part of real-life usage. Grok is one such, muggle another. (If you don't consider muggle to be a valid word as you consider wizrads to be fictional, then try Geo-muggle which relates to Geocaching. -- SGBailey 08:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Conditionally Oppose: I see Zaorish's point, however the hundreds of hours already put into such articles would seriously discourage those people to come back and contribute elsewhere. I agree however that these articles need to be tightened. Stubs should be avoided and, when found, quickly merged with the appropriate main or more substansive article. Lady Aleena | Talk 09:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Meh-style conditional support. Yes, the argument to compile all human knowledge at Wikipedia is a good one, but a list of every television episode of shows like Dilbert and Stargate SG-1 isn't helpful to achieving this goal. Maybe start another Wiki, call it something like "WikiSeries," and transwiki all of those articles there. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule (Memory Alpha being a good example) where the wiki's contents make it near manditory to keep lists of that sort of thing, and synopses and all that, but Wikipedia should not be TV Guide. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 04:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose The effects fiction has on reality has been well documented such as Star Trek communicators, making way for the cell phones. --Masssiveego 18:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree A project such as Wikiseries exists. It focus only on TV series. I think it's a good idea to have a short article on Wikipedia, and an interwiki link on a more specialized Wiki such as http://www.wikiseries.org (build by a TV series fan, only a french speaking version). This TV wiki needs some help yet. Anonymous guy 14:00 GMT+1 2 February 2006.

Oppose According to the sister wiki Wiktionary, an encyclopedia is supposed to be comprehensive[[1]]. That means everything is fair game. Part of the allure of Wikipedia is that you can theoretically enter just about anything and find something on the topic...and if not, you can write about it! Applejuicefool 22:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose Many people spent hours of work only to create articles about ficitonal people, technology, episodes of a series, etc. If we would get rid of them, many people would be angry for doing so much work for nothing. Also I think as an encyclopedia Wikipedia doesn't have any borders about which should be added or not. And as mentioned above what is fictional and what not. The borders are too fuzzy. Diabound00 16:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Strongly oppose this idea. Fictional universes doesn't mean that they're unencyclopedic. If one is against the creation of an article, a compromise definitely could be reached. As of writing there's nothing wrong with the inclusion of the above mentioned universes. --Andylkl ^{[ talk! | c ]} 10:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Strongly oppose again for reasons that have already been cited. Wikipedia is unique as an encyclopedia that can truly be kept completely updated through collaboration from users worldwide. There is now harm in having fictional characters listed here because most people will be searching for specific articles anyway and so will not ordinarily encounter them unless they are looking for them. I agree however that there needs to be proper NPOV maintained to avoid fans from changing these articles into little more than resounding endorsements of their favourite shows/books etc.! Chrisblore 23:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. While I largely detest articles that treat fictional characters or objects as real, and while some of these articles are often subject to a lot of POV by fans, many are still of good quality and are well-researched. Perhaps the articles in question could do with a quick NPOV lookover from time to time from neutral editors, as long as those doing the checking are aware that they are likely to get quite knocked around by the fanboys doing regular edits on these articles and who won't take any criticism of their favorite character :-) Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 09:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Strongest possible oppose. Wikipedia is not paper. There's no reason to fork our content or delete articles about fictional things as long as those fictional things are named as such early in the article. The best reason I've seen for putting the brakes on fiction is that someone clicking on "random article" may get the wrong idea when all they get are articles on Pokemon. But that's not a compelling argument in my opinion. Let the fans have their fun, too. — BrianSmithson 18:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Articles on fictional subjects seem to make up about 2.5% of Wikipedia, with the articles split about evenly between biographies of fictional characters, and articles about other fictional subjects. --Carnildo 06:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose Per all the above reasons, although we do need more uniform rules about what constitutes cruft. JoshuaZ 22:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

OPPOSE: This is a bad idea. Wikipedia is a great resource for "fictonal universes" and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be. We would lose thousands of editors if we banned such articles. I think Wikipedia should cover the full spectrum of human knowledge because that's one of Wikipedia's strengths! You can find information about virtually everything here. SpNeo 14:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Use of pre-1923 "copyrighted" stock images

There are a couple of images on Corbis I would like to use for articles, but am reluctant to upload images from such a commercial stock image site. The images in question are pre-1923, as stated in the image information on the website. I do not know if they were in fact published before 1923 though. Corbis claims copyright on the digital version. What has been the general practice or policy with inclusion of such images on Wikipedia? — Eoghanacht ^talk 14:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

if you can asscertain they were published long enough ago tag as {{PD-US}} or {{PD-art}} depending on exactly how old they are. Plugwash 15:13, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Corbis can claim whatever it likes, but even reputable institutions and companies frequently claim copyright over things that are in fact public domain, because they lose nothing by doing so and will discourage plenty of copiers. This chart is very helpful in determining what is and is not in the public domain in the U.S. Regarding whether something was published, if the author died prior to 1936, it's irrelevant; it's all in the public domain. What can you tell us about the images that would help us figure out what category they belong to? Postdlf 15:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

They are black and white studio portraits of George Jay Gould II (aka "Jay Gould" or "Jay Gould, Jr."). The pictures are very obviously professionally done -- but with no photographer referenced. The first seems to have an older non-Corbis copyright tag in the lower corner -- although I cannot read all of it (only the city) at the preview resolution. This first one also has a 1910 date in the Corbis info. Unfortunately I just realized that this first image has a faint "CORBIS" watermark over it (not particulary visible in this particular image, though). The second image does not have a date, but he looks several years younger than he is in another image dated 1925. I have a version of this second file without the watermark. — Eoghanacht ^talk 16:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I would imagine they are safe to use, providing the Corbis marks and etc are stripped off of them. I really hate it when big companies and institutions make false copyright claims. They definitely know better, they just hope people believe their lies so they can sell them for big bucks. If you need help stripping stuff or want a more thorough opinion, you can post the image to someplace like yousendit.com or rapdidshare.de (I think that's the name) and link to it so one of us can look. DreamGuy 18:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Just as a note: Corbis claims the copyright to a ton of known-PD images (including a bunch of PD-USGov images). When one is sure that the image is in the public domain, one should not hestitate to ignore their blanket claims. I once tried to e-mail them about a few images I knew were PD and they responded that they don't care. --Fastfission 19:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, here is what they wrote me back (this was some time ago):

Thank you for taking the time to write with your copyright query regarding images NA007397, IH132146 and IH129444. Corbis owns the copyright to our digital scans of these images. The underlying images are in the public domain in which no one owns the copyright.

Which is complete nonsense -- scanning an image does not generate a copyright, at least not in the United States. I wrote back to them:

I'm fairly sure that it was clearly ruled in Bridgeman Art Library Ltd. v. Corel Corporation (1999) [1] that exact photographic copies of two-dimensional public domain images could not be protected by copyright because they lack originality.

So how can Corbis claim a copyright to something which is an exact photographic copy of something which was created by the federal government and not eligible for copyright? [2] That's my question -- it seems to me that Corbis is clearly out of line in claiming such a copyright, and is really opening itself up to a class action suit for anyone who has paid you for a copyright license.

If I'm wrong about this, I would really like to know.

References:

[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/36_FSupp2d_191.htm

[2] http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/105.html

OK -- I'll admit. Using footnotes was a little pedantic. Anyway I got no reply. --Fastfission 20:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

You say that like it's a bad thing! Personally I'd award major style points for using footnotes in a letter to a big corp that uses footnotes themselves, but YMMV. ++Lar: t/c 20:12, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all your comments. If someone would like to take the time to upload and explain the use of Corbis images IH185261 and/or IH179075 for article George Jay Gould II, you are welcome to do so -- otherwise I'll add the task to my to-do list, as I am a little too busy at the moment. Also, I will make a note of this for future reference for other images/articles. — Eoghanacht ^talk 14:57, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

What about university collections? Such collections often have online search, but then when you read their usage policies, they require a fee or permissions. Is this a crock, as well? For example, The Brown University Archive of African American Sheet Music places this disclaimer on each image page : "This object is available for public use. Individuals interested in reproducing this object in a publication, web site or for any commercial purpose must first receive written permission from the Brown University Library." The images in question are very old, and should easily fall within public domain. I've seen similar disclaimers at other online archives of PD material. (Incidentally, I haven't contacted them, and they might be very nice about letting Wikipedia use their images. I just want some ideas on whether they have the right to make such a demand in the first place.) — BrianSmithson 18:19, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Those are indeed public domain, at least in the US. The US Supreme Court recently ruled (I don't have time to drum up a source -- maybe someone can help?) that scanning and photographing a PD work does not entail enough creative effort to allow libraries and other repositories to hold any sort of copyright protection. They said that copyright is in place to reward creative work, not to reward archives of public domain material. This means that if a library scans a PD image, that image AND the scan are still PD. You can safely ignore claims that they require permission to use.

For example, you can pull screenshots of Google's scan of public domain works and re-post them on your website or wherever you'd like. --Quasipalm 18:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Re universities charging for PD images, see Reproduction fees. Apwoolrich 19:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, if you do not have access to an image, they can charge you for access. However, if you have access to the image (either on the web or from checking it out at a library) you can do what you want with it for free if it's PD, even if they say they are due a reproduction fee. --Quasipalm 22:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

You sure about that, Quasipalm? I'm very interested in this subject because I do a fair amount of writing for entities that can barely cover production costs and certainly cannot afford intellectual property lawyers.

Just recently I was writing a book and found many interesting and useful images (paintings and photographs) in library and museum collections and on the web. Trying to find out what I would and would not be able to reproduce was a nightmare. According to the Australian copyright office (book was being published in Australia), every single image I wanted to use was in the public domain due to age, and I was perfectly free to use any or all of them. Ha! The museums and libraries had other ideas.

I wrote back to the copyright office, explaining that I was being asked for "access" and "reproduction" fees, which the copyright office said that the institutions had the right to charge. Then followed weeks of having folks from the non-profit org that was publishing the book write to all the institutions begging for use of the work. The more I read about copyright, the more I was convinced that we were being led up the garden path, but I couldn't find any competent authority to say in writing "They're full of bunk, use the photos." The thing was that in general, the institutions had place photos of the artworks on the web themselves, so that was enough to make me think, okay, maybe they do deserve an access fee.

The clincher was when I would find the images used at other sites, including a photo of one very famous painting that's owned by a descendant of the painter, a museum charges a fee for it, so does a very large US company that does reproduction on china plates for a fee.

If anyone's got any comments, I'd love to hear them.

Quill 22:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

They're allowed to charge you for reproduction, but they hold no exclusive rights to the artwork. Anyone has the same rights to charge for reproduction. They can, of course, milk the fact that they have access to high quality versions. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 22:47, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I meant, if I'm actually the one doing the reproducing, are they nevertheless legally entitled to charge an access or reproduction fee, or can I ignore that and go ahead and reproduce/publish and not pay? Quill 22:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

If you aren't using their services, you don't have to pay. If they provide a freely-accessible image, you can use it without charge. Tney have no rights to it. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 19:14, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No original research is a bad policy

Wikipedia:No original research is a bad policy. I tried to analyze the semantics of George W. Bush's Sixth State of the Union Address, which keeps on getting vandalized (and no administrator has taken action), and was told this was against policy. I assume Howcheng, who referred me, meant:

"In this context it means unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, and ideas; or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, arguments that, in the words of Wikipedia's co-founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation"."

Interpretation or actual original research is one thing, but analysis should not be included in this list. We dont need a source to say that "we remember the events of september 11" is a reference to the September 11 Attacks. Please see the page and my expansion of the page to see what I mean. KI 22:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

My interpretation is that very simple synthesis or analysis of documented facts is okay, but various people have various levels of tolerance for this. Just use your discretion and try asking interested parties on Wikipedia talk:No original research if you feel unsure about a particular scenario. Deco 02:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Any time anyone draws from a body of existing research material, the editorial choices on what to include and what to exclude produce an original document, i.e. no-one has done it that way before. The simple collocation of existing evidence may, of itself, produce new insights without a commentary being necessary, i.e. the implication is clear when the two or more previously separated elements are seen juxtaposed. Sometimes a commentary is required to explain when the readership may not have the relevant infrastructure of knowledge to make the connections or the elements now brought together are evidence relied upon to produce a coherent argument. This latter case is the originality that Wiki sets its policy against. Those who write here can refer to any existing verifiable source and leave it to be readers to do the work, but the authors here cannot articulate those thoughts for the readers. Except that when writing on a page that touches the sensibilities of those more politically than academically inclined, even the hint of improper thought brings down the wrath of those POV pushers offended: a consequence that has implications for the credibility of the Wiki enterprise. David91 03:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Please view Democratic response to 2006 State of the Union address and see if that seems to be original research. Uncle G and Howcheng have both insisted my contributions to 2006 State of the Union address are original research - and since I wrote it (all other changes have been page moves or grammatical/formatting changes) this would mean 99% of the content would have to be deleted. KI 03:17, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be taking an original speech and applying your own expertise to analyse it rather than operating as a reference editor to point readers to verifiable sources of commentary on the speech. The same could be said of whoever wrote the page on the Democratic response. Since I have no status in this place I can freely offer my advice which is to walk away from this one. You could consider starting a new page on semantic analysis, introduce the different forms of rhetorical device and then use either or both speeches as examples. That might be half-way justifiable if someone else has verifiably done the same thing (although not necessarily using the same speeches). The culture of this place requires you to be nimble and flexible. David91 11:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

He should not be applying his own expertise. There's nothing notable about his opinions and they don't belong anywhere. Superm401 - Talk 23:47, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I shouldn't point this out, but the quick and dirty solution is to open up a web page somewhere and post your original research there. Then you can cite that page here. This may or may not be in policy, but it will probably fly. John Reid 17:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No, that isn't a solution and it won't fly. The sources cited have to be notable; someone's blog won't cut it. Superm401 - Talk 21:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I said quick and dirty and I meant it. Non-notable sources fly all the time -- for good or bad. John Reid 05:52, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article

I came to the problem with national alphabet letters in article name. They are commonly used but I have found no mention about them in naming coventions (WP:NAME). The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people. National alphabet is widely used in wikipedia. Examples are Luís de Camões Auguste and Louis Lumière or Karel Čapek. There are redirects from english spelling (Camoes, Lumiere, Capek).

On the other hand, wikiproject ice hockey WP:HOCKEY states rule for ice hockey players that their names should be written in English spelling. Currently some articles are being moved from Czech spelling to the english spelling (for example Patrik Eliáš to Patrick Elias). I object to this as I do not see genaral consensus and it will only lead to moving back and forth. WP:HOCKEY is not wikipedia policy nor guideline. In addition I do not see any reason why ice hockey players should be treated differently than other people.

There is a mention about using the most recognized name in the naming conventions policy. But this does not help in the case of many ice hockey players. It is very likely that for American and Canadian NHL fans the most recognised versions are Jagr, Hasek or Patrick ELias. But these people also played for the Czech republic in the Olympics and there they are known like Jágr, Hašek or Patrik Eliáš.

