Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive

Village Pump - Policy archive

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Sections archived on 00:12, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Poll on proposal to Wikipedia:Prohibit AOL users from editing

I noticed that a poll was created on the talk page of this article and figured it would benefit from some visibility. Comments should probably be directed there. Polotet 00:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Blanking of user talk pages

Until a few days ago, Wikipedia:Vandalism held that blanking a warning from one's user talk page was considered vandalism. This appeared to be the only type of edit to one's own talk page that was explicitly disallowed. With its removal, there apparently is now no edit on a user talk page that would per se be disallowed.

I think this policy change is moving us in the wrong direction. I have noticed, with seemingly increasing frequency of late, editors who blank their pages repeatedly of all, or all negative or controversial, comments. This appears to be allowed under current policy (e.g., WP:VAND currently reads, "The above does not apply to the user's own Talk page, where users generally are permitted to remove and archive comments at their discretion."). Should it be? Perhaps WP:VAND was the wrong page for such a policy, and calling user talk blanking behavior "vandalism" is too strong. But should it be allowable?

In more than one case I have examined the edit history of talk pages whose user follows this practice of blanking, and have discovered the same issue being brought up again and again by different commenters. Most leaving a comment are not going to take the time to click through edit history; and besides, repeated blanking means that if you want to read all comments to the user recently, you have to click every other diff, which can be extraordinarily tedious. (Especially since most commenters leave cryptic or article-oriented edit summaries, which means you often cannot weed down the history to relevant diffs.)

I've also sometimes found {{welcome}} added multiple times to these users' pages, which I find amusing, but it belies the fact that editors, upon finding a blank talk page, assume the user is a newbie. It seems to me that some of these "blankers" may be gaining extra dispensation for bad behavior under WP:BITE that they are not otherwise deserving of.

I'm not envisioning anything fancy, but something as simple as "don't delete anything (except vandalism and personal attacks) less than a month old" would probably be plenty sufficient.

Alternatively, perhaps we could adopt a standard edit summary system for admonishing or warning users, so that even if the user's talk page is repeatedly blanked, it will not be necessary to click "diff... diff... diff" to find out whether the user's been previously warned. --TreyHarris 01:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

As an aside, there is already a warning template when someone blanks their talk page of warnings at Template:Wr. Ziggurat 01:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with TreyHarris's assessment of the situation. I cna't suggest any procedural changes, but I'll support anything reasonable that reduces the tendency to blank warnings from user talk pages. -Will Beback 01:38, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I think people should be allowed to do anything they want with their user pages and should never be criticised for it. The fact that one is expected to put up with any number of personal attacks on one's user page - which unlike the people that made them one has to look at over and over again - is one of the very worst features of wikipedia. CalJW 23:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

If users are allowed to blank their talk pages, then we will need to implement separate, unblankable "rap sheets" to document warnings against them, attempts and notifications toward dispute resolution, etc. Is that what you want? Melchoir 23:40, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

"The fact that one is expected to put up with any number of personal attacks on one's user page - which unlike the people that made them one has to look at over and over again - is one of the very worst features of wikipedia." I don't know what you mean about it being one of the "features of Wikipedia". First of all, I'm not talking about "user pages". I'm talking about user talk pages, which are intended to be pages where other users communicate with you (and, in the case of warnings, where warners indirectly communicate with one another to determine if disruptive behavior is isolated or part of a continuing pattern).

Certainly we can't prevent unknown users from attacking you, though WP:NPA describes how we can deal with an attack after it has happened. In any case, my simple proposal — "don't delete anything (except vandalism and personal attacks) less than a month old" would still allow you to refactor personal attacks. But a criticism or warning is not necessarily a personal attack. The standard warning templates are all civil in tone. If an unfounded warning or criticism was used as a personal attack, just respond right there on your own page that it's unfounded, refactor anything beyond the pale, and notify an administrator at WP:PAIN. In my experience, administrators are happy to remove a warning that was used maliciously or in error.

Under my proposal, if you are legitimately criticized or warned on your user talk page, you should take it as constructive criticism, respond as necessary, and then a month later, you can delete or archive the criticism or warning. If a legitimate, constructive critique really bothers someone so much that they just can't stand it being on their talk page, then they should really try to grow a thicker skin. If they plead ignorance and show understanding of their transgression and promise not to do it again, the original commenter will probably be willing to withdraw the critique anyway. I have no desire here to bite newbies or to humiliate editors acting in good faith. I merely want to ensure that those few editors who are truly disrupting Wikipedia cannot postpone the action necessary to stop their disruption by repeatedly blanking their talk pages. --TreyHarris 03:49, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

What would you think about

Remove or summarize resolved disputes that you initiated.

? No need to write a new guideline about that, it's already in Wikipedia:Etiquette (apart that I bolded "resolved").

The word "legitimately" in the expression "legitimately criticized" you proposed is too tackish to be workable IMHO, just adds another level of complexity that even has less chance of being solved. It will always come down to who *thinks* it is legitimate and who *doesn't*. If reading only a few RfC's (and believe me I never read more than a few), you'll see that pages, and pages, and pages can be filled with interpretations of how "legitimate" a criticism was.

Personally I take pride in receiving some absurdistic comments by an odd semi-troll on my talk page every once and a while (don't exaggerate though!) - When you're around here long enough you know in the end it always reflects back on the writer. Even makes me feel sorry sometimes to have to archive such excellent self-condemning prose when my talk page becomes too long.

The problem is for newcomers, that probably didn't read what I write here, or simply can't believe it. Yeah, and true: Jimbo's talk page needs some special surveillance nearly permanently... (see header text at user talk:Jimbo Wales, ooh, even appears to have been converted in a yellow and a pink template now...).

Seriously, I think editors can be banned for dodging resolution of disputes if quickly removing negative comments from their talk pages without attempt to address the raised concern. Just apply WP:POINT, WP:EQ, WP:CIVIL, Wikipedia:Resolving disputes or whatever policy/guideline that seems applicable after properly warning the editor. If you're a sysop and apply a ban, best to make some time to clarify the reason for the ban at WP:AN/I or so I suppose (we don't want wheel wars, do we...) --Francis Schonken 17:02, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Your point is well taken with the worst of the worst. My concern, though, is with low-grade disrupters, like people who change different articles repeatedly from one national English variant to another, are warned, delete the warning, and move on to another article and do it again. Disrupters who move around nibbling at the edges of the article space (or worse, who use AWB so that their edits are in an entirely random swath of articles) may have no "nexus" where different editors will realize that the bad behavior is part of a pattern, apart from their user talk page. Recently I had the occasion to warn an AWB user that they were making bad edits. I got back a "thanks, fixed" response, but a few days later noticed the same sort of bad edit by the same user. I went to their talk page and found my prior comment gone, checked the edit history, and found dozens of blanked complaints about the same issue, all responded to with "thanks, fixed". If the user had left the comments on the talk page, someone would have realized that there was a problem long before thousands of articles got badly edited. --TreyHarris 19:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah, AWB... the old enemy (not all that old is it?)... I think we might need some new guideline wikipedia:semi-bots or something in that vein. Have been thinking about this for some weeks now. Up till now WP:BOTS and the bot admission procedure (notwithstanding being made somewhat stricter recently), are maybe not the appropriate instruments to help contributors see the value, but also disadvantages, of semi-bot operations. On one side WP:BOTS is too coarse, while it uses "number of edits per minute" as a treshold for defining a bot... While what we seek (I think) regarding semi-bots is rather an approach and appreciation of the kind of tasks that benefit from some degree of automatisation, and the ones that don't. As we all somehow experienced some of the style recommendations intended to improve wikipedia, become monstrosities if left to be implemented repetitively in a walkover method. Bot alert procedures (...block the bot, which usually ends up blocking the bot operator's account too) are also a bit coarse; continuing the present approach: AWB operators without bot flag are responsible for each and every edit on the same level as any other user account, is not too appropriate either. Sometimes the "faults" made are rather enervating by their repetition of small deteriorations or even useless/non-existent changes, like this edit creating a lot of yellow, green and red in the diff, but creating only *one* visible change: it changed (essay) to ( essay) – which I only discovered when starting to revert the edits.

So I suppose a major issue for the new guideline would be to come to terms with accountability of the semi-bot operator. They need to be able to revert a whole range of edits, if some of the edits of a series appear to be questionable (it's not the task of the one who spots the questionable behaviour, to check and/or revert each and every edit), and this reverting by the bot operator would need to be respecting other edits that may have happened to those articles in the mean while (if AWB can't do that, or the bot operator doesn't want to take that kind of responsibility: no use to have such bot operator edit by AWB).