I would like to find out what is the current consensus about this. -- Jan Smolik 18:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people - incorrect. "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" - Wikipedia:Naming :conventions (common names). Raul654 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I mentioned this in the third article but it does not solve the problem. Americans are familiar with different spelling than Czechs. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, since this is the English Wikipedia, really we should use the name most familiar to English speakers. The policy doesn't say this explicitly, but I believe this is how it's usually interpreted. This is the form that English speakers will recognize most easily. Deco 19:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well it is wikipedia in English but it is read and edited by people from the whole world. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

There was a straw poll about this with regard to place names: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)/Archive 3#Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks. The proposal was that "whenever the most common English spelling is simply the native spelling with diacritical marks omitted, the native spelling should be used". It was close, but those who supported the proposal had more votes. Since, articles like Yaoundé have remained in place with no uproar. I would support a similar convention with regard to personal names. — BrianSmithson 19:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm the user who initiated the WP:HOCKEY-based renaming with Alf. The project Player Pages Format Talk page has the discussion we had along with my reasoning, pasted below:

OK, team, it's simple. This is en-wiki. We don't have non-English characters on our keyboards, and people likely to come to en-wiki are mostly going to have ISO-EN keyboards, whether they're US, UK, or Aussie (to name a few) it doesn't matter. I set up a page at User:RasputinAXP/DMRwT for double move redirects with twist and started in on the Czech players that need to be reanglicized.

Myself and others interpret the policy just the same as Deco and BrianSmithson do: the familiar form in English is Jaromir Jagr, not Jaromír Jágr; we can't even type that. Attempting to avoid redirects is pretty tough as well. Is there a better way to build consensus regarding this? RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 19:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you misread my statement above. My stance is that if the native spelling of the name varies from the English spelling only in the use of diacritics, use the native spelling. Thus, the article title should be Yaoundé and not Yaounde. Likewise, use Jōchō, not Jocho. Redirection makes any arguments about accessibility moot, and not using the diacritics makes us look lazy or ignorant. — BrianSmithson 16:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Tentative overview (no cut-and-paste solutions, however):

• Article names for names of people: wikipedia:naming conventions (people) - there's nothing specific about diacritics there (just mentioning this guideline because it is a naming conventions guideline, while there are no "hockey" naming conventions mentioned at wikipedia:naming conventions).
• wikipedia:naming conventions (names and titles) is about royal & noble people: this is guideline, and *explicitly* mentions that wikipedia:naming conventions (common names) does NOT apply for these kind of people. But makes no difference: doesn't mention anything about diacritics.
• Wikipedia talk:naming conventions (Polish rulers): here we're trying to solve the issue for Polish monarchs (some of which have diacritics in their Polish name): but don't expect to find answers there yet, talks are still going on. Anyway we need to come to a conclusion there too, hopefully soon (but not rushing).
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics), early stages of a guideline proposal, I started this on a "blue monday" about a week ago. No guideline yet: the page contains merely a "scope" definition, and a tentative "rationale" section. What the basic principles of the guideline proposal will become I don't know yet (sort of waiting till after the "Polish rulers" issue gets sorted out I suppose...). But if any of you feel like being able to contribute, ultimately it will answer Jan Smolik's question (but I'd definitely advise not to hold your breath on it yet).
• Other:
  • Some people articles with and without diacritics are mentioned at wikipedia talk:naming conventions (use English)#Diacritics, South Slavic languages - some of these after undergoing a WP:RM, but note that isolated examples are *not* the same as a guideline... (if I'd know a formulation of a guideline proposal that could be agreeable to the large majority of Wikipedians, I'd have written it down already...)
  • Talking about Lumiere/Lumière: there's a planet with that name: at a certain moment a few months ago it seemed as if the issue was settled to use the name with accent, but I don't know how that ended, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects, Andrewa said she was going to take the issue there. Didn't check whether they have a final conclusion yet.

Well, that's all I know about (unless you also want to involve non-standard characters, then there's still the wikipedia:naming conventions (þ) guideline proposal) --Francis Schonken 19:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Note that I do not believe no En article should contain diacritics in its title. There are topics for which most English speakers are used to names containing diacritics, such as El Niño. Then there are topics for which the name without diacritics is widely disseminated throughout the English speaking world, like Celine Dion (most English speakers would be confused or surprised to see the proper "Céline Dion"). (Ironically enough, the articles for these don't support my point very well.) Deco 20:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Sticking diacritics, particularly the Polish Ł is highly annoying, esp. when applied to Polish monarchs. It just gives editors much more work, and unless you're in Poland or know the code, you will be unable to type the name in the article. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 20:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Redirects make the issue of difficulty in visiting or linking to the article immaterial (I know we like to skip redirects, but as long as you watch out for double redirects you're fine). The limitations of our keyboards are not, by themselves, a good reason to exclude any article title. Deco 20:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Deco, I should rephrase what I said. I agree with you that some English articles do require diacritics, like El Niño. Articles like Jaromir Jagr that are lacking diacritics in their English spellings should remain without diacritics because you're only going to find the name printed in any English-speaking paper without diacritics. RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 21:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I checked articles about Czech people and in 90 % of cases (rough guess) they are with diacritics in the name of the article. This includes soccer players playing in England (like Vladimír Šmicer, Petr Čech, Milan Baroš). And no one actualy complains. So this seems to be a consensus. The only exception are extremely short stubs that did not receive much input. Articles with Czech diacritics are readable in English, you only need a redirect becouse of problems with typing. This is an international project written in English. It should not fulfill only needs of native English speakers but of all people of the world. --Jan Smolik 22:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Very many names need diacritics to make sense. Petr Cech instead of Petr Čech makes a different impression as a name, does not look half as Czech and is much more likely to be totally mispronounced when you see it. Names with diacritics are also not IMHO such a big problem to use for editors because you can usually go through the redirect in an extra tab and cut and paste the correct title. I also don't see a problem at all in linking through redirects (that's part of what they are there for). Leaving out diacritics only where they are "not particularly useful" would be rather inconsequent. Kusma (討論) 22:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, "Petr Sykora" and "Jaromir Jagr" are not alternate spellings; they are incorrect ones which are only used for technical reasons. Since all other articles about Czech people use proper Czech diacritics, I don't know of any justification for making an exception in case of hockey players. - Mike Rosoft 01:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Man, I feel like the bottom man in a dogpile. Reviewing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), there'sWhat word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine? Making the name of the article include diacritics goes against the Use English guideline. The most common input into the search box over here onthe left, for en-wiki, is going to be Jaromir Jagr. Yes, we're supposed to avoid redirects. Yes, in Czech it's not correct. In English, it is correct. I guess I'm done with the discussion. There's no consensus in either direction, but it's going to be pushed back to the diacritic version anyhow. Go ahead and switch them back. I'mnot dead-set against it, but I was trying to follow guidelines. RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 15:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There are many names, and even words, in dominant English usage that use diacritics. Whether or not these will ever be typed in a search engine, they're still the proper title. However, if English language media presentations of a topic overwhelmingly omit diacritics, then clearly English speakers would be most familiar with the form without diacritics and it should be used as the title on this Wikipedia. This is just common sense, even if it goes against the ad hoc conventions that have arisen. Deco 18:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Czech names: almost all names with diacritics use it also in the title (and all of them have redirect). Adding missing diacritics is automatic behavior of Czech editors when they spot it. So for all practical purposes the policy is set de-facto (for Cz names) and you can't change it. Pavel Vozenilek 03:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech) --Francis Schonken 11:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

and: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) --Francis Schonken 17:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There are those among us trying to pull the ignorant North American card. I mentioned the following over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Player pages format...

Here's the Czech hockey team in English compliments of the Torino Italy Olympic Committee [2] Here they are in Italian: [3], French: [4]. Here are the rosters from the IIHF (INTERNATIONAL Ice Hockey Federation) based in Switzerland: [5].'

Those examples are straight from 2 international organizations (one based in Italy, one in Switzerland). I'm hard pressed to find any english publication that uses diacritics in hockey player names. I don't see why en.wiki should be setting a precedent otherwise. ccwaters 02:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Over at WP:HOCKEY we have/had 3 forces promoting non-English characters in en.wiki hockey articles: native Finns demanding native spellings of Finnish players, native Czechs demanding native spellings of Czech players, and American stalkers of certain Finnish goaltenders. I did a little research and here are my findings:

Here's a Finnish site profiling NHL players. Here's an "incorrectly" spelt Jagr, but the Finnish and German alphabets both happen to have umlauts so here's a "correct" Olaf Kölzig. Who is Aleksei Jashin?

Here's a Czech article about the recent Montreal-Philadelphia game [6] Good luck finding any Finnish players names spelt "correctly"... here's a snippet from the MON-PHI article:

Flyers však do utkání nastoupili značně oslabeni. K zraněným oporám Peteru Forsbergovi, Keithu Primeauovi, Ericu Desjardinsovi a Kimu Johnssonovi totiž po posledním zápase přibyli také Petr Nedvěd a zadák Chris Therrien.

Well...I recognize Petr Nedvěd, he was born in Czechoslovakia. Who did the Flyers have in goal??? Oh its the Finnish guy, "Antero Niitymakiho".

My point? Different languages spell name differently. I found those sites just by searching yahoo in the respective languages. I admit I don't speak either and therefore I couldn't search thoroughly. If someone with backgrounds in either language can demonstrate patterns of Finnish publications acknowledging Czech characters and visa versa than I may change my stance. ccwaters 03:45, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I support every word Ccwater said, albeit with not as much conviction. There is a reason why we have Wikipedia in different languages, and although there are few instances in the English uses some sort of extra-curricular lettering (i.e. café), most English speaking people do not use those. Croat Canuck 04:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I must make a strong point that seems to be over-looked: this is not the international English language wikipedia. It is the English language wikipedia. It just so happens that the international communty contributes. There is a reason that there are other language sections to wikipedia, and this is one of them. The finnish section of wikipedia should spell names the Finnish way and the English wikipedia should spell names the English way. The vast majority of english publications drop the foreign characters and diacritics. Why? because they aren't part of the English language, hence the term "foreign characters". Masterhatch 04:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree in every particular with Masterhatch. The NHL's own website and publications do not use diacriticals, nor does any other known English-language source. The absurdity of the racist card is breathtaking: in the same fashion as the Finnish and Czech language Wikipedias follow their own national conventions for nomenclature (the name of the country in which I live is called the "United States" on neither ... should I feel insulted?), the English language Wikipedia reflects the conventions of the various English-speaking nations. In none are diacriticals commonly used. I imagine the natives of the Finnish or Czech language Wikipedias would go berserk if some peeved Anglos barge in and demand they change their customary linguistic usages. I see no reason to change the English language to suit in a similar situation. RGTraynor 06:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized. I intentionaly wrote the names without diacritics. I accept the fact that foreigners do that because they cannot write those letters properly and use them correctly. There are also technical restrictions. I also accepted fact that my US social security card bears name Jan Smolik instead of Jan Smolík. I do not have problem with this. I even sign my posts Jan Smolik. But Wikipedia does not have technical restrictions. I can even type wierd letters as Æ. And it has plenty of editors who are able to write names with diacritics correctly. The name without diacritics is sufficient for normal information but I still think it is wrong. I think that removing diacritics is a step back. Anyway it is true that I am not able to use diacritics in Finish names. But somebody can fix that for me.

I do not care which version will win. But I just felt there was not a clear consensus for the non-diacritics side and this discussion has proven me to be right. As for the notice of Czechs writing names incorectly. We use Inflection of names so that makes writing even more dificult (my name is Smolík but when you want to say we gave it to Smolík you will use form we gave it Smolíkovi). One last argument for diacritics, before I retire from this discussion as I think I said all I wanted to say. Without diacritics you cannot distinguish some names. For example Czech surnames Čapek and Cápek are both Capek. Anyway we also have language purists in the Czech republic. I am not one of them. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized -Fine we'll use the spellings used by the IIHF, IOC, NHLPA, AHL, OHL, WHL, ESPN, TSN, The Hockey News, Sports Illustrated, etc, etc, etc.

This isn't about laziness. Its about using the alphabet afforded to the respective language. We don't refer to Алексей Яшин because the English language doesn't use the Cyrillic alphabet. So why should we subject language A to the version of the Latin alphabet used by language B? Especially when B modifies proper names from languages C & D.

My main beef here is that that the use of such characters in en.wiki is a precedent, and not a common practice. If you think the English hockey world should start spelling Czech names natively, than start a campaign amongst Czech hockey players demanding so. It may work: languages constantly infiltrate and influence each other. Wikipedia should take a passive role in such things, and not be an active forum for them. ccwaters 20:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized Great, in which case for Czech Olympic pages, especially on the Czech Wikipedia, spell them as they are done in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, in the NHL-related articles, we'll spell them as per customary English-language usage. RGTraynor 08:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I wish I understood why User:ccwaters has to be rude in his posts on this subject. "Stalkers of Finnish goaltenders" isn't the way I'd describe a Wikipedia contributor. Also, since you asked, Aleksei Jashin is the Finnish translitteration of Alexei Yashin. Russian transliterates differently into Finnish than into English. Of course you must know this, since you have such a habit of lecturing to us on languages. As for diacritics, I object to the idea of dumbing down Wikipedia. There are no technical limitations that stop us from writing Antero Niittymäki instead of Antero Niittymaki. The reason so many hockey publications all over the world don't use Finnish-Scandinavian letters or diacritics is simple laziness, and Wikipedia can do much better. Besides, it isn't accepted translation practice to change the spelling of proper names if they can be easily reproduced and understood, so in my opinion it's simply wrong to do so. Since it seems to be obvious there isn't a consensus on this matter, I think a vote would be in order. Elrith 16:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Alas, a Finnish guy lecturing native English speakers on how they have to write Czech names in English (not to mention the lecturing regarding the laziness) is but a variation on the same theme of rudishness.

So, Elrith, or whomever reads this, if the lecturing is finished, could you maybe devote some attention to the Dvořák/Dvorak problem I mentioned below? I mean, whomever one asks this would not be problematic - but nobody volunteered thus far to get it solved. Am I the only one who experiences this as problematic inconsistency? --Francis Schonken 21:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

So is "Jagr" the Finnish transliteration of "Jágr"??? On that note, the Finnish "Ä" is not an "A" with "funny things" on top (that's an umlaut), its a completely separate letter nonexistent in the English language and is translated to "Æ". "Niittymaki" would be the English transliteration. "Nittymeki" or (more traditionally "Nittymӕki") would be the English transcription.