Existing guidelines need to be reviewed discerning between (what I'd call) "soft" recommendations (that can't be implemented purely mechanically, at present even typo correction would fall under this definition of a "soft" recommendation); and operations that can't really go wrong when implementing them on a repetitive scale.

Just some ideas... --Francis Schonken 20:17, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Did any of you Guys Notice this Conversation is already lower on this page Removing Warnings Also In an Atempt to resolve this Problem there is Wikipedia:Removing_warnings And I am trying to Move a Copy of all Conversation on this issue there.--E-Bod 15:42, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality

There is a large problem with observing pure neutrality in journalism, and especially in the writing of encyclopediae. The problem I assume is rather clear to everyone who has ever taken a course in philosophy, which the problem of truth. Assuming neutrality when writing about historical events, literature, and any other such topic in the humanities fosters the notion that both sides of any argument are valid, and that when presented with a good argument, any position can be respected and 'tolerated.' The problem with this assumption is one that bites the very course of the journalistic enterprise, which is the belief that journalism is meant to expose the truth and provide the audience with solid material for discussion and exposition. Of course, presenting 'both sides of a coin' is based on the nihilistic notion that truth in and of itself does not exist. If there is no truth, there can be no rational discourse, for all such discourse is based on the assumption of an axiom (I would rather not say dogma for that word has acquired a negative connotation to it over time) on which all parties can agree. Truth is such an axiom. Therefore I call upon Wikipedia,— both the writers and the directors,— to rexamine the policy of neutrality and to reconsider it. above unsigned edit by User:Krishnamurthi.

I think you misunderstand WP:NPOV, and I encourage you to re-read it. The policy of Wikipedia is specifically not that all sides of an argument are equally valid: the policy is that arguments should be presented in a manner that makes it clear to the reader how well accepted each is. NPOV states that Wikipedians must not (insofar as possible) insert our opinions on a subject, but we must report on what others (preferably those with reputations for adding to the search for truth) think. We trust (and it is an act of faith) that the world-wide free interplay of ideas is sufficiently strong that truth will gain acceptance, and falsehood will fade, given enough time. Robert A.West (Talk) 14:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

In theory, if enough editors work on any article, their views will tend to balance out and the final outcome will be NPOV. Of course, this may not always happen in practice, humans being fallible. - Runcorn 21:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

No, not at all. NPOV is not mainly about balance, though that is part of it. NPOV is, above all, about the relation between the narrative voice of the article and any opinions expressed in the article: that it is clear whose opinions these are, and that they are not stated as the opinions of an omniscient narrator. - Jmabel | Talk 02:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

And we are all responsible for making all of our edits as NPOV as possible. WP is not an adversarial forum. Yes, we have biases, and many eyes will help catch and correct them, but the idea is never to write as an advocate. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Case Study pages?

I have looked at many of the comments about existing core policies, such as WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, and I think I have learned something. To the extent that the concerns are legitimate, they can roughly be divided into three classes:

1. Making it harder to use policy in bad faith as a bludgeon to gain an advantage in an edit war.
2. Grey areas that an editor fears will give rise to disputes, or that actually have caused a dispute.
3. Complicated or rare cases that the editor feels need explanation.

The problem, as I see it, is that modifying the policy is rarely the correct solution. Moreover, the problem is often more theoretical than real: has any editor actually been admonished by an admin for not providing a peer-reviewed study that shows the Sun rises in the east? Has there ever been an actual consensus that, given sourced birthdates for two men, it is original research to conclude that one of them was older than the other without citing a source that makes the comparison? I would hope that demands of this sort would be considered WP:POINT.

It occurs to me that there is a better way -- one that decision makers, such as managers and lawyers, have been using for a long time. The case study. A number of real-world cases are boiled down to essentials, and then used as examples of how the principles work in circumstances that are not necessarily straightforward or obvious. This approach would do several things.

• It would help reassure people that policies are not a weapon being used by a cabal to dominate Wikipedia.
• It would help editors see where their good-faith actions might be against policy.
• It would help editors see where their good-faith complaints might be ill-founded.
• It might reduce, at least marginally, the sort of petty rules argument that comes up from time to time during an edit war.
• It would provide a public resource for arbcom to use as precedent.
• If there are any actual deficiencies in policy, it would help identify them.

In a sense, the Village Pump archives could be used for this purpose, but if I want guidance before writing something, it would be a long hard search to find something that fit. Perhaps they could be mined for examples. What do people think? Does this idea make sense? Have I just volunteered for a lot of work? Robert A.West (Talk) 15:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm sad that nobody has responded to this; I think it's a great idea. I suppose nobody has the motivation or time to actually get it started. I don't currently have the time, but I don't want the case study idea to die. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 21:53, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

This was tried on AFD a while back (actually, long enough ago that it was VFD then). It was somewhat helpful. Yes, building up an equivalent of case law could have some value, but it is a lot of work. - Jmabel | Talk 02:32, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, Wikipedia is a dictionary.

Somebody needs to get rid of that policy WP:WINAD, since most users don't agree with or follow it on AfD discussions. To my way of thinking, adding usage examples and an etymology to a definition still makes it a definition, but some people think, for some unfathomable reason, that this makes it an encyclopedia entry. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Son of a bitch for a current example. Erik the Rude 16:35, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with everything you have to say (except of course for getting rid of WP:WINAD). Wikipedia has lately turned into an indescriminate collection of unencyclopedic material, and no one seems to mind. I guess it doesn't really bother me that much, as I generally prefer more information to less, but I do feel that vocab articles need to assert far more than definitions and pronunctiation--they need to show impacts of the word on pop culture, etc., to be encyclopedic (take for instance Fuck, which has potential to someday be an encyclopedia article). On another note, what is up with the thousands of lists of random things (i.e. List of celebrities playing radio show callers on Frasier)?! I thought this was an encyclopedia. =S AmiDaniel (Talk) 20:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Nah! It's not an encyclopedia, it's Trivial Pursuit(ʀ), the Wikipedia Edition. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 23:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that Wikipedia should allow definition-type articles, but only for terms that are not widely understood and are used in several articles. Explaining every term that people may not understand and that does not have an article is impractical. I think this is a partial reason why articles are often marked as "too technical". Also, Britannica has definition-type articles. -- Kjkolb 20:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Isn't {{wi}} the tool for explaining terms that aren't attached to an encyclopedic topic? Melchoir 21:10, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Concur with Melchoir. Wiktionary is the place, not here, for dictionary defs, even for obscure terms. --Improv 23:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I generally agree with this, but inevitably many articles will have a degree of dictionary definitions in them. - Runcorn 05:42, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

It should be easy to link to a - supposed existing - Wiktionary (WK) article, instead of creating a WP one. When there is nothing to say about foo past its definition, let us imagine a [ [:WK:en:foo|foo]] instead of a [ [foo]] link. --DLL 20:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, the use of the "h" template for the HTML hover function {{h:title|hover text|text}} can be This means that it is enough. --DLL 20:43, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Or, radical thought, create a Wiktionary entry, then link to it. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Logged-in editing from blocked shared IPs

Hello, I'm UED77, an admin at the Commons, and I'm seldom active on WP, so if there is a more suitable venue for this discussion, then please move it there. Earlier today, I was browsing anonymously from my school, and I wanted to see (not edit) the wikitext of the Hero of Belarus article. So, quite naturally, I clicked on "edit", but my school uses a proxy that is now blocked from editing. I thought, "No problem, I'll just go ahead and log in", but it still didn't let me edit the wikitext, because I was browsing from a blocked IP.

Is there a way I can make legitimate edits with my account from a blocked IP?

Perhaps, if there is no existing way, I would propose a policy to let users with already existing accounts created at least 4 days earlier from a non-blocked IP to edit, regarless of his current IP.

And even if that is not possible, then can it be considered to treat the edit button for blocked IPs as a "view source" button, and allow them to see, but not modify the wikitext? —UED77 18:45, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

See current discussion at Wikipedia:Blocking policy proposal. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for directing me to the right place. Just for the record, I strongly support the proposed policy with some restrictions on creating new accounts from blocked addresses, preferably a 1-hour wait. —UED77 01:08, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

SI or imperial units?

Discussion moved to: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#SI_or_imperial_units.3F.
bobblewik 12:43, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Signpost articles

I have come across a collection of articles labeled as "signpost" articles and all listed in Category:Signpost articles. A quick look at the articles in the category shows that these articles have nothing to do with Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost. Other than the fact that they all look very much like disambiguation pages, and are members of a category that was deleted last November, there appears to be no indication what these articles are for. Could someone point me to the appropriate documentation for this type of article? Court Jester 19:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

The blurb at the top of the category explains what these articles are for, and it seems very sensible. If the name is confusing, can it be changed? - Runcorn 20:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:15, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposal: Addition to WP:NOT

Proposed Addition: "Wikipedia is not a press-cuttings service"

Comments:
For Wikipedia articles whose subject is large/famous/well-known etc., press mentions (newspapers, periodicals), of its subject, are frequent. Editors should avoid needlessly linking online versions of articles / online articles.

One article with many links can be seen here: [[1]] (old edit). Others might be able to provide better examples.

Succumbing to the temptation to link a press mention/article that is barely content-relevant, non-unique, or distinguishable solely because it appeared in a well-known publication, should be avoided. This does not detract from the need to cite, using authoritative references of source material which has been published by reputable sources.

I have seen articles containing a 'References' section, a 'Further reading' section, and a 'Media attention' and an 'External links' section - with linked press articles in each section.

A limited amount of balanced and carefully-selected external links will enhance an article. An excessive amount of links can overwhelm the article. Superfluous links to press mentions/articles detract from an article. With a greater amount of linked press articles the likelihood that some can be safely omitted is increased. --Whitehorse1 22:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't this be addressed through the external link guideline, rather than what Wikipedia is not? Either way, I don't think it will greatly reduce the number of such links added to articles, only provide support for their deletion because the most prolific linkers of these sources are new and anonymous users, who are usually unaware of policy. -- Kjkolb 03:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, this is not needed. It already is covered under existing external links and WP:NOT directory of links guidelines. Davodd 22:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Convention for the use of †

Hi and sorry if this might be the wrong place, I've been looking around for some time and couldn't find a better place to ask this question.

I found this convention Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates of birth and death but couldn't find a discussion where this convention was agreed upon. Has the use of † to indicate a person's date and place of death (as seen on de:) ever been discussed on the English Wikipedia? If yes, could you show me where this discussion can be found? Thanks for any help (including moving the question to the right place, if this shouldn't be it). -- Hey Teacher 09:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Ellywa seems to have a copy of two old discussions on her userpage. Wikipedia:Village pump/August 2003 archive 2 also mentions it. Shimgray | talk | 14:53, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Shimgray, thanks for showing me those two discussions. Everyone else: do you know of any more discussions concerning the use of † ? -- Hey Teacher 18:35, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

It was debated back in 2004-2005 with the consensus not to use the "†" symbol to mark deaths for a variety of reasons (although use as a voluntary marking for a footnote was acceptable). The most popular reasons not to use it were: Apparent institutionalized western cultural/Christian religious bias and the conclusion that the symbol is a form of jargon that is not readily understandable by a good portion of the audience. The consensus then was "died" or YYYY-YYYY was more understandable and less confusing/offensive than "†." - Davodd 22:52, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

'This is not a Policy' template?

There are several pages in the Wikipedia name-space that describe standards or practices, but have never been through the policy creation process. Some times these are incorectly used as if they were policy. for example, Wikipedia:What is a featured article?. Can I sugest a template similar to the current policy templates to highlight that the page is not policy. This would also give weight to making policy through the normal 'propose then find consensus' way. (For instance, Wikipedia:What is a featured article? should have gone through this process, but never did.) --Barberio 14:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Alternativly, altering of {{Essay}}{ to be more suitable for pages like Wikipedia:What is a featured article? which keep being used as if they were policy. --Barberio 14:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Bad idea and even worse example; Wikipedia:What is a featured article? is policy as far as what is allowed to be a featured article. --mav 17:16, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

If it's a policy, it should have gone through the normal process that other policy went through. --Barberio 18:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

It did go throught the normal process: as the concept of featured articles has evolved, so has the critera for what constitutes a featured article. --Carnildo 22:53, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

What to do with dicdef slang lists.

Please refer to Talk:List of gay slang words and phrases#Future of the gay slang list - Should this be merged back into gay slang and if so or if not, how can we make it comply with WP:V and WP:NOR? Also, should the list in some form be moved to Wiktionary or Wikibooks since WP is not a dictionary or slang usage guide (WP:NOT). - Davodd 18:38, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:10, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

One-shot things

Alot of articles i'm involved with are filled with irrelevant info about one-shot events/characters, and even if they're removed, editors will come back and add it. For example, in The Andy Milonakis Show, I reverted an edit that said "In one episode, he asks St. Andrew's Head (an angelic head that resembles Andy's head) about where his shoes are, then Andy punches St. Andrew's Head in the chin after helping him". This was a 30 second skit that had no effect or relevance on the series. Here is a fine example of what i'm talking about. --Philo 13:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that articles about TV series and the like are written by their fans, and that for fans of such a subject any aspect or detail of it is noteworthy. Wikipedia is to a very large extent a Fancruftopedia. -- Hoary 14:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

>>Wikipedia is to a very large extent a Fancruftopedia.<< You can say that again. I used to spend a large amount of time in the Articles for Deletion, but I was just getting worked up, and there was always one more piece of cruft to delete. So I eventually decided to spend that time editing the more traditional types of articles. I wish you luck, Philo. 16:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

It's hard to say what characters should be mentioned in an article about a TV show. At least it's not a separate article (I hope!). -- DavidH 00:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It's this sort of dicussion that sickens and disheartens me. I cannot express my indignation at the foolishness, arrogance, bias, and pure hipocrisy displayed in the above comments. I'll address your points, in turn.

• "It seems to me that articles about TV series and the like are written by their fans, and that for fans of such a subject any aspect or detail of it is noteworthy.". Aww, lovely. You imply that any fan of any television show cannot write proper encyclopedia articles. If I were to imply the same thing about anyone interested in any area of politics I'd be drawn and quartered, tarred and feathered. But you're able to get away with it because it's about pop culture. I wasn't aware that contributors to pop culture articles are allowed to be personally attacked.

• And then, even better, you pull out the old favorite, "fancruft". Fancruft exists. But it has now became shorthand to attack and denigrate the contributions of others because one are not interested in the subject.

• ">>Wikipedia is to a very large extent a Fancruftopedia.<< You can say that again. I used to spend a large amount of time in the Articles for Deletion, but I was just getting worked up, and there was always one more piece of cruft to delete. So I eventually decided to spend that time editing the more traditional types of articles. I wish you luck,". So rather than attempting to improve, or discuss merging of these articles, you instead try to get them deleted. Apparently you viewed this as a crusade against so-called "fancruft". I can only imagine that you did not do a grand ammount of research prior to making these nominations. Nothing personal, mind you—The vast majority of deletion nominations are poorly researched, and pop culture-related ones even less so.

• "It's hard to say what characters should be mentioned in an article about a TV show. At least it's not a separate article (I hope!).". Oh, how grand! You offer no solution whatsoever to the problem, and instead attack and denigrate the practical, logical, and overall excellent method of splitting off lists of characters so they don't clutter up the article. This is totally inexplicable, but I can only imagine that it's because you are personally not interested in the subject. For whatever reason, you believe pop culture is exempt from the standards and practices of all other articles, for no other reason than that it's popular culture. That's biased, hypocritical, and to be blunt, absurd.

In short, I can only wish that at some point, people will understand that pop culture articles are encyclopedic, that the same standards of detail and coverage apply to them as all other articles, and that the contributors to those articles deserve the same respect and appreciation as the contributors to any others. Fortunately, the people who do realise far outweigh those who don't. I can only hope that eventually everyone will.--Sean Black ^(talk?) 01:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Well now. I don't see anything in my comment above that should be characterized as "attack and denigrate." I don't happen to believe articles about each individual fictional character on most TV shows are appropriate in an encyclopedia. Madame Bovary, maybe; crewmembers on Star Trek, not so much. I don't consider your opinion absurd, but that's what you've called mine, as well as "hypocritical" (have I contributed to articles that makes my statement above hypocritical?) -- and that's a bit uncivil I think. The fact is, when there is scholarly research or other independent verifiable evidence of a wider cultural impact on which to write, that's one thing. Articles simply about what characters did on which episode of a TV show is not up to encyclopedic standards, in my opinion. Call it absurd, but I'm not the only one with this absurdist view. DavidH 08:31, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

How to avoid a list being a copyvio?