In the past I've said our friend's contributions were "thorough." I'll leave it at that. There will be nothing else about it from me unless asked. ccwaters 21:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Could someone clean this up:

Article/category name without diacritics

Category:Compositions by Antonin Dvorak

Category:Operas by Antonin Dvorak

Cello Concerto (Dvorak)

String Quartet No. 11 (Dvorak)

String Quartet No. 12 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 6 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 8 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 9 (Dvorak)

Violin Concerto (Dvorak)

Page name with diacritics

Antonín Dvořák

List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák

Symphony No. 7 (Dvořák)

I'd do it myself if I only knew which way the wikipedia community wants it... --Francis Schonken 10:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

2006: Ilyanep asks a very important question

What is the policy on article headers such as '1992-1995: Early times', '1995-1997: Public recognition', etc? I personally think they seem odd. — Ilyanep (Talk) 02:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There isn't any. They do seem odd. But that's an article-level style choice and I can't imagine we'll make a global policy one way or the other. Deco 02:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I think reversing them would be better (e.g. "Early times (1992-95)"), but I suspect that it's just a matter of personal preference. —Kirill Lokshin 02:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

When you're working on a history, and there has been no work done by a reputable source to designate eras of history pertaining to the subject, sectioning purely chronologically may be a reasonable way to break up the flow a bit for readability without engaging in original research. A distressingly common area of dispute in history articles is article structure, since you can't structure the article to match each point of view about how histories on the topic should be structured, but choosing one can be seen as endorsing that POV. You want a history article to read like a history of the subject, whatever it is, not like a survey of different POVs about how the history of the subject should be approached. A date-only structure leaves much to be desired for information accessibility, but it's certainly NPOV at least.... --TreyHarris 10:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

In general, style manuals (including ours) deprecate starting sentences with numerals, and I think that the same reasoning applies to headings. In other words, I'm essentially agreeing with Kirill Lokshin, but adding a mild appeal to authority. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

_ _ What same reasoning? IMO, that deprecation reflects the fact that a period is not really enough to mark the boundary between sentences, and the combination of a period and a capital is. The combination of a period and a digit is borderline and IMO the reason for avoiding a numeral at the head of a subsequent sentence with a 'graph.

_ _ I would hesitate to start a paragraph with "1989 was momentous in Eastern Europe", but mostly bcz most people have made themselves comfortable only with the overly general rule "don't start a sentence...". (Did Churchhill begin a whole speech with a year? I somehow think of him as the only person who would write

Nineteen forty-one will be...

at the start of a 'graph; perhaps i saw someone else's transcription of such a speech.)

_ _ In any case, a heading is not a sentence, nor is it signficantly like a sentence. It is more like a list entry, and both headings and list entries commonly start with or consist of numbers written with numerals rather than spelled out. In the cases discussed here, it should be preferred: get the objective data out there first, and soften the more subjective and inevitably at least mildly PoV wording into a secondary position where it can do less damage.
--Jerzy•t 14:52, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)#Other events - "1992-95" → "1992-1995" (years always written in full) --Francis Schonken 11:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that section is referring to abbreviating single years; certainly I've never heard anything about shortening the second year in a sequence (per the CMS) being forbidden. —Kirill Lokshin 14:24, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

_ _ Drifting further off-topic, FS's example is not from there and that section (at least) does not deprecate that specific approach. The example there has the thrust of "don't use '89 in place of 1989", which is entirely different form using 1992-95, by being ambiguous out of context, and therefore sometimes ambiguous while skimming thru an article.

_ _ I'm not sure about using 1992-95. What i am sure about is that for someone who died in 1990 at the age of 50

(1939/40-1990)

is better than either

(c. 1940 -1990)

or

(1939 or 1940 -1990)

(although personally i would always write 1940/41 rather than 1940/1).

_ _ (If this aspect is worth discussing, IMO we should probably move it to an existing talk page.)
--Jerzy•t 14:27, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The main MoS page (Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)) has "Do not use two digits to express a year unless at the end of a range, e.g., '1970–87'", for what it's worth. —Kirill Lokshin 14:29, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, should've mentioned the nuances straight away:

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) is about what you write in article text
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates) is about what name you give to non-redirect article pages.
• Don't use years (nor abbreviated, nor full) in page names for articles on people (example: Thomas F. Bayard (1828-1898) can only be a redirect)
• "1992-95" is OK for use in article text (although Jerzy is correct in saying that wouldn't be a format suited to indicate year of birth/year of death of a person).
• It is not "commandeered", but "encouraged" to use "1992-1995" instead in page names of content pages on events, per naming conventions (quote: "In general, however, abbreviations for years or months are avoided")
• So, if you happen to have made such "content page" containing "1992-1995" in the title, it's maybe not a bad idea to create a redirect page with the same title, except for replacing "1992-1995" by "1992-95". No obligation, but since people might start using both variants, with double square brackets around them, in article text, this is just being attentive for your co-wikipedians.

--Francis Schonken 16:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Plagarism

Moved from top of section -- Where do I report plagarism these days? There seems to be one involving Marrickville, New South Wales and this page but I do not know where to report it. There seems to be nothing on the wikipedia policy pages, for instance. Arno 01:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Copyrights#If you find a copyright infringement. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 02:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Dalbury. (not sure of relevance of area above my question...)Arno 03:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Is it permissible to implement the guidance in the Manual of Style?

For a long time, there has been a serious mismatch between the Manual of Style guidance and the article implementation of date links. Several editors have been reducing this mismatch in accordance with:

• Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)

Unfortunately, Ambi and perhaps another admin have applied and threatened blocks if the guidance is implemented. In my janitorial capacity I do a lot of work on a lot of articles but I have been told to leave the guidance unimplemented. A few other editors are also being prevented from implementing the guidance, but are less visible. Thus we now have guidance (i.e. the Manual of Style) and undocumented meta-guidance (constraints from dissenting editors with blocking powers). It really would be better if dissenting editors would work to change guidance rather than target editors that follow the guidance. I care less about the actual guidance than my ability to continue my janitorial work in peace.

The Manual of style is a valuable resource to increase the quality of Wikipedia (consistency etc). It also serves as a reference point for those that have incompatible preferences. It would be a shame if it were not permissible to implement it for fear of being blocked.

We are already several weeks into this unofficial ban on implementation of guidance. My questions are these:

• if a temporary ban on implementing guidance is required:
  • what duration is reasonable (1 week, 1 month, 1 year)?
  • should the ban be documented adjacent to the guidance concerned (so it is clear to all)?
• is it otherwise permissible to implement guidance in the Manual of Style? If not, which guidance can we use?
  

bobblewik 16:33, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing the problem to the wider fora. I went through the discussions and I think it is a problem that deserves better solution than current edit war (or revert war) between administrator Ambi and bobblewik. As I am inclined to support bobblewik I can see the situation is not that simple. I ask other wikipedians to see bobblewik, Special:Contributions/Bobblewik and Wikipedia_talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Can we document scope and duration of suspension of the Manual of Style?. --Jan Smolik 19:24, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

It's very clear that there is absolutely no consensus to either remove or keep all date links, which is why no one should be running around with a bot changing them. As I've stated in several other fora, I have no objection to people not including date links in articles they write - I for one certainly won't go around adding them if that's the case. Furthermore, it has been longstanding bot policy on Wikipedia to not make controversial edits with bots. Bobblewik has been repeatedly asked by a litany of editors (see his talk page) to stop, but has continued making bot edits at a speed of 120/hour, and his responses have essentially amounted to "okay, you want me to stop? make me." This is not courteous editing, and is particuarly bad form for someone using a bot. It is the latter reason why he has been blocked in the past and will be again if he continues. Ambi 03:43, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly not "very clear" that there's no consensus on the general issue of year-linking. Bobblewik's position reflects the MOS consensus, and a clear majority of the comments on his talk page (probably a 2:1 majority) support him on the standard involved. There are also a number of questions about the standard involved, and the questioners appear, in most cases, to be satisfied with the MOS guidelines he refers to. A few other editors agree generally, but disagree with regard to particular articles. Blocking him seems to be far more abusive than anything he's doing. And why do you believe, as your comments indicate, that a new consensus is needed to implement/enforce an already-established-by-consensus standard? Monicasdude 04:27, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Where do the MoS guidelines say "remove all date links wherever they exist?" User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:23, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

In history articles 9/10 date links are useless and misleading. When we put in a link it should tell users it is worthwhile for them to go there for relevant useful information. And if it's October 24 they are wasting their time. Rjensen 19:29, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

On the issue of year links, I'm fairly sure that (i) a majority of new editors add links to years because that's what everyone else does, and because you have to for full dates and they don't understand the difference; (ii) a majority of longstanding editors, when they understand date preferences properly, realise that almost all year links are useless.

However, that's not really the issue here. The issue is whether Ambi should be allowed to block Bobblewik for following the Manual of Style, however much she disagrees with its guidance, or believes it to be "controversial" and having "no consensus". It is absolutely clear to me that no, an administrator has no business to block a user for obeying anything in the Manual of Style.

Stephen Turner (Talk) 18:35, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

You're missing a very important distinction there. I never blocked Bobblewik. I blocked his account because he runs a bot under that account which is making disputed edits en masse even after being asked to stop, even temporarily. The manual of style is only a guideline, and to make masses of bot edits even after being asked to stop by numerous people is extremely bad form. The polite thing to do with a bot is to stop when asked - not to effectively say "make me." When that does happen, however, blocking said bot is perfectly justified. Ambi 04:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that. Using a bot without authorisation is certainly grounds for blocking, per WP:BOT. They shouldn't be run from a user's own account either. But have we established whether Bobblewik is using a bot? The block notes seem to be in some doubt about this, and when you blocked him, you said it was for bot-speed edits, which as far as I know is not an offence! But if he is using a bot, I would agree with your actions. Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:47, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It certainly acts like a bot - it's making edits across the encyclopedia at random at a set rate of 120/hour. I'm inclined to say that if it looks like a bot, acts like a bot, and smells like a bot, it's a bot. Ambi 14:59, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

What is the purpose of having a manual of style if its contents are not to be implemented--both for new articles and for past? If otherwise, why not just delete the Manual of Style as a wasteful effort? Hmains 22:04, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't necessarily agree with this, but to give guidance, not lay down strict follow-this-or-else rules. Editors should be allowed to edit articles generally in the format they want, rather than following someone else's ideas of aesthetics. I most certainly do not support making the MoS compulsory. How is anyone supposed to keep track of its sprawling mass of pages? Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 22:10, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Precisely. There was never any consensus for this particular clause - Bobblewik and friends slipped this in with minimal feedback, then he fired up his bot and when asked by many people to cease, effectively dared people to stop him. Ambi 04:51, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe the comment about "slipp[ing] this in" is even close to accurate. The equivalent of the standard Bobblewik is applying shows up at least as far back as late 2002 (or 2002, to give equal time) [7] Monicasdude 17:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Yet in all that time, the vast majority of Wikipedians have done otherwise, and including year links remains common practice on this project. This should tell you something. Ambi 03:03, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It does tell me something, but not that anyone finds them useful. It tells me that most editors are confused about date preferences, and/or they follow the crowd. Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

A proposal for compromise

It has happened more than once, that someone has "slipped something in" to the MoS with minimal feedback. It annoys me, too, especially when I use the MoS to bolster an argument only to find that—surprise!—it's been changed out from under me when I wasn't looking. I'd hate this misusage to result in the MoS being considered purely advisory, though, or to have its guidance be considered out of bounds for bot editing. Might I suggest that, instead, we institute a new rule: that if someone intends to use a bot to implement MoS guidance, or to start a collaboration project or JavaScript tool or any other mechanism to bring a large number of pages into compliance quickly, that they be required to notify editors concerned with the rule of their intentions, by posting to the relevant MoS's talk page several days ahead of starting the widespread article edits? This would give people a chance to say, "hey, wait, where did that rule come from?" without entirely stopping constructive bot usage to improve MoS compliance. --TreyHarris 05:05, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

??? is the question at hand

• the allowable mechanisms to be used in implmenting a MoS rule?

or

• whether MoS rules should be allowed to be implemented without being challenged or reverted by other editors who do not happen to like the rules?

Unless we know the problem we are trying to solve, we surely have little chance to solve it. Right?

thanks Hmains 06:37, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The act that started this thread was an instance of widespread editing (via a bot) to implement a rule in the MoS that after the fact turned out to appear not to have garnered consensus. My proposal is suggested to help prevent that from happening in the future. So in that sense, it addresses your first question, "allowable mechanisms to be used in [implementing] a MoS rule".

The Manual of Style is a Wikipedia guideline. As such, it is "actionable...[but] not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." That means that, with a good reason to believe that an exception is justified in a given case, an edit for compliance can be "challenged or reverted by other editors". But "not [happening] to like the rules" is not a reasonable justification for an exception. Believing that consensus was not reached in the particular rule is a reasonable justification.

Disputes on this should be taken one of two places: if you agree with the rule but you think an exception is justified in a particular case, it should be taken to the talk page of the article in question. If you think the rule itself is inappropriate, or was "slipped in" to the MoS without consensus, or if you think there's an exception that needs to be made in many cases beyond just a single article (i.e., the rule itself needs to be rewritten to allow for your exception), then you should take the issue to the appropriate MoS's talk page.

Undoing an edit to comply with the MoS just because you do not "happen to like the rules" is inappropriate and could be considered damaging to the encyclopedia. --TreyHarris 07:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It is being discussed, and this is a good thing. The problem is that Bobblewik was using a bot to make several thousand edits enforcing his particular stance while that discussion was ongoing, without any attempt to listen or compromise on his part. Ambi 03:03, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

He's already said (below, but earlier in time) that it's not a bot. Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:04, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but my proposed compromise rule would have required him to state his intentions to make widespread compliance edits, whatever the mechanism for doing so. The result in this case would have perhaps delayed bobblewik's edits by a few days, but would have prevented his getting blocked and given folks a chance to verify that the linking rule had in fact reached consensus. --TreyHarris 06:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I think your proposal is a good idea. It would certainly help to notify such work in advance. However, I'm still not sure what happens if one or two editors object — aren't we back to where we started? It seems to me that in this case one of the problems is that there isn't even a consensus about whether there's a consensus. :-) Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Bafflegab

I'd have been much happier if the original poster had written I want to unlink portions of dates with a bot instead of ...is it otherwise permissible to implement guidance.... The latter is bafflegab that strains so hard to cast the debate in terms of Right vs Wrong (with the poster on the side of the angels, or at least authority) that it's almost impossible to discover the subject.

You'll never know where my sympathies might have lain on this issue, since now I'm alienated from the debate. John Reid 06:24, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

"date" facts

(MoS of today)

Wiki-Linking

Main article: Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context

Make only links relevant to the context. It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. A link is the equivalent of a footnote in a print medium. Imagine if every second word in an encyclopedia article were followed by '(see:)'. Hence, the links should not be so numerous as to make the article harder to read.

Not every year listed in an article needs to be wikilinked. Ask yourself: will clicking on the year bring any useful information to the reader?

Do, however, wikilink years, using the As of XXXX form, when they refer to information that was current at the time of writing; this allows other editors to ensure that articles are kept up to date as time passes. Dates including a month and day should also be linked, in order for user preferences on date formatting to work properly. See also: Wikipedia:As of and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) …

as of today and since 18 Oct 2005

Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context

Only make links that are relevant to the context.