I ran across something on articles for deletion which was a chronological list of comic books featuring a comic book character. One reason for deletion was a copyvio. There was no reference - I don't know if it was cut and pasted directly from another website. Assuming it wasn't but this list already existed on a fansite somewhere and was used as a reference, how do you have the same list without it being a copyvio? There is not more than one way to construct this list. So is the best way to just present a link to that fansite, and avoid any infringement? Hope this wasn't too muddled. --Joelmills 23:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Some things, like the Periodic table are scientific fact and thus uncopyrightable and thus in the public domain. But as for the fancruft...cite the fan site as a source and move on. The only way to list that is in order, and that's the same no matter who's giving the info. So that shouldn't be a reason. Fancruft may be one, but...--HereToHelp 00:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

There are some murky areas. Suppose I find a list, copy it and make a few additions and corrections. Is that still a copyvio? - Runcorn 05:39, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

A list of facts, per se, cannot be copyrighted. A chronological list of comic books featuring a comic book character cannot be copyrighted. If, however, there were comments included in the list, those would be copyrightable. There have been several discussions lately concerning such things as "Top 100 movies of all time as chosen by the editors of xyz magazine". Those are copyrighted, because they're the intellectual property of the magazine who made the list. But "Top 100 movies of all time as chosen in a public poll" might not be copyrightable. Recently the Writers Guild came out with their top screenplays of all time. I made a couple of small mentions of the poll, but did not write an article about the poll itself, because the information is copyrighted to the Guild. User:Zoe|^(talk) 16:06, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

If you copy a substantial amount of someone else's work you violate their copyright. If in the example first given, you research and create a chronological list of comic books featuring a comic book character, then it is your work and doesn't violate copyright. If you simply copy and paste a list from another site, you violate their copyright, even though you end up with exactly the same list. If you did your own research and were charged with violation, you would be able to prove (by citing your original sources, for example) that it was your own work. Sometimes commercial organisations deliberately insert "mistakes" into lists and directories, so that if their list is copied, they can show that it was theirs, as the "mistakes" would also have been copied. If someone researched the same data themselves from independent sources, then the "mistakes" would not be there. Tyrenius 15:04, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales comments: policy or opinion?

The Wikipedia page on policy and guidelines says that one way that policies are decided, are by Jimbo himself.

Does Jimbo have to physically update the policy page himself for his word to become law, or do his mailing list comments on policy clarification carry equal weight, or does the community have to decide on his comments and have a consensus? --Iantresman 21:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Normally, Jimbo makes it clear when he is speaking in policy-creating mode, wherever he might do that. When he does do that, it doesn't really matter how or where he does it. At other times, he's speaking as an editor, but as a clearly influential one whose opinion should be taken very seriously indeed. Some actions of his are considered executive decisions: most particularly when he presses an admin button. This is because he only takes an admin action very occasionally, and usually to directly remedy a situation. A recent case with a lack of clarity was the establishment of WP:CSD#T1. I think that most admins/editors considered him to be speaking ex cathedra, and the speedy criterion has consistently stuck in some form or another. An example where it is a non-binding opinion is the thorny question of Wikipedia:Notability. Jimbo's not a fan of it, but that doesn't stop people relying on it with frequency in an AfD. This reliance is controversial to say the least: many people cite Jimbo's not-a-fan-ness but it doesn't really stop or decide the issue. -Splash^talk 22:04, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

So do you think that Jimbo's message concerning NPOV being "absolute and non-negotiable" here be considered such an example?

And likewise, these similar messages on NPOV clarification here and here? --Iantresman 22:52, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe he should be more clear about when he is speaking ex cathedra? For great justice. 00:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

After the page on Papal infallibility:

1. . "the Wikipedia Pontiff"
2. . "speaks ex cathedra" ("that is, when in the discharge of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Wikipedians, and by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority….")
3. . "he defines"
4. . "that a policy concerning editing or discussion"
5. . "must be held by the whole Wikipedia" (after Pastor Aeternus, chap. 4.)

How about that? For great justice. 00:37, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

See also m:benevolent dictator --Francis Schonken 20:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

In response to the listserv messages: the first (that NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable") is a description of preexisting Foundation policy, I believe. For Wikipedias of all languages, NPOV, verifiability, and WP:NOR are all Foundation-mandated, IIRC, of course along with legal issues and the like. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I read all that somewhere authoritative. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Archaic style

The manual of style appears mute on the question of archaisms in WP articles. It doesn't cover people using archaisms in running article text: "Brewing hath much to do with sugars". (The manual does treat international variation, and I think that its suggestions there are appropriate, but this is not the same as archaism. Or even dialect for that matter.)

One would think that it would be evident that the encyclopedia is interested in having readable text in modern english. Sadly, however, this is not the case. A debate/edit war about this is currently ongoing (regarding spelling Egypt as Ægypt) and with no style guideline on archaism it is hard to improve the article.

Would editors support adding something to the manual of style along the lines of: "Wikipedia strives to create a readable encyclopedia in modern english. Archaic terms can reduce the general accessibility of the encyclopedia, therefore where editors disagree about the use of these terms it is best to err on the side of not using them." -- cmh 22:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. The "en" means modern English, not whatever archaic English one can dredge up. Exotifying names like Egypt -> Ægypt also smells of POV to me.

Probably a clarification at the bottom of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling) would suffice. Melchoir 23:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Has there been an incident in which the editors of an article reached a consensus to write in anything other than modern English? If not, I see no need for this instruction creep. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 00:01, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

A debate/edit war about this is currently ongoing (regarding spelling Egypt as Ægypt) and with no style guideline on archaism it is hard to improve the article. -- cmh 03:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

We don't need a specific policy against every disruptive activity a fertile mind can come up with. Just revert disruptive changes until the disruption stops. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:23, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, there is also the article Æ, which has a title consisting solely of an archaic letter, and which has survived several attempts to move it to "Ash" or "Aesc" or anything that does not violate WP:UE. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:01, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I suggest recourse to WP:AN. This is blatantly against consensus, and disruptively so. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:04, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Religions Affiliations

Wikipedia finds that various Religious groups, however big or small, are complete trash if they don't thousands of people. For example, my article on Hongwei Teh has been removed several times. Though not exactly a religion, it is a practice. It was formed at Lisgar Collegiate Institute this year, and helps students contemplate and live life. It calms people down. Though not a registered school club, there are many followers, mostly grade nine. Wikipedia is the new Google. We want everyone in the world to embrace peace, and that's what Hongwei Teh preaches. This is why we want our article to be reinstated. So you guys should fix your Deletion Policy--MUBOTE 01:42, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, unless there have been other people writing about the movement there's no way to fact-check such an article (this clashes with WP:V) and that would mean anything you write about the movement is your own descriptions (this clashes with WP:OR). These are both foundational policies in Wikipedia, which means that they are essential to how the encyclopedia is run. Can I recommend that you find press articles, published books, and the like to support the inclusion of such an article? Best, Ziggurat 01:47, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not the new Google, a site that sorts and searches preexisting data indiscriminately; it's the new Encyclopaedia Britannica, a site that collects and organizes neutral and factually-verifiable information (or at least it aims to be). It also, by the way, has no particular opinion on the merits of peace, if that's what you meant to imply. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:17, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Ph D Points

Dear Wikipedia:

Although I know that Wikipedia is becoming one of the most esteemed resources on the internet for research, I had a spontaneous wacky idea that could ensure authenticity of articles. Each wikipedia article could have "Ph D points." People who have graduated any school with a Ph D can become wikipedia members, and endorse articles that they feel are at their best and 100% accurate. And of course, someone who has a Ph. D in medieval art cannot endorse an article about latinamerican politics in the 90s. Doctors of Philosophy will be categorized into the same categories that articles are in, so that Ph D points are accurately representative of the endorsers' knowledge of the field. So the article with the most Ph D points would have the best credibility as opposed to some controversial or questionable ones with less. This would also ease school teachers' worries about their students getting false information off the internet.

It's just an idea, but please respond with your thoughts.

Sincerely, Daniel Wininger, NY

Well, what if I endorse an article, but someone later replaces it with crap? Or should I have to re-endorse every article when someone fixes a typo? I don't think your idea works with a Wiki. It could work with a static mirror (and in fact this might be a potential added-value service...venture capitalists take notice!), but it conflicts with the Wiki concept.--Stephan Schulz 10:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It probably wouldn't work here, but you're free to start your own site and use our content in this way. That's why it's licensed the way it is. There are various proposals for static versions that it might fit into, too. — Omegatron 12:02, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

For starters... there is no way to know who any Wikipedia really is, or what their credentials are. I can say "I have a Ph. D." but how would you or anyone else know whether or not I really do?

One of the most educational things about Wikipedia is that it forces you to ask questions about the reliability of articles... questions which you should be asking about information you get from other encyclopedias, textbooks, newspapers... and anywhere else.

We already have mechanisms which IMHO are much better than "Ph. D. points," namely the policy on verifiability and the guidelines on citing sources and reliable sources.

When you look at a Wikipedia article, the first thing you should notice is whether or not it cites sources for the facts it presents.

Getting more Wikipedia articles into line with the verifiability policy (which, at the moment, is honored mostly in the breach) would do more to improve the reliability of articles than trying to establish social hierarchies and ranking schemes for the personal authority of contributors. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

P. S. It's amusing to contemplate how a system of Ph. D. points might deteriorate in practice. Should a Ph. D. from Lacrosse University get as many points as one from Harvard? Dpbsmith (talk) 12:23, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

There are certain Wiki communities where only qualified individuals may register and edit articles. There's a medical wiki where only registered physicians may become members (its name escapes me at the moment). Shawnc 21:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

We tried something like this. We called it Nupedia. It sucked. -lethe ^{talk +} 01:17, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Talk pages: what is appropriate

What do people think of things like this being written on talk pages? Nothing encyclopedic, just someone expressing his hostility to the subject of the article and being vaguely mean to those who feel otherwise. Especially given that it is anonymous (so it doesn't usefully give anyone an insight into the character of the contributor who wrote it), should we just delete it (and things like it)? It's hard to see how it is helpful in the project. If we were getting a lot of this, I'd say that we clearly should sweep it away to get it out of the way. Even as it is, keeping it seems to encourage more. But it's not (for example) into the realm of blatant hate speech that I would more readily delete. Thoughts? - Jmabel | Talk 03:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Just leave it alone and no one respond. Most trolls become less active when they are simply ignored. JoshuaZ 03:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd call that vandalism / a personal attack ... but if I were you I'd just leave it. It seems to be feeding the trolls to delete remarks like that--just ignore it and go on. AmiDaniel (Talk) 03:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with JoshuaZ and AmiDaniel. - Runcorn 12:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Either delete or ignore. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:MUSIC question

WP:MUSIC outlines the notability requirements for musical-type things. It doesn't have any guidelines for members of groups, though. Just the groups themselves. Am I to assume that if a group is notable, each of its members are as well? Jesuschex 20:31, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. --Osbus 20:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

No. A group member's notability would be subject to WP:BIO (WP:MUSIC doesn't change that). Example:

• Whether The Hanover Band deserves a separate wikipedia article would be assessed by WP:MUSIC
• Whether Roy Goodman (a regular conductor of that band), Caroline Brown, or any of the dozens of other people that regularly perform in the band or are associated with it would get a separate wikipedia article falls under WP:BIO.

--Francis Schonken 11:21, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

If the individual members aren't notable enough for their own article, you can include bios within the main article for the group. 15:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tyrenius (talk • contribs)

Yeah, of course, forgot to mention that option. But keep an eye on article size and space and balance in that case. So I'd say "short" bios, and: where relevant (e.g. when that person was a part of several bands that have a wikipedia article, don't put the bio details about that person's student years in the article on the xth band he was a member of, but in the article of the band he was a member of in his student years; don't start bio's on all musicians in an orchestra; etc... all pretty self-evident I think). And of course: keep it verifiable --Francis Schonken 17:00, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:DDGLO

This page, the fruition of a proposal here, is strangely uncontested. In fact, discussion has all but died, and there is consensus to ratify it. What now? Do we give it more time? (Understandable; it's only been around for a few days.) I could not find documentation for the final step of officially making something a guideline. Do I just swith out the templates?--HereToHelp 03:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Basically, yes. I suggest giving it a little longer yet, since there's no hurry. Look for talk pages that interested people might frequent and leave notes there. Give it a week or so, then announce your intention on the talk page to make it official in X days (another week, maybe) if the consensus still exists at that point. Then, if that's the case, do it. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:42, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

You may want to keep WP:WOTTA in mind -- you won't get anybody excited about your proposal if they have no idea what it is. For those who want to know, the proposal's title is "Discuss and draft graphical layout overhauls". rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 21:45, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:RS

Medical - I suggest that the policy explicitly list some sources as reliable. I suggest that at least PubMed, Cochrane Collaboration and some major magazines (Maybe also HONCode??) be included in the list. In a discussion with Alternative/Complimentary health care providers, there is no way to persuade them that these sources are reliable (even though they are considered reliable by most of the scientific world). Their argument is, that all or most of the published studies are subjective in interpretation, and they frequently insist on using sources which they consider reliable, i.e. publications of their profession's members. See Talk:Chiropractic for details. ackoz 14:27, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I second the motion! Quackwatch has excellent information and links to it are constantly being deleted by promoters and defenders of dubious and dangerous methods. Here is an excellent defense of Quackwatch:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Whaleto#Outside_view_by_Askolnick

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Whaleto&diff=next&oldid=48703302

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Whaleto&diff=next&oldid=48711449

--Fyslee 23:31, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. It may be worth collecting together the attacks that are recycled against it despite being demolished each time, into an RFC or essay on it. Midgley 12:04, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Suggested generalization: A list of frequently referenced, acknowledged as reliable, websources. Since websources are frequently disputed, a general consensus list (with nothing added without approval on its talk page) would be highly useful. It could be a subpage of WP:RS (obviously it would need a massive disclaimer that not being on the list did not exclude a websource from being reliable).

I have detailed knowledge of at least one case where the Cochrane review is completely bogus (the reviewers based the review largely on their own work, with figures never duplicated by any other group, and excluded by design any dissenting views). The problem is not with the sources themselves, or their reliability, but with the refusal of complimentary practitioners and their supporters to accept assessment of their work by the traditional medical world. Adding a list of reliable medical sources will not change that, their problem is not with the reputation of the sources but with the fact that they are "allopaths". So for my money this is instruction creep to no good purpose. WP:RS already makes it unambiguously plain that the source publications on Medline are considered reliable sources per policy. Just zis Guy you know? 08:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Guy. PubMed is a good way to find a RS but not everything on it is a RS by any means; not everything is peer reviewed, not every journal is of high standing etc etc. WP existing policy is good - best RS are recent, peer reviewed secondary cources (reviews) published in high standing international journals. Just keep insisting that these are the top of the tree, and can only be displaced by something better. Quackwatch is a good source for information and for opinion and interpretation, but a bad site to quote for facts because the facts might appear as coming from a site tainted by opinion - why quote a source that might be perceived as being biased when there is an alternative?. Quote the original RS instead for facts.Gleng 14:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. This same problem exists in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Whaleto; John posts links to sources mirrored on his own site but surrounded by other data of a massively less reliable and often highly unreliable nature. Best to cite the original source journal. PubMed/Medline is not a source anyway, it's a database of sources. A link to PubMed should IMO only be posted when the source journal does not make abstracts available online. But you can cite every medical journal in the world and it won't cut any ice with some people, because they believe that the conventional medical profession has a vested interest and therefore any traditional medical journal is inherently biased. Just zis Guy you know? 17:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:13, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Narrowly targetted pronoun policy

I know that there has been some debate about the use of appropriate pronouns on articles. I have no interest in restarting it, because I don't think it will get resolved. Instead, I would like to suggest that we have a policy, like the spelling or BC/BCE policy, which prohibits needlessly changing pronoun usage. In particular, I would suggest that generic "he", "she", and "they" be allowed. Unlike the BC/BCE standard, I would suggest that alternating between generic he/she be acceptable. (By this I don't mean awkward phrasings like "Suppose there was a person, she ate food and then he got sick". Rather I mean choosing a single sex for a particular example and using it consistently, and then choosing a different sex for a different example.)

The policy would say that changing from one accepted form to the other, without any external justification could be reverted. Changing the wording of the sentence so as to avoid the need for generics would be allowable. I add the "without any external justification" with specific cases in mind. For instance, in Ultimatum game there are two people. I orginally wrote the entry to make one a man and one a woman, which aids in parsing the sentences. More than once this has been changed, to the detriment of the article (I claim).