It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. A link is analogous to a footnote in a print medium. Imagine if every second word in an encyclopedia article were followed by '(see:)'. Hence, the links should not be so numerous as to make the article harder to read.

It's not always an easy call. Linking to the number three from triangle is helpful, while linking to the number six from Six O'Clock News would be quite wrong. This page is in dynamic tension with the general rule to build the web. See the talk page for additional considerations.

Rules of thumb for linking

What should not be linked .Plain English words. .Months, years, decades or centuries, unless they will clearly help the reader to understand the topic. (This is in contrast to full dates—see below.) …

What should be linked Full dates; i.e., those that include the day and month. This allows the auto-formatting function for individual users' date preferences to work. Editors are not required to do this, but some readers prefer it.

Major connections with the subject of another article that will help readers to understand the current article more fully (see the example below). This can include people, events and topics that already have an article or that clearly deserve one, as long as the link is relevant to the article in question. …

on 13 Apr 2005 Bobblewik made the following change to MoS (dates and numbers

In the specific case of dates containing the three components day, month and year e.g. 25 March 2004 , links permit the date preferences of the reader to operate. Both day-month and year must be linked for the preference to work correctly. Other date forms such as year only (e.g. 1981) should be treated like any other words and linked only if there is some particular relevance.

MoS (dates and numbers) as of today

Date Formatting

Adding square brackets "DATE" to full dates allows date preferences to work. Editors are not required to link full dates, but most full dates in Wikipedia are linked so that each user's date-formatting preference appears in the text. For this to work, at least the day and the month must be included; some date preferences won't work unless a year is also linked. …:

Avoid overlinking dates If the date does not contain a day and a month, date preferences will not work, and square brackets will not respond to your readers' auto-formatting preferences. So unless there is a special relevance of the date link, there is no need to link it. This is an important point: simple months, years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there is a strong reason for doing so. See Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context for the reasons that it's usually undesirable to insert low-value chronological links; see also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Internal links.

correspondence with User talk:Bobblewik as of today

"date" changes

what exactly are you changing? are you changing dates formated as:

mmm dd yyyy

dd mmm yyyy

dd mmm

mmm dd

yyyy

decades (2000)

centuries (21st century)

or what?

I would appreciate knowing exactly what this issue is about? Thanks Hmains 19:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure if I understand the question. I am not changing dates. I am (or was) removing *square brackets* from:

ddd Tuesday

mmm February

yyyy 2006

decades 1990s

centuries 21st century

I did not remove square brackets from:

dd mmm, yyyy 12 January, 2006

dd mmm 12 January

ISO 8601 dates 2001-01-15

These are used for the date preference mechanism. Part of this whole problem is because square brackets are used for two entirely different functions: 1. Reformating the date to a user preference 2. Hyperlinking to an article Many editors see square brackets on 'date preference' formats and falsely conclude that *all* dates must have square brackets.

I hope that is the answer you need. bobblewik 19:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

HMAINS comments

Given the above facts, what is the problem with removing unnecessary ‘date’ links, no matter how many are removed and no matter what method is used? Using the MoS guidelines means just that: using them, implementing them, having articles follow them--all by the editor who wants to. It does not mean editing articles to violate the MoS guidelines.

There are enough problems with articles and their writing that we could be working on, we should be thankful of any and every editor and method that implements the MoS easily.

Thanks Hmains 03:41, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

---

For future reference, it's not good form to paste large sections of text like this. Find the history links that document what you're pointing attention to, and link to the diff URLs instead.

If Ambi is saying that there's no consensus against linking each and every occurrence of years, days, day-of-weeks, months, etc., in isolation when not part of the month-day-year combinations that cause the user preferences to kick in, I think I have to disagree. It looks to me like there's been a fairly long-standing consensus that one should not link, for example, "February" in "the following February, Smith moved to Venice". This is not just editor's choice, but an editor actually is justified in specifically unlinking February if it was previously linked, as this is not a link of any "particular relevance". However, and I can't stress this enough, a link would be allowed and should not be unlinked in the case of, "Smith's favorite month was February, and he wrote a 1862 book, Six Weeks Till Spring, about his love for that month." Unlinking February in this case would be a damaging edit.

I can't see how a bot could be made to differentiate between the two. So if bobblewik was in fact using a bot to make these edits, I think others were fully justified in asking him to stop; even if he had not yet made a damaging edit, in general I think we'd prefer that irrelevant links stay than that useful links go. --TreyHarris 04:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not yet convinced that Bobblewik is using a bot, which is Ambi's stated reason for blocking him (and an entirely correct reason). I was under the impression that he approved every edit manually, so I'd assumed he was using something like AWB, which is not a bot. Now AWB does also say that you shouldn't use it for anything controversial, but Ambi and I will have to disagree about whether it's controversial or not: I see it as implementing long-standing and well-established style guidance. Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Your impression is correct. I have been characterised as a janitorial editor. I do thousands of minor edits (e.g. fixing minor inconsistencies). I make use of Firefox tabs and can easily get up to 5 or 6 *manual* edits per minute. If you look at my talk page, you will see that people sometimes mistook my manual edits for bot edits. I started using AWB after it was created and I continue to use a similar mechanism. Each edit is approved manually. Ambi and Talrias complained about the speed so I now only click 'Save page' approximately 2 times per minute. If there is still a problem with *how* the MoS is implemented, please let me know. I will try to work within constraints that apply to all editors. If there is a problem with *the MoS guidance* itself, then it should be revised and I will implement the new revision. bobblewik 23:58, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

So I think we've established: (i) Bobblewik is implementing guidance in the Manual of Style; (ii) the guidance is long-standing, not some new innovation; (iii) he's not using a bot. Given this, I really don't see any basis for him to be blocked. (An administrator doesn't like the guidance is not a sufficient reason). Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:12, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

He's making 120 edits an hour to random articles all over the encyclopedia. If it looks like a bot, smells like a bot and acts like a bot, it is a bot. That you agree with that bot's edits is another dispute. Ambi 09:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Press releases

User:JQF proposes to include the copyrighted image Image:GuanlongWucaii.jpg in the Guanlong article on the grounds (I think) that the image formed part of a press release and therefore is in the public domain.

Are these grounds adequate? Press releases come with an implied licence for news organizations to redistribute them, but is that implied licence good enough for us?

There's more about this issue at this foundation-l mail thread and at Talk:News release.

Gdr 17:14, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

It is certainly not in the public domain, but it might be a {{Promotional}} image. Superm401 - Talk 21:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there a proper ISBN format?

Traditionally the ISBN is written out with dashes (such as 0-8160-4059-1), however with so many electronic databases that use ISBNs, from stores like Amazon to library card catalogs) the numbers have been written without the dashes (i.e 0816040591). Is there a standard convention on Wikipedia? - Koweja 23:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

No. If in doubt, however, it is more correct to use the non-hyphenated one. The hyphens show which portions of the ISBN mean what (language, published, etc). Either is equally correct, so long as you know exactly where to put the hyphens. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 23:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

There is no standard way. It's either a complete number or seperated by . or - or spaces. It is not that relevant either, since it will cease to exist by 2007 when the UPC become the standard and it was a good system in the beginning, but nowadays you need a different for every unique printing which means that it is a huge chaos especially since the largest blocks are assigned to be big publishing houses so the first printing can be 1912448242 and the second printing of the same book but with a different cover can be 0828578221 Dr Debug (Talk) 00:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

As the UPC is the ISBN with a standard prefix and a recalculated checksum digit - and there'll be forty years of material with printed ISBNs on them - it's a bit misleading to claim the ISBN will "cease to exist", any more than the Standard Book Number ceased to exist c.1970 Shimgray | talk | 14:27, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Admins should be reachable via email

On 10 February 2006, around 02:58, I was blocked by KillerChihuahua. (OK, so it was only for 15 minutes, but I didn't know that at that time.) I immediately sent an email protesting the block and explaining the reasons for my edits. It was not until some 3 hours later that KillerChihuahua responded to my email. I don't think it's fair for an Admin to block a User -- thereby limiting to email any communication from the User to the Admin -- while that Admin is in a position where (in their own words) "I cannot always access my email and it may be a day or two before you receive a reply". Ewlyahoocom 11:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors and admins are volunteers. Nobody is going to be at your beck and call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:29, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

There are lots of editors who don't have an email adress set. Having an adress is "accesible", and it's unfair to whine because you didn't get a response right away.--Sean Black ^(talk) 21:34, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Don't be an admin if you don't wanna work hard. Reverend Abramovich 08:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

We could always do a John Galt and simply stop, but I think you'd not enjoy that. --Golbez 08:21, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

If an admin blocks somebody, that means they have already exhausted all available means of nicely asking them to stop. It's a last resort. Even obvious vandals get warnings, and moreover first blocks should never be indefinite. The ability to e-mail the blocking admin is a courtesy. Also, not all admins block people - I think I've only placed one block ever. Deco 09:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I proposed this at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy a couple of years ago, but there'd be no easy way to enforce it, so it's better to encourage admins to do this than try to insist it be a policy. Angela. 10:07, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, i think it should be made policy with instant loss of admin privs if an admin is caught breaking it whilst using thier admin privilages (admins should be allowed to take holidays from thier e-mail if and only if they also take holidays from performing admin tasks).

A block may be a last resort but it can also be made by mistake. wikipedia has to make a descision. is wikipedia going to be run by a cabel after whose descision there is no appeal or by an open and fair process? Plugwash 21:52, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

If a block is made contrary to policy, they can e-mail any admin and ask it to be considered for reversal. There are hundreds who respond promptly to e-mail. Perhaps a list of "admins who regularly review e-mail" would be helpful. Deco 00:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

This particular case is silly as admin replied to the e-mail in 3 hours time. The question arises: "Should admins be allowed to sleep for more than 2 hours in a row?" What if admin blocks an apparent vandal at 1am and goes to bed? Or should there be a rule for admins that they are not allowed to go to bed less than 1 hour after their last block? I generally agree that admins should be reachable by e-mail (in sense that e-mail is entered in their preferences) but it is not always possible to reply everybody instantly. --Jan Smolik 20:59, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Naming Conventions for Polish rulers

Please help completing the table below. The table is on a separate page, that opens when clicking the "edit" link below.

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Polish rulers) is the place for discussions on the English Wikipedia page names of individual monarchs. --Francis Schonken 09:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

File:Red-x.gif

This proposal was rejected by the community. It is inactive but retained for historical interest. If you want to revive discussion on this subject, try using the talk page or start a discussion at the village pump.

Table

In office as ruler of Poland (for some approx.)	Polish name (from pl:wikipedia)	Page name at en:Wikipedia	Remarks
Monarchs
...	...	...	...
1386-1434	Władysław II Jagiełło	Wladyslaw II/V of Poland, Jogaila of Lithuania	Compromise, since Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) has no special provisions when a ruler changes name when acquiring a second realm (this ruler was in office in Lithuania since 1377, he didn't receive his Christian name Wladyslaw until conversion to catholicism when acquiring the Polish throne); Double numbering ("II" and "V") while both are used when referring to this Polish ruler: "II" is more common (but overlaps with another Polish ruler, see Wladislaw II of Poland dab page); "V" is less ambiguous, and is also often used. "Jagiello" (the Polish version of Jogaila) is not used in the wikipedia page name while overlapping with another Wladyslaw II Jagiello, see Ladislaus Jagiello dab page.
...	...	...	...
1573-1574	Henryk III Walezy	Henry III of France	per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles), better known as ruler of France
1575-1587 (most of the reign together with her husband Stefan Batory)	Anna Jagiellonka	Anna of Poland	per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles), "Anne/Anna Jagiellon(ka)" overlaps with at least two other women (that, btw, also both can be called "Anna of Poland", see Anna of Poland) - because of the unavoidable confusion whatever way it is turned, the "names and titles" guideline is applied very strict in this case, while considered least confusing in Wikipedia context
1576-1586	Stefan Batory	Stefan Batory	per most used in English; note that there is some ambiguity with his father, a namesake in common English spelling, but presently at the Hungarian spelling of the name, István Báthory
1587-1632	Zygmunt III Waza	Sigismund III of Poland	per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles), best known as ruler of Poland, although (for some years) also ruler of Sweden. Compare Henry III of France above: it's not because this ruler is better known in France than in Poland, that his name would suddenly be written in French (not "Henri III de France", and even less "Henri III (de) Valois"). So also for this Sigismund the spelling most common in English is used, applying the names & titles guideline: First name: "Zygmunt" (Polish) or "Sigismund" (Swedish, but also most common in English, compare Sigismund of Burgundy, in French this name would be "Sigismond")? → Sigismund "Waza" or "Wasa" or "Vasa" (as in: House of Vasa) or "of Poland"? → only of Poland is free of Polish/Swedish ethnic tension, and is not all that unusual in English. Note that the ordinal "III" also only applies to of Poland (in Swedish there is usually no ordinal)
...	...	...	...
1669-1673	Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki	Michael Korybut Wisniowiecki	per most used in English
1674-1696	Jan III Sobieski	Jan III Sobieski	per most used in English
...	...	...	...
Presidents
...	...	...	...
2005-...	Lech Kaczyński	Lech Kaczynski	English spelling of name according to the English pages on The official website of the City of Warsaw (PS, the same website spells Lech Kaczyński on its pages in Polish [8])
...	...	...	...

Deleting contributions in a Talk page

Hello there. Just realized that some deleted a part of a debate (about wether the infamous Mummad drawings should be in the top of the article about its controversy). I assumed there would be a clear Wiki policy about that - but I couldnt find anything. Has this subject not been discussed before, and is their no policy about it? Bertilvidet 13:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

That's a very long talk page; it's been archived (and probably should be so again). Look in the archives or in the history. John Reid 06:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes the talk page is long. But one thing is archiving entire sections, another thing is removing one part that you don't like. The argument was that it was an off topic debate, since it had been discussed before. In my regard, removing selected parts of a debate comes close to vandalism. No policy about that?? Bertilvidet 09:06, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Policy regarding family trees

Is there an existing policy and/or consensus on the creation of family trees as their own independent articles within WP? Pepsidrinka 21:59, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Intuitively, it seems to me like such articles would not be encyclopedic. Instead, look for relevant topics to include them in. Deco 23:41, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

No, there's no policy, and it's not uncommon. Examples include Bourbon family tree, Caecilius Metellus family tree, Scipio-Paullus-Gracchus family tree. That last one is a great example of why you'll often find there isn't a sensible article into which you'd put a family tree, but the tree is nevertheless entirely encyclopedic. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I stand corrected. Deco 23:54, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject link spam?