I would like to have this policy because I use a particular style, common in many academic fields, of starting with a generic "he" or "she" and alternating. I find it particularly frustrating when people come and change wording. This is especially frustrating when they make changes inconsistently (i.e. changing all the "her"s to "they"s but leaving the "his"s or changing only one "her" to "his"). But its equally frustrating when they only edit to change one acceptable form to another for reasons about which I will not speculate.

This, I believe is already policy. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Disputes_over_style_issues. Nonetheless, I would like the "acceptable" forms codified so that needless debate does not ensue.

Before anyone gets too angry at it, let me say I hate the singular they as much as the next gal. I try to avoid it when I can. It is an unfortunate part of our langauge that is here to stay, and I think including it would be an important part of a compromise. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 23:13, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The position in English law is that, where the context so requires or admits, the masculine pronoun covers the feminine too. While this is a nice, simple policy, I realise that many people don't like it. - Runcorn 05:37, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of its merits, such a policy will not gain consensus support. I think it would be better to find a compromise. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 07:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, this is not an English legal document. Comprimise is not what we should be looking for, a sensible solution is. Picking some random gender per example would make sense. --Improv 23:45, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I oppose the use of "she" when used to describe hypothetical people in a gender-neutral situation. I don't believe this usage has ever been standard, and it's jarring to get halfway into a description about, for instance, what a generic scientist might do in some situation, and then see "the scientist" referred to as "she" when the author first ran into a sentence where not using any pronoun would be too repetetive. I've nothing against females being scientists or whatever else, but by convention in English it simply sticks out too much (and I actually know some women that strongly agree). Also, it just gets distracting when the gender alternates back and forth, example after example. I would say, either use "they", or possibly "he", or get more creative with the sentence structure to avoid needing any pronouns. –Tifego^(t) _{08:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC)}

I'm sorry that you find it jarring. Nonetheless, I believe it is acceptable practice. This link that I provided above is from the Chicago manual of style, at the bottom the writer indicates this is a standard some authors adopt. Since this is an manual of style, I take this to indicate that it is acceptable form. It is not uncommon in philosophy publications for this to be used. For instance, in her Lakatos Lecture (a big award in philosophy of science) Penelope Maddy adopts this standard. (In fact, she uses it in other publications too.) This is by far not unique to her, and if need be, I'll track down many other cases. The fact of the matter is it is common and acceptable practice in the english language. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 16:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes alternation is reasonably natural and works, more often it isn't and doesn't. (At least with no page breaks, we will be spared using one form on even pages and the other on odd.) Saying that an editor can't change an alternation just because he thinks it doesn't work is like telling her that he can't edit. Seriously, you can't legislate writing skill or common sense. Robert A.West (Talk) 04:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I have seen some writers deliberately oscillate between using male and female pronouns when referring to hypothetical people in books. This style works quite well (as long as one gender is used consistently to refer to a particular hypothetical person within a single section of the larger work), but can be quite disconcerting to those not familiar with it. --4.246.36.59 08:01, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Robert, I'm afraid I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying that we should include the alternating style that you've parodied? If this is an argument against having a policy, I don't get it. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 22:38, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a wider issue. People often go to the article only to change it to their prefered style of writing. Changing he to they and back, changing sentences with serial commas to senences without them, changing names with diacitics to names without and back. I do not like it. I believe that when you have nothink to add you should not change the article. It does not involve improving the style or spelling when it is objectively wrong, but there are many situations when there are more correct ways of saying things.

I would say that this is closely related to the NPOV policy. If people believe that "they" is better then "he", it is their POV. Their are free to use the spelling in their own articles, but they should not push it to all articles. It is just normal POV pushing. My recomandation is: "Do not go to the article only to change from one POV of correct writing to the other POV" --Jan Smolik 12:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Barely used aristocratic titles in the header of articles

Apparently people at Wikipedia:WikiProject Peerage have decided for the whole of Wikipedia that any person who has an aristocratic title, even if they never use it should have the title in bold right at the beginning of the article as in Jamie Lee Curtis who currently has Jamie Lee Haden-Guest, Baroness Haden-Guest right at the beginning, neither the surname nor title she ever uses. I find this completely inappropriate but I would welcome wider community input on this. Arniep 16:23, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

The name in bold should in general be the same as the name of the article, maybe with the addition of middle names. I am dubious about the bolding of "Sir" at the beginning of a name, though there is a good case for it. If the person has a title, it should of course be mentioned upfront, but not as the main name. Jamie Lee Curtis is an excellent example. - Runcorn 18:18, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Someone has changed it to "Jamie Lee Curtis (born November 22, 1958), by marriage having the seldom-used title Jamie Lee Haden-Guest, Baroness Haden-Guest". My question is if the title and name are never used and are insignificant to her life why do they need to be in bold in the header? Arniep 22:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Bold text in the intro paragraph is WP shorthand for other words/phrases that mean the same as the title - it is usually the result of an editor acknowledgment of a redirect page going to the current article (although that doesnt apply here). - Davodd 22:41, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this sort of thing should be determined on a case-by-case basis. It seems perfectly fine, for example, to begin the Paul McCartney article with "Sir James Paul McCartney, OBE...", but the Jamie Lee Curtis thing noted above is just ridiculous. dbtfz^talk 22:53, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

In a case where someone is always known by his middle name, I'd suggest putting the first name in brackets: "Sir (James) Paul McCartney" to emphasise that nobody cals him James. - Runcorn 08:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Unneeded, as this should be clear from the article title. And it should be expected that people are not necessarily known by the first of a number of given names. It is quite common, and I see no reason to divert from normal style in those cases. Tupsharru 06:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Using excerpts from WP in a non-free work?

A friend of mine is preparing a non-fiction book for publication, and I thought that Wikipedia would be a great source for the book's yet-to-be-written glossary. I thought that having WP as a major source in a book from a well-known publisher would be great for WP's reputation, and might encourage the book's readers to use WP. I hoped that many entries in the glossary could be verbatim excerpts of a few sentences from the corresponding article on WP.

Of course, I'd release the glossary under the GFDL. In addition to appearing in the book, a copy of the glossary could be posted online, linking back to the full entries on WP. (The site's URL, of course, would be published in the book.) This seemed like a great way to introduce the general public (or at least the book's readers) to the idea of free resources.

However, it seems that under the GFDL, if we do this, then the entire book must be released under the GFDL... not to mention that, with small but significant snippets from dozens of articles, the attributions would be longer than the copied text. Unfortunately, making the whole book free is not an option in this case.

If, instead, we paraphrase and summarize all of the information we get from WP (just like we would from any other source), it becomes uniquely our own, but then we're not exposing people to the wonders of free resources... which to me is really the point!

So is there any way to use parts of Wikipedia articles in one chapter of a book, or in this case just an appendix, without releasing the whole book under the GFDL?

--Josh 05:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, certain limited quotation is "fair use". --Davidstrauss 08:42, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

True, but having big chunks of Wikipedia text making up an entire section of the work probably moots that. If they were to use one or two definitions in an appropriate context there could be a 'fair use' argument; building the entire glossary almost certainly fails the test.

I'm not sure about releasing just the glossary under the GFDL. It might be possible. I recall seeing a few years ago a magazine article about OpenCola. In order to reprint the OpenCola recipe in the article, the article was released under GFDL; the rest of the magazine issue remained under the conventional, restrictive license. The specific part of the GFDL that applies is 7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS, which in part reads:

A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document.