In the last couple of weeks there have been a flurry of changes to article stub templates to remove links to wikiprojects on the dubious basis that the links are link spam. This is being lead by User:Jerzy (sysop), User:Freakofnurture (admin), and User:Carnildo (de-sysop) with justification based on their own comments at Wikipedia talk:Stub. Attempts to restore the templates is turning into revert wars. Garglebutt / (talk) 05:41, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Changes are currently focussed around this list: User:Jerzy/WikiProj-soliciting_stub_templates. Garglebutt / (talk) 05:50, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with what they are doing- otherwise some new person who comes along will mess the article up and not see how they are supposed to improve the article. It helps Wikipedia hy having these links! I've approached one of the users and then they just reverted it back. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 06:00, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem with these links, particularly ones like "see WikiProject Whatever for article coordination" or "help WikiProject Whatever by expanding", is that they are an implicit claim of article ownership, and promote the WikiProject as being more important than Wikipedia as a whole. --Carnildo 07:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be suggesting that you would rather not have wikiprojects and that you would prefer wikipedia to grow without any internal consistency within subject areas. This is a hard position for me to understand. I can't see how advertising a group of editors who have put the effort in to design a useful set of (optional) guidelines for articles can be a bad thing. Wikiprojects also act as a useful resource to find editors with similar interests, who often colloborate to produce high quality articles. Maybe you are suggesting the wording should be changed to something like "If you are interested in subject X you might like to join WikiProject X", to avoid any implied claim of ownership? --Martyman-(talk) 22:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

How about putting some useful information on the WikiProject page, and then linking to that information in a way that does not assert article ownership? "WikiProject Military History has a number of sources that may be useful for expanding this article." or "WikiProject Military History has some guidelines on article structure". See how much more useful those are than "Help WikiProject Military History by expanding this article"? --Carnildo 23:43, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with the wording being changed to "WikiProject Military History has a number of sources that may be useful for expanding this article." if you had been making that change instead of deleting the section I never would have complained. But I also don't see the link to the wikiproject purely as a resource for guidelines and style help, the more people we can get involved in the wikiproject itself the better. Editors who are involved in the projects are much more likely to put in useful input to improve the guidelines. --Martyman-(talk) 23:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

You are trying to set policy without consensus. Implicit ownership by a project is an accusation you are making that many of us disagree with. If the compromise to stop you fucking up templates is to change the wording until it suits you then so be it. Garglebutt / (talk) 23:59, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't be happy with the change in wording because it's too long (they're stub messages, they should be one sentence, tops). I also completely fail to see why the hell you need to try and generate and help wars. One would think the wheel war fiasco I've just found out about would have cured you of that.

I also don't see how they "convey article ownership," unless you want all Wikiprojects gone. - SoM 02:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

"Please see WikiProject Whatever for article coordination" conveys the impression that any editing of the article needs some sort of approval from the WikiProject, while "please help WikiProject Whatever by expanding" elevates the needs of the WikiProject over those of Wikipedia as a whole. Neither wording provides any useful information to the casual editor who has no idea of the inner workings of Wikipedia. --Carnildo 04:53, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The stub templates themselves do not give any useful information to the "casual editor who has no idea of the inner workings of Wikipedia" either. There is chance by helping them find a group of like minded editors, these "casual editors" may become more involved members of the wikipedia community. --Martyman-(talk) 05:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I will point out, on a side note, that the Military history WikiProject has removed links to itself from stub templates ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 03:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The whole point of a WikiProject is for consistency- to make all the articles to conform to a similar structure. By removing the notice from the stub you're undermining this. Do you want California 1, CA-2, CA 3, California Route 4, California Highway 5, California State Route 6, California State Highway 7, CA Highway 8, etc.? Change the wording if you must, but I think that there are more critical things to resist on Wikipedia than so-called "ownership" of articles by WikiProjects. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

• If there is no consensus or demonstrable policy on this issue I would ask those removing the notices to develop such a consensus or policy first. The allegation that links to wikiprojects is a claim of ownership is highly spurious: what is a wikiproject but part of wikipedia. Steve block talk 21:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Overzealous userfying

Every so often I notice someone userfying an autobiographical page just to get it out of the article space without going through deletion procedures. Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines recommends doing this under some circumstances and I did it myself sometimes before db-bio existed. However, with the procedures we have now, people should avoid doing this routinely. If someone registers and, as their first edit, creates a vanity article that gets userfied, and never edits again, the article is junk that should have been deleted. In such cases I recommend tagging the article for deletion and leaving the new user a {{nothanks-vanity}} message to encourage further contributions. If an article by a new user appears to mistake Wikipedia for a free web host, it should be proposed for deletion in that case also pursuant to WP:NOT.

This comment was motivated by the article now at User:Worldcantwait, which is not about the user at all, but about an activist organization the user claims to be involved in. Gazpacho 06:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

You could list it on WP:MFD. User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:57, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. At the time of the userfying, we don't yet know whether the user will contribute more in the future. And, although we realise that their content is inappropriate, having your only contribution deleted is very discouraging to someone who hasn't yet bought into Wikipedia. Let's assume good faith and only delete the user page later if they haven't continued to contribute. Deco 00:16, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

External links to Forums and Discussion Groups

I'm looking on some guidance on whether external links to forums and discussion groups should be allowed. Their supporters claim that they provide access to a range of opinions on POV issues. But they are usually so wide-ranging, and it's almost impossible to identity groups and their views without a read through thousands of posts.RJB 22:38, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Generally, I don't link discussion groups, because the information on them is generally both non-notable (by anonymous, insignificant entities) and unverifiable, which together make them unauthoritative. There are occasional exceptions - for example, there are well-known FAQs and even Usenet mailings that are the only good source for a major legitimate topic, such as Cindy's Torment. Deco 00:18, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Would be interested for a second opinion on the value of the three forums in the external links of the Christadelphians article. RJB 23:00, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Help: Meaning of NPOV policy: Proportion of representation among experts OR among concerned parties

I posted this in the HelpDesk but it might properly belong to this place. Please also see the reply of Eequor below. Thanks for any help, confirmation of my interpretation or Eequor's, or my response to EEquor's, but I would prefer an "official interpretation." Where can I get this? I suppose this is the place? Lafem 05:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The NPOV policy states: "we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties."

Since the conjunction used here is or implying that the second part is but an alternative, should we take this to mean that if there are experts on the subject with different points of view, there is no need to look into how the topic itself affects concerned parties nor much less how the ordinary people opine about the subject.

I base my interpretation in that the decision on what is majority and minority viewpoints is based on reference texts (experts I presume) and prominent adherents. See NPOV policy: "From Jimbo Wales, September 2003, on the mailing list: If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;* If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents." Also the policy of No Original Research seems to back this up.

To summarize: the "or" means that if there are experts, commonly referenced texts and prominent adherents, we should not look into the opinions of ordinary people or how people in general feel about the subject? Thanks. Lafem 12:33, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

The comma in that statement is a hypercorrection. I think this is a poorly-written way of saying "we should present competing views in proportion to their representation among concerned parties and experts on the subject" — that is, we should present all views to an appropriate degree, which is what the rest of the policy says. ‣ᓛᖁᑐ 15:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you Eequor. That's a very scholarly response. It seems very bad writing indeed if that is the intent and policy-makers could have just chosen another conjunction such as and. That is why I am bringing this up for others to see. Thanks again. Lafem 05:33, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

How about seeing this policy from the No Original Research Point of View:

Wikipedia is not the place for original research. Citing sources and avoiding original research are inextricably linked: the only way to show that you are not doing original research is to cite sources who discuss material that is directly related to the article, and to stick closely to what those sources say.

The original motivation for the no original research policy was to combat a real issue: people with personal theories that very few people take seriously, such as cranks and trolls, would attempt to use Wikipedia to draw attention to these theories and to themselves.

1. It is an obligation of Wikipedia to its readers that the information they read here be reliable and reputable, and so we rely only on credible or reputable published sources. See "What counts as a reputable publication?" and "Reliable sources" for discussions on how to judge whether a source is reliable.
2. Credible sources provide readers with resources they may consult to pursue their own research. After all, there are people who turn to encyclopedias as a first step in research, not as a last step.
3. Relying on citable sources helps clarify what points of view are represented in an article, and thus helps us comply with our NPOV policy.

• Is it possible that here lies another connection between the two policies? Lafem 03:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

In general I believe that you're interpretation is correct: the topic was in reference to minority points of view, and if the experts are fairly unanimous about something, and the references are fairly unanimous, you can express their views to a greater degree than the opposing view point. Thus, for instance, our article on the Common cold does not say that being cold gives you the cold, even though that is view held by a significant proportion of non-scientists. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 15:01, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

anyone who wants to see a complete failure of NPOV policy should look at Nakba Zeq 08:52, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Pantone controversy

Recently on the Commons, we had a debate about what colours to use in SVG flag images, and we noted that some of the official government definitions of national flags included references to Pantone colours. So we used approximations of those Pantone colours, but we got them from many different sources, causing conflicts. Consequently, I decided to post a house reference chart of Pantone colours onto the Commons to help us reach a consensus, but then legal issues came up, i.e. the fact that Pantone does not allow free use of its colour name/value list.

Since Pantone has an iron fist on its intellectual property, and references to Pantone colours cause conflicts, we are left with few options.  Denelson83  04:53, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The simplest solution is to point everybody to the official list (if it's not online, where to buy it), and quote entries from it as needed. This is well within fair use and not likely to stir Pantone's ire. Deco 20:46, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Using and changing pictures in Wikipedia

Am I right in thinking I'm allowed to copy a properly licensed picture to Commons? The one I have in mind is http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afbeelding:Witvleugduif.jpg, which I'd like to use at White-winged Dove. I'd copy the Dutch description and license (GFDL).

Am I right in thinking I'm allowed to edit a properly licensed picture and save it under another name? I'd like to crop and enlarge http://en.wikipedia.org/wikiImage:Laughing_Falcon.jpg so it will fit better at Laughing Falcon. I hate to do that without the author's permission, but his or her user page and talk page are redlinked.

Are the answers to these questions available somewhere? Are they considered obvious?

—JerryFriedman 18:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

You can always edit an image that allows editing as long as you follow the license terms, which usually include things like crediting the author and releasing the derived work under the same license. There's no need to inform the author, although it's a nice thing to do. Note that Commons has a stricter license policy forbidding fair-use, non-commercial, and no-derivative-works licenses, so they do not accept all images from the Wikipedias (see Commons:Licensing). Other than this caveat, just copying images around and uploading them under different names or projects should be okay with any of our images, but remember to link to your source. Deco 20:50, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The first one is GFDL so you can certainly modify it and upload it to commons. The second one is {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} (and is also missing a source :-( ) — I'm not sure, does that permit modification or only copying? Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I am under the understanding that {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} is as close as you can come to legally releasing an image in to the public doamin (in countries that don't allow you to release to public domain like the US). I would appreciate it if anyone could tell me if this actually is the case or not. Secondly if the image does not have source information then it should be tagged for deletion as there is no way to verify it's copyright claims. --Martyman-(talk) 22:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, CopyrightedFreeUse is misnamed. It's very liberal, more than any other license but PD. I've suggested it be called FreeUse instead, but whatever. Deco 23:00, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, all, that helps a lot. —JerryFriedman 17:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

So excuse my ignorance, but what's the difference between {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} and {{NoRightsReserved}}? Stephen Turner (Talk) 17:45, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely nothing. Currently {{NoRightsReserved}} (which I'd never heard of before) has a better name and is worded more explicitly, but they have the same legal impact. Deco 23:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Marina District, San Francisco, California and WP:3RR

In reverting a clearly POV, unencylopedia essay on stereotypes associated with this neighborhood [9], I find myself flirting with the 3RR threshold on this article. My question is this; I know that 3RR does not apply to vandalism reverts. Does it still apply to reverts of obvious violations of POV, etc? There have already been several different anon IPs that have reverted the decidedly unencyclopedia/attack section of the aformentioned article, and I predict that it will soon be reverted again. So what can I do the next time this needs to be reverted? Would I need to file an RfC to avoid the 3RR rule? OhNoitsJamie^Talk 22:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

There's no exception for "obvious violations of POV, etc." because that is a loophole through which one could drive a truck cargo plane. A big cargo plane. If you find yourself in this sort of situation it's best to call for reinforcements (the admin noticeboard is a popular place to do this). If the material is really that bad, as the stuff you've been reverting is, then help—additional people to revert, an administrator to protect, or (hah!) a cool-headed editor who can discuss things calmly and/or edit the material into respectable shape—will usually be forthcoming. —Charles P._(Mirv) 00:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Great suggestions (and points)....I wasn't sure if this sort of thing was appropriate for the admin noticeboard, but now I know. Regarding the last point about editing the material into respectable shape...I'm not sure if there is anything salvageable from the essay (while it's reasonably well-written and probably entertaining to some folks who live in that area, it's not much more than a scathing critique). OhNoitsJamie^Talk 01:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there is anything salvageable from the essay—neither am I, hence the "hah!". :) Covering stereotypes in proper encyclopedic fashion is difficult, especially in the case of highly-localized stereotypes like this one. (Reliable sources for widespread and pervasive stereotypes, OTOH, are a bit easier to find [10].) —Charles P._(Mirv) 01:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Reverting anonymous users with changing IP addresses

I believe I read somewhere that it is acceptable to revert an edit mmore than 3 times if the user is evading a block. Is that true? We have a problem with a persistant vandal/troll at Gorilla who's IP address changes every few minutes, so even though his previous IP address was blocked for 24 hours he can continue to cause trouble. --Martyman-(talk) 23:56, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

In this case, there may well be more than one (anonymous) individuals reverting the article. It's likely that someone recently posted a message on a blog or webforum saying, "those jerks are trying to remove that funny Marina Girl section from Wikipedia!" The "Marina Girl" section certainly has it's fans, but those fans don't seem to care that it's entirely unencyclopedic. OhNoitsJamie^Talk 00:09, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, according to Wikipedia:Three-revert rule this does not apply to reverting simple vandalism or "banned users" (no mention of blocked users). I am still not sure if it is valid in this case where many of the edits the user is making are personal attacks (leading to them being blocked) but the ones on the aritcle page are not overtly outright vandalism. Any suggestions. --Martyman-(talk) 00:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe just ask to sprotect the article for a while? abakharev 01:17, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Blocking

Hello,

I think that this "blocking" of members who just want to add something to the Wikipedia by blocking their AOL URL is silly

There has to be a better way to pursue this.

Here's the whole text that I had written today to honor St. Valentine's Day:

"Silly Love Songs" is a song written and sung by the British musical genius Paul McCartney, formerly a member of the Beatles.

McCartney had been teased by fellow Beatle and songwriter John Lennon for always writing his "silly love songs". And so, McCartney paid him back by writing and performing the song "Silly Love Songs" which contains the lyric "silly love songs". "Silly Love Songs" became a hugely popular hit worldwide.

That is all. It was foolish to block this, especially since I had just finished with editing typographical/grammar/factual errors in some other articles. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dale101usa (talk • contribs) .