I'm not sure whether something like that could be done here—I'm not an expert in copyright law, and the situations aren't precisely parallel. You would have to be able to describe the glossary as an 'independent work'—a characteristic that's easily understood for separate magazine articles by different authors, but perhaps more legally 'gray' for book chapters. Your best bet is to contact the Wikimedia Foundation directly; they should be able to give an idea of what you can and can't do. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:57, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that works well. The book itself is a compilation of essays by different authors, so each chapter is as much an independent work as the articles in a magazine are. So it looks like this would be allowed. --Josh 23:53, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Template for medical conditions

Feedback on Wikipedia:WikiProject Clinical medicine/Template for medical conditions would be welcomed. --Arcadian 13:15, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:10, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Simpliyfing Policy Change Process

I've noticed how difficult it is to propose a new policy or modifying an existing one. First, you have to go the the Village Pump, and you have to sort through a ton of other policies before you can find the one you are looking for. There is no search engine (or something like a search engine) specifically for the Village Pump so that changing policies becomes an easier process. Additionally, there are numerous other ways to simplify the process. How about a 1 - 2 - 3 step process? For example, step #1 is finding the policy at issue, voicing your opinion, and then having a vote on it. There is no formal polling, and I am not even sure if someone tallies the votes to see if a proposed policy should be implemented or not. There is no one to supervise the process so that one could determine what policies should go into effect, and which ones should not go into effect. Also, exactly how many people does it take to get a policy to change? There is no word on that anywhere. Why isn't there something like a poll you see on many websites? Currently, you add your vote to your post, and other members have to go through your post to find your position on something. What about a status check on a proposal to see if it is headed somewhere, or if it has been rejected? Where I live, in the local government, there is a way for citizens to see if bills have gone through the state assembly, and check on the status. There is no status check here on Wikipedia. Come on, I can't be the only one frustrated with the current process.

Re-cap:

1. A polling system where members can vote on policies.
2. Status checks that tell one how far along a proposal is, and whether it has been implemented or rejected.
3. Setting up a 1-2-3 step process.
4. Providing a search engine one can use to sort through proposals.

Let me know what ya'all think. Stiles 03:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

That is not how Wikipedia works.

1. Wikipedia is not a democracy. Voting is evil.

2. A proposal is accepted or rejected once it is clear what the consensus is. Until then, it is under discussion.

The basic policies of Wikipedia are fundamental. An analogy would be the written constitution of a meatworld country. Such things are not changed easily, with good reason. The most basic policies of Wikipedia were established at the beginning, and are not really subject to change. Other policies and guidelines are an attempt to codify established practice of Wikipedia. They are not changed because a proposal gains the votes of a few editors. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 12:39, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I think people overstate the whole "Wikipedia is not a democracy" business myself, since it is a democracy when the Foundation doesn't step in—it's just a distinctly odd democracy, in certain respects rather unlike real-world democracies. Voting processes (which are conventionally called "polls", even though they aren't representative of the Wikipedia population—not that I wouldn't support a system to make them representative, but they currently aren't and never have been) are poorly-defined, often with no small degree of influence being given to one person or a few people who close the issue when the votes are over. Nevertheless, it still is a democracy of sorts once you put the Foundation to the side, and I find Wikipedians' opposition to the use of that term quite bizarre.

Anyway, to answer Stiles' question, part of the reason we don't have those things is that they would be a bother to implement software-wise when the current system basically works, and part of it is the seemingly widespread belief that "consensus" is or should be somehow different from "the stated support of a large percentage of Wikipedians". —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The difference is that consensus is when everyone agrees. In practice, this rarely happens, and so rough consensus is usually the fall-back. If this were actually a democracy, then 50%+1 would be enough to pass any measure, and that's not the case even if we did routinely poll everyone and made it representative. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:56, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Democracies often require supermajorities to do certain things; that none requires them for everything doesn't mean that one that does isn't a democracy. The fundamental character of a democracy is just that decision-making authority is vested, in general, in a large percentage of those affected rather than the very small percentage that makes decisions in dictatorships or other forms of government. My problem is with users who a) deny that our "polls" are, de facto, votes, and/or b) say polls are evil and then talk about proposals having to attain consensus. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:57, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Meh. Wikipedia is obviously very different than any democratic state or other meat-space decision body which has come before, which is the only context that political theory about democracy has been able to develop. Wikipedia doesn't function on canvassing the opinions of all or even a representative portion of the users; rather, it gets decisions made by applying many brains to a problem until a good resolution bubbles to the top and is recognised. I think calling it a democracy fails to accurately capture all relevant aspects of the "political" system of Wikipedia. If people want to call it one because it's the closest label that kind of fits, they're welcome to. — Saxifrage ✎ 04:39, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:12, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Apparent contradiction in copyright terms?

According to Wikipedia:Copyrights "Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts."

Alternately, whenever someone adds content to Wikipedia, it says underneath "Content must not violate any copyright and must be verifiable. You agree to license your contributions under the GFDL."

The issue is that the people are agreeing to release their entries under the full GPL GFDL while the Copyrights page says that Wikipedia texts are available under a restricted version of the GFDL, .

To further muddy the waters, the release statement links to the Copyright page (which includes the information that a restricted version of the GFDL is used) but in a different context ie. in the "do not violate copyright" context rather than the "this is the licence you're releasing under" context, making it arguably not required/expected reading before release like the GFDL link. Irrevenant 02:45, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

About the second problem: perhaps "copyright" should link to Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ instead of Wikipedia:Copyrights? Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ starts with the "do not violate copyright" context, and it's easier to read. Melchoir 07:36, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the Copyright FAQ appears not to say anything about invariant sections et. al. either; only Wikipedia:Copyrights. As I see it there are basically two issues: (a) update the release statement to release under the restricted GFDL (probably by pointing at a new disclaimer page rather than directly at the GFDL) and (b) figure out what to do about the stuff already released under the standard GFDL. Irrevenant 11:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, GFDL is by no way the same as "full GPL". Is that perhaps the origin of your misunderstanding (in fact I don't understand what you misunderstand... the wording you use to explain your alleged problem are anyway self-contradictory - that doesn't help others to understand what you think is going wrong)? Note also that both GPL and GFDL currently use the copyright mechanism. Without copyright... no GPL, nor GFDL. And that's also a copyright you're not allowed to violate when adding content to wikipedia. Copyrights of GFDL'ed or GPL'ed content can be violated when adding them to wikipedia (typically, e.g., by not mentioning the source of such copylefted sources, or other abuses of the license conditions of the original source). Wikipedia's copyright conditions include not to allow invariant sections et.al. to be imported in wikipedia (which is Wikipedia's copyright conditions). You have a problem with that? In that case: don't contribute. The copyright terms are explained in wikipedia:copyrights, which is linked from every content page, including in edit mode (so never say of a wikipedia content page that it doesn't link to its copyright terms, or that different pages link to different copyright conditions). Also, if the following would have been your problem: "full GFDL" implies that the publisher of the source indicates if there are invariant sections et. al.: "full GFDL" assumes there to be none of such sections if not mentioned... adding invariant sections etc. is a restriction of the full GFDL conditions. --Francis Schonken 12:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Apologies, I never meant "GPL". That was an (unfortunately very misleading) typo; it should have read "GFDL" all the way through. The problem as I understand it is this:

(a) When you submit text to Wikipedia, you agree to do it under the complete text of the GFDL ie. you automatically agree to allow invariant sections in derivative works.

(b) The Copyrights page states that Wikipedia Texts are released under the GFDL excluding invariant sections and cover texts. This is arguably freer (and IMO the best option for Wikipedia), but it adds conditions to the licence that contributors didn't agree to when they submitted the text. Irrevenant 00:52, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, you still appear somewhat confused to me...

• Section 4 of the GFDL says (among other things):

  If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant.

• If you don't comply to that, you don't comply to GFDL (the permission for derived works to add their own invariant sections is not something for which any type of exception is possible, as long as you say that you publish under GFDL).
• But you can say whether the original version has invariant et al. sections. You can even use the standard formulation for that, which is given in the "appendix" of the GFDL (How to use this License for your documents): "Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. [...]" - this is exactly the formulation wikipedia uses.

Note that there is a difference (and for all that I can see that is what your confusion stems from) between saying that your original document (in this instance wikipedia) "has no invariant sections", and forbidding derived documents to add their own invariant sections (which one can't forbid under GFDL, neither do the wikipedia copyright terms attempt that, by sticking rigorously to the copyright terms formulation advised in the GFDL document). --Francis Schonken 06:58, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that Wikipedia:Copyrights is illegal, since it forbids adding invariant sections. If you are correct about that (and I don't know enough legalese to confirm or deny), it should be changed, which will fix the inconsistency.