You were probably blocked because someone else using your IP was vandalizing pages, not because of your contributions to the legitimate article Silly Love Songs. Deco 01:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:CS, WP:RS, WP:NOT, and Pillars I-III

Can someone explain to me why an article which fails no fewer than five content policies, and smashes through three of the Five Pillars has only one person advocating its deletion? Currently, it has only attracted the attentions of a half-dozen editors who evidently don't know original research when it is biting at what they perceive to be their elbows. A quick glance at the offending article shows that each entry is clearly new data measured by the users involved. (I've looked, and hard. Trust me when I say that this data just is not available anywhere else). 10:39, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Far too many editors voting in AfD don't give a fig about policy. Unfortunately, I don't know what can be done about that without seriously restricting the franchise, or going to some sort of 'expert' review of grounds for deletion, both of which seem antithetical to the openess of Wikipedia. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 12:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I concur that the stupid article about the "Longest streets in London" should be deleted. It's original research and not easily verifiable (tracing lines on a map by hand is not verifiability because it's too subjective). Let's all vote to get that piece of junk out of Wikipedia! --Coolcaesar 20:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Other wikis as reliable sources

What are people's opinions of the use of other wikis as reliable sources? I realise this is an argument that potentially cuts to the core of the viability of us as a reliable source, but should we cite other wikis as sources or should we verify and then cite the sources they have used? Steve block talk 10:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Compare Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles#Citations of specific sources which lists this template: {{Wipipedia}}. Content of that template (with "Main_Page" as parameter):

(Click the link, it's a Wiki, "MediaWiki"-powered, Wipipedia being "the free-content Fetish and BDSM encyclopedia that anyone can edit")

I'm not taking a stance on this (that is: not yet), just notifying about some apparently established practice. --Francis Schonken 11:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

As other wikis (and even other language versions of Wikipedia) have different rules about verifiability, we cannot say they are reliable sources. So, either check or find reliable sources for the article, or (and this may not be workable) have a process for certifying another wiki as having verifiability requirements at least as stringent as ours. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 12:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know whether you guys ever hear yourself talking: "As other [sources] have different rules about verifiability, we cannot say they are reliable sources." Example: Nature (journal) has different rules about "verifiability" than en:wikipedia (for starters, it allows publication of Original Research, after which Wikipedia can make a reference to that publication).

So, cut out the nonsense, wikipedia can not "judge" on verifiability standards of others (that would be Original Research, not allowed in Wikipedia).

"other language versions of Wikipedia (& sister projects under the "wikimedia foundation"!)" are not rejected as "unreliable", but can not be used as references in a WP:V logic, because they're not independent sources, they fail Wikipedia:avoid self-references. The "Wipipedia" example given above is not a self-reference in that sense, so the question remains: can Wipipedia be used as a source, in the sense of Wikipedia:Reliable sources? --Francis Schonken 13:42, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, we judge sources all the time and we have too. You can't say stormfront is a reliable source for citing a fact, and if someone has something published in Nature that contradicts it, then Nature trumps it no questions asked. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources. - Taxman ^Talk 21:30, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Other wikis should be treated the same way that other websites are treated for determining credibility. This means that Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Using online sources should be your guide. As many wikis are rather open about who may contribute, most wikis should be treated as a bulletin board or other open forum. It is only in cases where a wiki excercises solid editorial control over content that it has the potential to become a reliable source. --Allen3 ^talk 13:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• See another problem I'm thinking of is, if we reference other wikis that have referenced us, it becomes rather circular, and creates problems if they reference bad material from us which we delete as unsourced, and then it gets re-incorporated as it is now sourced. I mean, for a few examples we've got the aforementioned Wipipedia, as well as a few I've run across; Memory Alpha, Marvel Database Project and Comixpedia. There's quite a few more comics databases and the like, and also all the wikicities sites.

• As to Allen3's point regarding "It is only in cases where a wiki excercises solid editorial control over content that it has the potential to become a reliable source." I whole heartedly agree. But then I find myself posing the question: What does that say about Wikipedia? Steve block talk 14:58, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• I'd go so far as to say we shouldn't reference Wikipedia either (meaning by extension Wipipedia is not realiable) because we don't have a formal editorial control system. For similar reasons many professors won't allow citing any encyclopedias. There are better sources. Of course we can and are moving towards better validation methods, but we're not there yet. That's ok, there's nothing wrong with being an in process project, but lets not kid ourselves that we are fully reliable already. Any minute someone can swap out an article with some garbage, and if it's not seen right away, using it as a reliable reference would be a disaster. Same goes for Wipipedia. - Taxman ^Talk 16:41, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• So there seems so far to be consensus developing that we are better sourcing our work in other wiki's sources rather than the wiki's themselves, as they are unreliable sources, yes? Steve block talk 18:25, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• No, on the contrary, where did you read that? Oh yeah, I see, you just wrote it yourself two paragraphs above. That's what you should call "circular" referencing. That's no particular flaw of wiki systems (in Wikipedia it's just forbidden) - Press agencies, researchers, and the like are as sensitive to that flaw.
• Taxman's remark is not really to the point either: "we shouldn't reference Wikipedia" is unrelated to "we don't have an editorial control system". Why does Taxman put a "because" between these two half sentences? And besides, we have an editorial control system, and, besides, most encyclopedias have, and, besides, that's unrelated to why many professors won't allow citing encyclopedias - why did Taxman link all that unrelated stuff together with "for similar reasons"? And, besides, how reliable we (= wikipedia? or did Taxman only mean him/herself?) are has nothing to do with don't self-reference. And that has nothing to do with wipipedia (seen from angle of referencing in wikipedia), so why is there a "same goes" linking two unrelated sentences? --Francis Schonken 19:23, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• You've completely failed to parse what I wrote and then you're saying I missed a point I wasn't trying to make. Read what I wrote, don't compare it to what you think I was referring to. Ok, I'll make this simpler. Wide open Wiki's are not reliable sources by any stretch of the imagination because they can be at any time changed, and the reader, without knowing intimately how to go into the history and discern if recent changes have improved the article, cannot trust the content. Wikis like ours are works in process and like I said, that's fine as long as we don't kid ourselves. Wikipedia will not be reliable as a source of it's own until we have stable versions at the least, and for some purposes until we have a system where articles are formally peer reviewed by experts. Of course if what you need the information for is not terribly important, the current wiki will do, but if we are discerning what counts as a reliable reference for us to cite, the above applies. - Taxman ^Talk 21:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Francis, that's something of a misrepresentation in accusing me of referencing my own opinion. If you care to read the thread again perhaps you can point out any one person who has made a case for using wiki's as reliable sources point blank. The general feelings tend to be to take it on a case by case basis, note the fluidity of the information and verify the information being sourced. Given those opinions I don't think my summation was as off the mark as you make out. It'd be nice for my opinions to be considered case by case and be granted the benefit of the doubt rather than accused of intellectual dishonesty off the bat. The point I am making is that wiki's aren't of equal worth compared to press agencies, which employ teams of fact checkers, nor are they of equal worth to published researchers, whose works are published in peer reviewed magazines or through editors at commercial companies. Wikis are open to anyone to edit; the question I'm asking is do we apply the same set of criteria when determining what to reference from them as we do in determining what to include here? Otherwise, what stops joe bloggs setting up a wiki for all that original research and then referencing it here? That could well become the case, if it isn't happening already. The point regarding verification is this; I have to check another wikis sources to ensure the information is reliable, therefore I am better off utilising their sources rather than the wiki in question, yes? Steve block talk 21:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Interesting discussion, thanks for the pointer, Steve. People who know me here know that one of my areas of interest is in websites as references (c.f. pghbridges.com and the AfD it went through) and how that affects their notability. I guess my read on the consensus forming here is "it depends" (although passthrough sourcing seems a very good idea when it's unclear). Whether a site is a wiki or not seems less relevant than how they go about validating their information. If the site gives solid references to primary sources which always check out when you spot check them, that's a good sign. If the site is cited by others as a reference (not the way that sociologists cite blogs as evidence of trends, mind you, but more of the way a librarian points to a magazine or book as a good place to do research) that's a good sign too. If the process of how articles is created is open to inspection and verification, that's a good sign too (and that's something that for the most part, only wikis have) If the author or authors can be tied to real life people who have validatable expertise, that is also a very good thing. Wikipedia, today, is spotty in these regards, I feel. Many many (but not all) articles are very solid, very well researched and full of verifiable cites, and therefore perfectly citable in their own right (via a diff, of course, so that some vandal replacement isn't what is seen) Others, not so much. It seems the Stable Version project, if it succeeds, will end up with a work that is highly citable. (as a secondary source, of course) PS, the grammar dwonk in me changed the title from "Other wiki's as reliable sources" to "Other wikis as reliable sources" because I just couldn't stand it! It was either that or change it to "Other wiki's articles as reliable sources" LOL++Lar: t/c 18:53, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I realize that this is a somewhat unique case since it's an article about the Wiki using information from the Wiki, but the note in Memory Alpha's references section is along the lines of what we should do if we cite wikis at all. That, and/or put a "date accessed" (with link to the page version, similar to MA's reference for Mr. Doddema's "interview") when we cite them. Anyway, as much as I am a proponent of wikis, the truth is that the average user considers something less reliable and professional if it cites a wiki (including Wikipedia) due to their dynamic nature. So I agree entirely with Steve's observation. Jibbajabba 19:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Do other countries besides the U.S. have research databases at public libraries?

I was thinking about ways to improve Wikipedia:How to write a great article and I realized that I don't know that much about availability of free access to private research databases at public libraries in other countries. Do libraries in other countries have widespread access to such databases, just as Americans have widespread access to ProQuest, EBSCO, Thomson Gale's Infotrac, etc.? If so, perhaps a couple such databases could be noted in the article so that it will reflect a worldwide view. --Coolcaesar 20:35, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

The answer is yes and no. I can only speak for the Czech republic and I can say we have got something but generaly much less than that is avaliable in US libraries. For example library in Praha have EBSCO (some databases) but does not have ProQuest. But there is also something in the national library and something in university libraries (but databases in university libraries are not avaliable to general public). So I think that including information about these kind of resources might be generaly helpful. Even relatively poor countries as Czech republic have something. --Jan Smolik 21:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Addition: municipal library in Praha has Proquest. --Jan Smolik 21:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

My experience in Japan, Australia, Britain and Canada is that university libraries do have these databases, which are availble to tens of millions of students. Also puiblic libraries in very large cities. In the US most high school, public and college libraries have some of the services--but many users are unaware of their value. I think Wiki should promote maximum use of online sources, and I propose that we recommend links whenever possible. This includes links to subscription services (EBSCO, Questia, Proquest, Project Muse, JSTOR) as well as free services like Making of America. We can link to books and articles that users would not easily discover otherwise--which is what encyclopedias are good for. I would recommend allowing links to Amazon.com only when they offer something useful like the table of contents or an excerpt. Rjensen 21:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Detrimental userspace content (proposal)

It seems clear, though few want to describe it this way, that there is a strong sentiment (from Jimbo and others) that there are certain types of content that, when in userspace, has a negative effect on WP, because they lead to divisiveness, disputes, infighting, balkanization, outrage, etc., etc., etc.

People are walking around this core issue, trying to impose administrative structures on content spaces, creating new speedying criteria, etc. All of these are side-steps, workarounds, stop-gaps, or ostrich solutions.

Let's own up to it -- we can probably consensually agree on a number of things that any experienced WP contributor and/or sensible person would realize are detrimental to WP. Instead of allowing everyone (i.e. every admin) define these on their own, leading to a slew of inconsistent treatments, we should define these consensually, as a community.

To that end, I propose Wikipedia:Unacceptable userspace material (WP:UUSM).

- Keith D. Tyler ¶ 21:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

This seems redundant to the following long-standing policies

• WP:NOT: Wikipedia is not a soapbox
• WP:NOT: Wikipedia is not a free host, blog or webspace provider
• WP:USER: [What can I not have on my user page] Opinion or other pieces not related to Wikipedia
• WP:USER: [What can I not have on my user page] Things that fall into "entertainment" rather than "writing an encyclopedia," particularly if they involve people who are not active participants in the project

Physchim62 (talk) 22:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, you'd think, but some people still want to allow any kind of garbage whatsoever on user pages under the idea that they are sacrosanct. If you even hint that userboxes should be deleted, immediate cries of censorship and the immediate end of the world coming if any get deleted. Same for other garbage comments on them. Sounds like other languages have solved this pretty easily. The problem here is that consensus has been subverted by a very vocal minority achieving a very suboptimal result so far. - Taxman ^Talk 03:27, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

What Jimbo said about userboxes in the Signpost interview

Today I took the opportunity of an interview on IRC, organised by The Signpost, to ask Jimbo about userboxes:

Feb 15 16:53:49 Ral315 Tony_Sidaway asks: "In the past six weeks the number of userboxes on English Wikipedia has risen from 3500 to 6000 and, despite your appeals for restraint, the number pertaining to political beliefs has risen from 45 to 150. Can the problem of unsuitable userboxes still be resolved by debate?"

Feb 15 17:11:57 jwales eh

Feb 15 17:11:59 jwales userboxes

Feb 15 17:12:00 jwales eh

Feb 15 17:12:40 jwales I'm looking at the political beliefs one now.

Feb 15 17:13:50 jwales My only comment on the userbox situation is that the current situation is not acceptable.

I think that puts it pretty plainly. It's not just that he doesn't personally like userboxes, but speaking as the leader of the project he finds the current situation unacceptable. Something must change, one way or the other. --Tony Sidaway 21:42, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

That was quite a biased question. :-) I know that Jimbo has had personal involvement in the Userbox Wars and evidently has a certain point of view about them, but I don't think we should take any action based solely on his contention that "something has to change". Let's just wait and see what he comes up with. I may be pro-user-box but I personally wouldn't mind them being banned altogether if it would put the war to an end. Deco 23:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

They haven't come close to an agreement at Wikipedia:Proposed policy on userboxes. If I were them, I would try to come up with a compromise, as the people in power are getting increasingly upset about this and may decide to delete most or all userboxes. This would probably cause many editors to leave the project. Unfortunately, many people seem to be very idealistic about userbox policy, as if it defines the project (if opinions via userboxes are restricted, Wikipedia is doomed kind of thing), and are unwilling to make even the slightest sacrifice in their position. People should realize that keeping them all is probably not an option, given the amount of opposition they have, and a compromise is likely to get them more of what they want than a drastic action by Jimbo, the Foundation, ArbCom or anyone else. I'd suggest getting rid of the "politics and beliefs" boxes first, and then trimming them down further categorically or on a case by case basis. That still leaves a wide variety of userboxes, but takes care of most of the divisive ones. -- Kjkolb 23:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

To be honest I think this one is going to have to be settled by the board. I appreciate Jimbo's comments above, but taken at face value they offer little. He expresses a view that the current situation is unacceptable. This leads to further questions:

• What does he mean by the current situation?
• What does he mean by unacceptable?
• In what capacity does he speak, editor Jimbo or board member/God King Jimbo?
• Does he have a proposed solution?

We can all agree the current situation is unacceptable. The problem is, we all have differing opinions on even defining the current situation. Stronger leadership on this issue a while ago may have prevented a recent incident, and would probably mean the issue would be settled by now. To my eye it seems clear that userboxes which do not facilitate the building of the encyclopedia are against policy. My best solution is to just delete every single userbox; the information on them can be expressed in other ways. Steve block talk 23:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

There is disagreement on how to fix the situation, but not everyone agrees that the current situation is unacceptable, which is a big part of the conflict. Some have suggested that there be no changes, or that there should be increased freedom in userbox policy, either because they think editors have a right to free speech on their userspace, that userboxes help by identifying bias or that those who are against the userboxes should realize that it is not important and just let it go. Or by the current situation did you mean the warring over the userboxes, not necessarily the boxes themselves? My preferred solution would be something like Wyss's, but I'm willing to compromise and let people have their silly/unhelpful userboxes, as long as they don't harm the encyclopedia. -- Kjkolb 00:40, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

By the current situation I meant the current situation. You have confirmed my point as to the ambiguity of the usage of the phrase, since everyone has their own take on what the current situation is. It is clear the userboxes are contentious, but their existence is having greater impact than seems necessary to a project whose ultimate goal is the creation of the encyclopedia. Their existence, debates on their existence, off the cuff comments on their existence, deletions of them, and even their non-existence have all led to incidents of contentious merit. In all honestly I will now vote for, support or agree with any proposal that has a hint of suceeding just to move the wikipedia and community past this fixation. But I stand by my belief that this now needs an edict from above; it's too contentious for the community to ever get a grip on. How do we determine what is out of order in user space, POV in this instance is unavoidable, finding offence in a userbox is a subjective matter. The solution that seems most balanced is to just ban anything that expresses an opinion. I now await the first wag who points out such a policy would make talk pages a lot quieter. Steve block talk 19:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia project. I tend to think userboxes provoke PoV of the most unhelpful sort. I also think that a user's userboxes can be misinterpreted by other editors, who might make snap judgements about a user's supposed PoV based on her userboxes and edit accordingly. IMHO most userboxes will ultimately be divisive and pull the project away from scholarly principles. That said, I like them when they pertain to practical stuff having directly to do with the wiki interface... OS userboxes, browser, admin, bureaucrat, arbcomm, mediation, country and language userboxes I think may be either neutral or helpful. Wyss 23:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

French Wikipedia bans political userboxes and (according to their admins) "doesn't have too much trouble". A quick check on their version of VfD shows that they do not have any userboxes currently up for deletion. German Wikipedia bans all userboxes in Template space apart from language and regional templates. Either of these offers a model for a solution here.

Political and religious userboxes have been non gratae since 2006-01-21 [11] and yet a small number of users keep creating new ones. Blocks as per WP:POINT might be in order here, but doubtless some one will accuse me of "fanning the flames" just for mentioing that! Physchim62 (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

As with many things on Wikipedia, it has changed from being a way to build a sense of community by grouping people based on their interests to intentional provocation. The only obvious solution is to put the same constraints on their content as we would with any article on WP. Ideally a userbox should only be a reference to an existing group on wikipedia such as project affiliation. I'd add a "userbox free zone" userbox to my user page but... Garglebutt / (talk) 02:16, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

The following discussion was posted in response to a copy of this post at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion:

I think that puts it pretty plainly. It's not just that he doesn't personally like userboxes, but speaking as the leader of the project he finds the current situation unacceptable. Something must change, one way or the other. --Tony Sidaway 21:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

It appears to me to be not only grotesquely unfair but personally abusive to take a short statement that begins with "My only comment..." and use it as a prop in this manner. While the above is couched as a simple statement of fact, when parroted in this way it implies de facto approval of the actions and positions avowed by the recyler of these comments. "See Jimbo really does agree with me! Look, here's something he said that might support that!"

Rather than kowtowing, it might be better to simply proceed in a thoughtful and consensual manner, with less drama, less unilateralism, and more respect. What exactly are we to draw from the above statement, other than the aforementioned implicit approval? How does it help us to move forward? Pardon the rhetorical question, because clearly it add nothing to the debate. It's simply a bit of grandstanding that we could have done without. Everyone thinks the current situation is not acceptable.

brenneman^{T}{L} 03:29, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

"Personally abusive"?? How so? --MarkSweep (call me collect) 03:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Because it exploits the fact that the person has made a careful and qualified statement and that they have explicitly said they would say no more. If Tony Blair is asked about the ethics of publishing inflammatory cartoon and he responds "All I want to say it the current situation is unacceptable." Hamas reprints this under the headline "Blair says situation unacceptable" that's at best unkind. I'll ask again: What was the point of reporting this almost content-free Q & A?
brenneman^{T}{L} 03:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

"Everyone thinks the current situation is not acceptable"? I don't think that's true. I think some people think it's just great that they get to keep making political userboxes and feeling like they're involved in a "great userbox war of '06". That's precisely the problem, isn't it? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, they're having great fun striking a blow for "personal freedom", but they are hurting Wikipedia in the process. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 11:20, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Problem is divisiveness. Solution is expansion.

The problem is not userboxes. The problem is divisiveness. The solution is not JUST to delete a userbox, but to EXPAND the divisive content into a creative expression of one's self:

"Divisive content in user space, whether in the form of divisive user boxes or any other kind of bumper-sticker type labeling is discouraged as harmful to Wikipedia. Creative, explanatory, or otherwise useful information is encouraged as these efforts can help build a community that in turn builds an encyclopedia. If it is generally perceived that a label, userbox, or bumper sticker type self-expression on your user page is divisive, then expand it with creativity, explanations, and other positive inclusive elements or remove it because that's what is good for building the community that is building this encyclopedia. Facile labels, polarizing "bumper stickers", polemical user boxes, factionalism, and division are bad for Wikipedia. Creative informative explanatory self-expression is good for Wikipedia. Individuality of expression always looks more meaningful than branding." Source = Wikipedia:Divisiveness WAS 4.250 18:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

What Jimbo said about userboxes on wikien-l

And here's what Jimbo Wales said on the official English Wikipedia mailing list. I don't know why, but a lot of otherwise clued up Wikipedians don't subscribe to that, which is a shame because they often end up wondering what's happening when a big change comes along.

(Excerpted)

I heard today that the number of userboxes, and in particular the number of very problematic userboxes, has exploded. I think this is seriously Not Good For Our Loving Little Community.

I am not doing anything about it just yet, but I am willing to concede that my nonviolent social request that people knock it off and think about what it means to be a Wikipedian has not gotten very far.

As far as I can determine, and I am very much aware that I am here prejudicing the terms of debate, this is a cultural battle between wikipedians and people who have stumbled into this cool site they heard about on CNN where you can write whatever the hell you want and argue with people for fun.

Full version at http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-February/039853.html

--Tony Sidaway 06:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

wikien-l is a reasonably high-traffic list, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Wikipedians just don't have the time or inclination to sift through it. Personally I don't read a great deal of it, though I typically do read Jimbo's posts. — Matt Crypto 13:01, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo's nonviolent social request that people knock it off was given about one week at most before his hand was forced, mainly by Tony himself. I myself was working up a series of templates to be used, by following the what-links-here, to bombard the talk pages of users of questionable userboxes and engage and educate them, hopefully leading the voluntary removal by most, thus reinforcing community and consenus and leaving the truly recalitrant isolated, after when a forced cleanup would be much easier, in line with Jimbo's earlier request. But in the current atmosphere that's no longer possible. Thanks a bunch, Tony. Herostratus 13:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not clear on how Tony has forced Jimbo's hand, as Jimbo has not actually done anything yet other than comment on the situation. The initial reaction to Jimbo's request showed pretty well the recalcitance of some userbox supporters, just as some opponents of polemical userboxes have pressed the issue. For a workable solution, take a look at User:Pathoschild/Projects/Userboxes and User:Pathoschild/Projects/Userboxes/Policy to see what one user has quietly been doing. (links gleaned from a post on wiki-en). -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 14:23, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

(I'm on a lot of lists, and I tried wikien-I for a few days but it was just too high traffic for me. Even in digest, I'd suspect. I'm going to rely on people providing pointers when something important is said, I guess.) As to whether the request Jimbo made is working, I think it is. Just not as fast as some might like. ++Lar: t/c 16:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Succession Boxes

Question: Is it Wikipedia policy for seccession boxes to be at the bottom of a page. Every one I've ever seen was at the bottom. However, I have recently encounted a user [12] who insists on putting them in the middle of the article. I disagree with this practice, since it breaks up the article and is inconsistent with 99% of other articles. Comments on this would be appreciated. --JW1805 (Talk) 03:54, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Am I the only one thinking "What the hell is a seccession box?" Deco 04:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

It's the thing at the bottom of articles about office-holders that has "Preceded by", "Succeeded by". They can be simple, like at Simon Snyder, or monstrously complex, like at Neville Chamberlain --JW1805 (Talk) 04:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Ohh, a succession box. Gotcha. Well, by convention they're at the bottom, yes. I'd be quite surprised to see them at the top. Deco 04:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• • It's generally spelled "succession box." I am the "user" referenced above and I try to place them at the end of the verbal portion of the article, where it it breaks up nothing, but before other references, tables, and templates. It is there because that is near the portion of the article which it is intended to illustrate, and because it would be completely lost at the bottom of the page where it would not help the reader at all. This is no different visually and organizationally than placing an image at a particular place. Graphics should go where they make the most sense to understanding the content of the article and where they work the best visually. Doing anything "because its always been done that way," is the worst possible reason. stilltim 04:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
    • This doesn't seem like a terrible idea, but I would seek consensus for it. If you do end up doing it, make sure you do it everywhere - inconsistency is worse than either approach by itself. You might start at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Deco 04:40, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't think the reason is "because its always been done that way". Some articles have several templates and extremely long succession boxes. Putting them all in the middle is just not practical. Putting some in the middle and some at the bottom is just not consistent. Having succession boxes at the bottom of every office holder article except for those from Delaware makes the least sense of all. Templates are not part of the text of an article. References and See Also sections are. The article shouldn't be broken up by potentially large templates. --JW1805 (Talk) 21:14, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
• Personally, I think the boxes don't fit in the regular flow of the article -- our tradition of putting them at the end facilitates easy movement from one person to their predecessor/successor. I would not recommend putting them in the middle of content. --Improv 13:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Second-level copyright

This concern several types of images that are normally considered specific occurences of {{fairuse}}, but mostly the various {{screenshot}} (althought the reasoning can be extended to stuff like {{bookcover}} and {{promotional}}).

• Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. established that "Photographic reproductions of visual works in the public domain were not copyrightable because the reproductions involved no originality."
  1. From there, is it reasonable to assume that a screenshot is copyrighted to the original author, not the screenshot taker?
  2. If the copyright reside solely within the original holder, then there is no requirement to ask the screenshot taker for permission to use it on Wikipedia, since they cannot claim any copyright on it whatsoever, right?

• However, it remains polite to at the very least acknowledge the taker (e.g."screenshot courtesy of www.randomsite.com")

Does that reasoning hold? Circeus 13:16, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

No, it oversimplifies a complex set of issues. A screenshot is not an exact reproduction of the original work. If it is viewed as a "derivative work," both the creator of the original and the creator of the screenshot may have copyright interests. Consider the case of a photograph of a stage play. The performance itself is copyrighted, yet the photographer who take a picture of a moment in the performance is presumed to have a copyright interest in that photo. A case can be made for each side on this question, and the courts have certainly not yet come close to resolving it. Monicasdude 13:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Myself, I was really interested in tv-screenshots (I want to add sceenshot to some anoimecharacter pages.), so I'll keep these arguments in mind for other cases. Circeus 13:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it depends on exactly what the screenshot is of. In some cases, such as screenshots of software, computer desktop layouts, etc., there may be some compositional creativity on the part of the screenshot maker in getting things laid out just right on the screen before capturing it, and hence the possibility of copyright there. On the other hand, if it's just a raw capture of some canned material from the original author (e.g., a still frame from a TV show, or a static Web page), then you're probably right about no further rights being gained by capturing it in a screenshot. Also, in some cases a screenshot may capture works of multiple authors; a screen shot of a Web browser, for instance, includes possible intellectual property of the browser maker, as well as the maker of whatever Web site happens to be displayed in the browser. *Dan T.* 13:51, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That roughly confirm what I was thinking. Circeus 13:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

"Task forces" proposal

I'd be interested in hearing people's opinions on User:Talrias/Task forces proposal. Cheers, Talrias (t | e | c) 22:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

So what does one do when no "verifiable" statement of the obvious exists?

Just reading over Talk:Jonathan_Sarfati, in which a few I assume well-meaning editors are embroiled in a dispute with somebody who is allegedly Sarfati's spouse, and a couple of IP addresses that are suspiciously similar.

The core of the dispute is that the article says that "some critics" dismiss Safarti's self-description of "scientist" as his field of study has nothing to do with Young Earth Creationism, the area in which he is best known.

The standing and oft-recurring complaint is that "some critics" and "supporters" are weasel words, as (I assume) nobody in any noted scientific journals has actually summarized this view of Safati in print.

I have nothing to do with Safati, or the debate. Frankly, I just like to read heavily-disputed Talk pages because you often find interesting contortions of logic and some compelling arguments for or against subjects I don't think much about. But this brings up an interesting problem: what if something that should be general knowledge is disputed as general knowledge, and isn't directly 'verifiable?'

This is a good case in point, but it's not hard to come up with others or compelling hypotheticals. If nobody has ever actually decried a crank or a charlatan in print because it's "too easy" or not worth the time, how can one establish that this person really is (as is obvious) a crank or charlatan according to Wikipedia regulations?

Please note that I'm not saying Sarfati is necessarily a crank or charlatan, just extrapolating this to negative conclusions. If nobody has ever taken the time to disprove a particular scientific theory (say, Flat-Earth theory) in a reputable journal, can it be "understood" by Wikipedia that the earth is not in fact flat? Or is Wikipedia bound to insist the earth is flat until somebody can source an authoritative reference that says otherwise?

More or less idle speculation on a slow Friday, but it does seem to be a soft point in the system. The Sarfati chat illustrates the problem more aptly than I ever could. MattShepherd 18:07, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if this applies to Sarfati (who is this guy?) but to find counter-arguments there is no need to find someone in the press that actually calls Sarfati or whoever a charlatan. Instead you find respected "round-earthists" such as Gallileo for example and include their POV mentioning their relative respectablity to the charlatan in question. And the charlatanism becomes obvious. -- Michalis Famelis 18:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Badly phrased above -- it's not broad-strokes stuff I'm worried about, that was a bad example. Again, the Sarfati page is a fascinating illustration of what I'm getting at. MattShepherd 18:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, we did find an authorative reference that called the Earth an oblate spheroid... Shimgray | talk | 18:17, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, no doubt. I was just pulling an example out of my butt. MattShepherd 18:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm stating the obvious here, but no side of a POV dispute can include text that is not verifiable, as you say. As long as there is no authorative reference, a person can not claim: (a) someone is a scientist, (b) the Earth is flat, or (c) anything else. Although, we are currently handling "obvious facts" rather permissively, the policies we have are pretty clear. Awolf002 18:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

You can assert something untl it is questioned; then you have to back it up (logic, refer to sources in a related article where the issue is dealt with more thouroughly, or supply a source for this article) or delete it. Nothing, not the meanings of words or "the sky is blue" is beyond questioning ("how about at night?"). Too many false beliefs have passed for "obviously true" in the history of man. That's obviously true, right?  ;) WAS 4.250 20:32, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't delete something until it is disproven, or at least a consensus exists to remove it. StuRat 20:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

My take is, "I wouldn't include something until it is verified." Wyss 21:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Even if the statement in question is violating WP:V? That does not sound like good judgement to me. Awolf002 21:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

In my experience people sometimes assert something until it is questioned, and then legally mandate it as a way of making the awkward questions go away :-) Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] 20:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

If an assertion does not meet Wikipedia:Verifiability, it should not be asserted in a Wikipedia article. Full stop. If the assertion in question is "obvious", then it doesn't need to be stated. If you mean it's obvious from context to those who have researched the issue, distill enough of the research into the article to make it obvious to readers too. In the example given, state that Sarfatti is a self-described scientist, point out whether or not he has any academic degrees to back that up, and leave the inferences to the reader. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Assertions must be verifiable. Published assertions which are not verifiable (for example, not supported by the documented historical record or peer reviewed publication) should not be inserted in an article. Wyss 21:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

This whole debate raises an interesting question in general. Another related case is in Electric Universe concept, where there is a debate over what constitutes obvious and verifiable information. In that case, advocates of a fringe theory made specific predictions about the behavior of a comet when impacted by a spacecraft. At least two of those predictions seem to be so direct and transparent that they are verifiable simply by looking at the publicity images released by NASA. The advocates in question assert that it is wrong to include any conclusion based on the pictures, until it has been published in the scientific literature -- even though the predictions in question are so fringe-y that they are not likely to be addressed directly by any scientific publication. (Disclaimer: I wrote the disputed section, and I'm not defending either point of view here -- just drawing attention to the debate). That is a peculiar edge case -- what constitutes verifiability? zowie 21:58, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow! What actually is verifiable in this article?? Was any source checked to be reliable? This looks like a problem article (as Aetherometry was) to me. Awolf002 22:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

This seems to be Wikipedia's way of dealing with unverifiable or non-peer reviewed stuff: Give it a separate article and let the cranks fiddle where they do least harm. In principle I don't support this unwritten policy, in practice I wontedly ignore such articles altogether. These articles could be justified as debunking platforms, though. Wyss 22:25, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

All I can say is, you should'a seen it before... As a sort of exercise in roots of the scientific method, I let myself get embroiled in helping to change the article from a byzantine mess of advocacy to a more or less even-handed exposition and debunking, and even wrote the first draft of the Tempel-1 section; but that was my first such experience and I now realize that feeding the cranks is an endless proposition. That in itself is sort of a problem (but maybe off topic for verifiability...) zowie 23:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Verifiable Resources for Unsigned Artists

I need some help when it comes to reliable resources for writing about unsigned musicians. I an in the process of collecting info about local musicians here in Jackson, Wyoming, so that they can be posted here.

In the Jackson area, not enough verifiable resources exists. We only have a few newspapers, and maybee a few websites that we are on. Please tell me if these are reliable resources for writing Wikipedia articles:

• The DJ List
• Myspace
• Soundpost
• Jackson Hole News and Guide
• Planet Jackson Hole

Thank you so much.

What are all of these sources? I know what Myspace is – it's definitely not a reliable source – but I have no clue about the others. Unsigned musicians are going to have a tough time meeting any of the generally-accepted criteria for inclusion for musicians. android79 23:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

As mentioned above, WP:MUSIC is the stick we use to measure bands, and the ones that usually apply to indie bands are

1. Has released two or more albums on a major label or one of the more important indie labels (i.e. an independent label with a history of more than a few years and a roster of performers, many of which are notable).
2. Has been prominently featured in any major music media.
3. Contains at least one member who was once a part of or later joined a band that is otherwise extremely notable; note that it is often most appropriate to use redirects in place of articles on side projects, early bands and such.

Besides that, there's also the criterion of "national tour." If you went on an interstate tour (usually about 4 or more, but that's open to interpretation) in the US, that (to most) constitutes notability. A lot of bands wind up as speedy deletes and on Articles for Deletion, so be sure to reference the important points when you create articles. RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 23:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The key for any non noteable wishing to become noteable is do whatever it takes to get press coverage. Once you are infamous, your otherwise not noteworthy events (band playing) become noteworthy (by newspapers, etc.) That's one reason why stars get in so many scandles. It pays. This general principle of doing anything to get noticed, then selling yourself once everyone is looking, is older than mankind. Once considered noteable by the press, getting in Wikipedia is trivial. WAS 4.250 00:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposed wheel warring policy

The Proposed wheel warring policy is currently undergoing a straw poll, please read over the proposals and leave comments there, not here. The poll will last one week. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:25, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

How is categorizing wikipedians by sexuality helpful?

How does "Category:Wikipedians by sexuality" make any sense as a positive thing rather than a net negative thing in terms of writing an encyclopedia. Sexuality is positive. But we are here to create an encyclopedia. Provide a link to anywhere else and deal with nonencyclopedic good stuff there. WAS 4.250 04:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Secret of Wikipedia #4: Half of all Wikipedia users want it to be a blog. Their blog. Wyss 04:05, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Look and listen. That's why.  ;-) Just stay out of any namespace that you dislike. Use the WP for your own enjoyment and don't let the rest bother you. You can't control nearly one million registered users so, if you want to sleep at night then carve your own comfortable place here and enjoy! hydnjo talk 04:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an anarchy. If you don't like that, don't come here. --Improv 06:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

As surprizing as you might find it, complex analysis of wikipedia - it's philosophy, and in practice, wikipedia is a sort of anarchy. I am not saying I support it or condemn it but it's just the way it is. --UVnet 15:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Blind reverting of I.P. address edits

I have recently come across a couple of cases where a non-registered user made some useful edits, and was immediately reverted because he shared the same I.P. as a user who has caused trouble in the past. The two specific cases were by User:70.231.178.156 and User:68.122.119.128. User:70.231.178.156 correctly categorized some uncotegorized categories, but was reverted, I then restored the categorizations. User:68.122.119.128 also attempted to do some categorizing, but was reverted. In this case the categories in question were categorized under Category:Wikipedians by stuff which is being emptied, but I still believe User:68.122.119.128 acted in good faith.

We need to stop blindly reverting these edits. Check what they changed first. If it's vandalism, then revert, but keep the good edits. CG janitor 06:45, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps Template:Sharedip or Template:ISP would help? --Pascal666 09:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

If the person reverting the edits can't be bothered to check what changes were made, I don't think they'll look at the user page to see those templates. CG janitor 16:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Userspace templates

Is there a policy about articles in the main namespace using templates from userspace? Specifically I'm looking at User:Thelb4/doctor-serials-cat. --Pascal666 08:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about any policy, but it's obvious they shouldn't. Simply move the template to the Template namespace and edit the places where it's transcluded to point to the new location. --cesarb 14:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Star Ratings on Album pages

I had started a bot request for Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Stars_to_text however after starting the job I was notified that some editors had some unaddressed objections and I have stoppped the bot in the interm.

The request is for a bot to replace the "star images" in ratings into text for album pages (for example would be replaced by (4/5)). The reason for the changes were listed as

1. For some people, it's hard to distinguish between 1 and .5 stars (eye, monitor, etc.)
2. Without the captions, it's virtually unreadable for visually impaired.
3. Image bandwidth. It's much faster and uses less bandwidth without the unnecessary stars.
4. Generally, it's easier without them.

Some editors had concerns that consensus was not reached on the previous page, As this is a large amount of pages (2500+) I think it's necessary to have a proper consensus either before the bot could possibly get restarted. Some star ratings have already have been converted to text (not my myself) - so a consensus might want to change those back to stars. Tawker 14:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

In regard to point 1, the stars image has poor contrast and is a bit small. If it was just simply black stars, a bit further apart, and maybe with the half-marks as grey stars rather than half-black ones, it should be as legible as the surrounding text. I'll make up image(s) if someone wants. For those who are significantly visually impared what's there is okay (the alt text isn't bad) but we can improve it with regular wikimarkup: . -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's my simple test case for 4.5 stars, with appropriate alt text: . Hmmm, the half-tone thing doesn't work nicely - hang on while I make a chopped one... -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:14, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's one with the half denoted by a star chopped in half: . -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

How about a "star outline" with a white center? Tawker 15:15, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean that the half star should be an outline? Here's one like that - -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

It's a good idea to give a contrasted color outline, even if it's only useful to silly people that've customized their CSS. So a black star should have a thing white outline, a white star should have a black one, for example. ¦ Reisio 22:40, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

In regard to point 2, see my alt text above. In regard to point three, this really isn't an issue. Bandwidth is never our chokepoint, these image files are tiny, and will be efficiently cached in the webservers, the squids, and in the visitor's browsers. In regard to ease, I think we can have a simple substable template (e.g. {{subst:starsFromFive|3.5}}) to make human-handling of the stars straightforward. I do think the stars are a good idea, and I think we can intelligently handle fallback for visually impared visitors without resorting to text-only. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Many of the albums are not templates, they're images. I'm starting to think both an image and text eg (4/5) would work best. Tawker 15:08, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Whatever we do, it's clear that the ALT text on the current images needs improving, so at the very least that's a nasty task your bot could help with. Once we have a consensus as to what the markup should be for such stars, I figure it'd be nice to have a subst-template which would make life easy for humans to follow the standard. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I personally would support having a template instead of image, so that it would be possible to redesign stars whenever we feel like it. So I propose substing Image:4 of 5.png by any template {{whatever | 4/5}}. For now the template can be processed with showing current image, later it can be switched to text or new picture with text. --Jan Smolik 15:43, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there any particular reason why we need images in the first place? It's somewhat visually pleasing, but not much more. Template idea was already suggested and implemented, then taken away sometime ago. I'll see if I can find the relevant disussion. -- WB 23:54, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Found it, and the consensus was deleted then. -- WB 00:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

The Choice - please vote on which option you prefer?

Option 1: Replace image to something similar to above

• I think that makes sense. I don't see why it has to be text-only, as long as proper ALT text is used. *Dan T.* 19:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Option 3: Text only (remove images)

• Support There's not much of a reason to use images. -- WB 19:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

AOL range blocks of almost 2 hours?

applied to anyone who complains about their ip range being blindly blocked for 75 minutes?--205.188.117.10 19:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Publication and Visual Art

I have read in WP:PD#Published_vs._unpublished_works that “It is unclear how to interpret the Berne Convention's phrasing on art exhibitions and building construction. How else could one "publish" such works if not by exhibiting or building them?” Dose this mean that users at Wikipedia can assume such a work to be published on completion?

I have recently noticed this image tag:

Be careful if you want to move this file to Wikimedia Commons.

Unless the creator died more than 70 years ago (or longer in certain instances), the depicted work of art is not necessarily public domain worldwide. If it is not in the public domain in its source country, it cannot be transferred to the Wikimedia Commons if it is a non-US work. Information on this image (such as source and the creator's lifetime) with respect to the depicted work of art should always be listed if known. This image should not be transferred to Wikimedia Commons unless the depicted work of art can be verified to be in the public domain in its country of first publication.

If the depicted work of art is in the public domain in its origin country please add |pdsource=yes to this template's invocations, and consider moving the file to Wikimedia Commons

Alternatively, if you know that the artwork shown will expire at a certain date, please add |out_of_copyright_in=year to indicate this.

Is this tag only applicable when an image has been made available in some mass format (such as a book or magazine) before 1923? Justin Foote 21:47, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Here is my understanding under U.S. law:

1. Architecture. Photographs of buildings may be taken without permission; the architect's copyright only prevents people from copying the building plans themselves, or building another building like it from those plans. So publication is irrelevant unless you're looking to make your own building...
2. Art. Public exhibition alone is not enough to count as a "publication," but paintings are rarely exhibited without also being reproduced in photographs in accompanying catalogs, press reports, etc. Even 19th century paintings were typically reproduced for a consumer market in engravings. If copies have been distributed to the public, or an offer has been made to the public to make copies (as in a photographer soliciting sales of prints made on demand), it has been "published." If it stayed in the painter's studio his whole life, it wasn't published.
3. Unpublished works. Any unpublished work by an artist who died more than 70 years ago is in the public domain. If the artist was anonymous, the work was done for hire (corporate authorship), or the date of death of the artist is unknown, then it is in the public domain if created prior to 1886.

I don't know how the Berne Convention differs from these provisions, if at all. Postdlf 23:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

In any case, the Berne Convention is not directly enforceable in the United States (Section 2, Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988). Physchim62 (talk) 08:09, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:3D Illustrations

Subject proposed guideline has been under discussion for some time (with wide notice having been given here, and on many related articles and editor talk pages in late January) and seems to have general consensus as being suitable among almost all editors involved. The recommendations discussed on the talk page have been carried out with respect to the images in question. Therefore, in accordance with Wikipedia:How to create policy, I have moved it from a proposed guideline to a guideline. Comments of course are still welcome. ++Lar: t/c 22:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Copyrights

Regarding Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works (and, indirectly, WP:EL#Maybe OK to add), would a site with one alleged copyright infringing download (out of hundreds of other seemingly legitimate/legal downloads) disqualify a site from being linked to? (Note that the link would be to the main page of the site; the page with the allegedly copyright infringing download is a subpage out of hundreds of other subpages). —Locke Cole • t • c 01:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

• Please, see the reasonable effort that has been tried for the scope of this issue on the PhpBB talk page. — Dzonatas 02:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:ENJOY

--Sean Black ^(talk) 05:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:GURU

Another new one. Figure i'd put a link here. Karmafist 06:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Dab citations

IDB is a long list of many terms that share this acronym. Most are redlinked (which I suppose is another topic). One of these is perhaps a bit too tasteless to share here; those who want to can go look. (That's also another topic; it doesn't affect my point).

This particular elaboration of the acronym gave credit, if you will, to Tweak3d. I rm that credit as it seemed self-serving and perhaps simply untrue -- who can say? Lo, the credit has returned, along with the citation I demanded. The wiki markup is defective but if you copy it out it does point to a fair source.

My question has nothing to do with the question of whether the term should be included in the list, whether Tweak3d is truly responsible for it, or if the source is reliable. Let's assume all that.

Question: Where should such credits -- and the citations that back them up -- go? I don't think the list is the right place for it. John Reid 09:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

If it is not a neologism, it's still no more than a dicdef, and belongs in Wiktionary, if any where at all. I would say remove it from Wikipedia and let the Wiktionary people decide if they want it. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk)

If it isn't even mentioned on the page to which it is supposedly disambiguating, how exactly is it helping the user? If this is important information it should be on the target page, not just on the disambiguation page. In this case it might even make more sense to disambiguate to the Tweak3d. (And all those redlinks should be tossed.) Ewlyahoocom 13:25, 19 February 2006 (UTC)