OTOH, we presumably still want text to be submitted under the conditions described at Wikipedia:Copyrights; otherwise people could conceivably declare their submissions to be invariant. Irrevenant 08:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

No, I only implied you were kinda clueless. Wikipedia:Copyrights uses the standard formulation advised in the GFDL, I even made a link to that part of the GFDL text above (repeating that link, non-piped: Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License#How to use this License for your documents). You still seem unable to make the difference between not having invariant sections in the original document (which is true for wikipedia and which is the most generic implementation of GFDL), and, on the other hand, not being allowed to forbid invariant sections being inserted in derived aka modified works that are published elsewhere (which the wikipedia:copyrights text doesn't forbid, nor would it be allowed to do so). So you can download the full wikipedia content, or as many separate pages you like (as laid down in Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks), and publish such content under GFDL applying invariant sections et al. where you like, according to the general GFDL provisions I quoted above (for clarity: here also the unpiped link: Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License#4. MODIFICATIONS). --Francis Schonken 10:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

You appear to have still misunderstood my point, so I'll clarify. Firstly: The issue is purely internal to Wikipedia and has nothing to do with publishing Wikipedia documents elsewhere. Secondly: The GFDL allows both verbatim copying and distribution of modified versions. The GFDL does not grant any right to modify the original document; only to distribute modified copies. As such, commiting a change to Wikipedia cannot be modifying the original, it must be releasing a derivative work (that wikipedia.org is graciously distributing for you). To restate: Current Wikipedia is a derived work built upon derived work many levels down to the original work. Thirdly: Wikipedia is stating that Wikipedia is free of invariant sections et. al. however, the derivative work (the commited change) was released under broader terms. Fourthly: This is an inconsistency. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know how much legal hassle this inconsistency causes (hopefully none) but it is an inconsistency and should be corrected. Irrevenant 11:49, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

oops, I'll restate: as far as I can see you're completely clueless. No offense intended. If this can be any comfort to you, you're not the first (nor will you probably be the last) struggling with the GFDL legalese.

• Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License#4. MODIFICATIONS is exclusively about publishing elsewhere (with regard to wikipedia: published *outside* the servers that can be reached by typing a "xx.wikipedia.org" webadress in your browser software that is connected to internet);

If you are correct about this, then noone is being granted licence to modify the work on Wikipedia and all the modifications are taking place without legal permission. That's a much bigger problem than the one I originally raised. Irrevenant 11:05, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

• For wikipedia, we're all working on the same *original*, that is a *database* somewhere located in Florida (or other places, depends on language too). When I click the "save page" button in a few seconds, I'll be modifying that original, and I'll not be (re)distributing a copy or a derivative work. I modify the "original". Before that modification, the "original" was different, and after the "save page" instruction initiated by me reaches the Florida servers, the previous version of the original will be outdated. By the time (for example) that someone downloads a database dump, that database dump will be a no longer up-to-date copy, while it is the "original" that is continuously modified (as can be followed in "recent changes").

Can you back this up? As far as I can see, the original is that document at the very beginning of the history. Irrevenant 11:05, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

• "The GFDL does not grant any right to modify the original document" – of course not, but that's how the wiki system works. It's not possible to build the content of a wiki-system without allowing to modify the original. So, indeed, no, the right to continously modify the original document (as long as you're not banned etc), does not *derive* from GFDL, it is *inherent* to a wiki-system. Your reasoning that we're not changing the "original" because of something-to-do-with GFDL, is incorrect.

Okay, this completely misses the point. Obviously the technical ability to modify the document comes from the wiki software. But I'm talking about the ability to legally modify the document. If that's not coming from module 4 of the GFDL, where is it coming from? Irrevenant 11:05, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Further, for wikipedia's *original*, the distributor always remains the same: the WikiMedia Foundation, Florida-based non-for-profit organisation. So, for these modifications of the original (a new version published every few milliseconds - or longer time-interval if considering publication by webpage) section 4 of the GFDL about modifications does not apply, while that section is only about modifications distributed by a different distributor: that section is written in the "you" form, where "you" is in that section described as the one "receiving" a *copy* of the original, and distributing that copy with or without modifications: editing wikipedia does not change the distributor, i.e. the Wikimedia Foundation, so section No. 4 of the GFDL has nothing to do with copy-editing the original. Section 4 of the GFDL is, for wikipedia, covered by what is explained in wikipedia:mirrors and forks (which is also a link I already gave above).

• What was correct in your previous remark is the end of it, where you come down to something like: the "no invariant et al. sections" provision of wikipedia's copyright document (as per standard GFDL implementation), avoids that invariant et al. sections are smuggled into the original. Such additional sections are only allowed for publications elsewhere, for wikipedia: outside the servers serving the WikiMedia wiki's.

Don't know if this helps. You're right anyhow, it has some (unavoidable) complexities. But no, there are no inconsistencies. --Francis Schonken 14:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I still see a problem. Francis doesn't. Can a third party please weigh in here? Otherwise this could go on indefinitely. Irrevenant 11:05, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, yeah, no problem, you've got your mind set to "seeing" a problem, even if there's none.

But what shocks me, is that you're not prepared to give Jimbo Wales, and the Wikimedia Foundation, and those who put their money in it (tax-deducible or not), any credit for doing something *in excess* of what is required by GFDL and underlying (copyright) laws, that is: opening some webservers and databases, and allow the content of these to be filled via a wiki system open to anyone who can connect to internet. No, you're not going to find in GFDL that they *have* to do that.

Don't put words in my mouth. Of course I credit Jimbo et. al. for going 'above and beyond'. I just want the legality of the whole project to be clear. For example, who owns the copyright on my contributions? Obviously, anyone's free to use them under the terms of the GFDL, but what if I want to reuse them personally under a different licence. If, as you say, the whole of Wikipedia is the original document (presumably copyright Jimbo Wales & Co.) then by contributing to their original am I giving them the copyright to my work? If I was releasing a derived work under the GFDL, then it would be clear; If the GFDL modification clause isn't in effect then what is the legal status of contributions? Irrevenant 01:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

GFDLed documents have been produced without wiki systems, just sending documents via e-mail, or placing them on static webservers (all of these are systems where you can exclusively work with copies of documents). GFDL does not imply you have to allow people to work on a common original document, and provide the infrastructure to have every modification distributed within milliseconds worldwide. The GFDL allows you by, among others, its 4th section to make a *copy* and distribute that copy, modified or not, with your own resources via the channels you think fit (like Wikinfo did). GFDL does *not* oblige the publisher of the original document to also distribute the modifications you and I make to it. But the Wikimedia Foundation does that. There's no law or license document that forces them to do that, but nonetheless they do.

Yes, I see you're going to continue to imply that it's the GFDL document that makes them do that. Sorry to disappoint you, it is only their free will, and no law or license document - well, that's where your reasoning takes a bad turn. --Francis Schonken 23:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

You keep trying to make this issue be about other things but it's honestly not that complicated; the question is simply on what legal basis are contributions to Wikipedia handled? And for all your lengthy commentary and personal insults you still haven't managed to (apparently) recognise, let alone answer that basic question. Irrevenant 01:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, sorry, no, it's you who complicate things:

• "Your reasoning that we're not changing the "original" because of something-to-do-with GFDL, is incorrect" (simple, no?)
  • Your answer: "Okay, this completely misses the point."
    • Sorry, my comment was spot-on. You're still looking for things in the GFDL that aren't there.
• Your question: "on what legal basis are contributions to Wikipedia handled?" has been handled long and in depth. It's only you that don't like the answers you've gotten, because you're craving for something more complex, and you've made it clear you won't rest before you've got this immersed in a multitude of redundant complexity.
  • Short answer to your question: see wikipedia:copyrights.
  • Somewhat longer answer: wikipedia:copyrights (in conjunction with the GFDL text linked from there) settles it all for contributions stored on the WikiMedia servers/databases. Section 4 of the GFDL has no effect on contributions sent to the WikiMedia servers/databases (while for these edits to the WikiMedia servers/databases it is not the "you" as described in the GFDL that becomes, in a legal sense, the distributor of the modified version). Section 4 of the GFDL relates to what is described in wikipedia:mirrors and forks.

Please proceed to find an answer different from the one I gave above, if you think there is a need to unnecessarily complicate things. --Francis Schonken 10:06, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay, let me take a shot at this. I'm not a GFDL expert, but from reading most everything (though skimming a lot), I think the source of the confusing lies in this passage: ""Permission is granted to copy... with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts." What I think might be the case from Mr. Schonken's position so far is that the "with no..." clause modifies what may be copied from Wikipedia, not what the copier may create themselves. So Irrevenant is concerned that the passage is forbidding the addition of invariant sections, front-cover texts, and back-cover texts, while what the passage is really saying is that no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts may be copied from Wikipedia.

Is this right? If so, the text for that notice that is recommended by the GFDL is really confusing, because Irreverant's reading is what I got from it too. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:36, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

There's more to it. The standard GFDL/copyright statement (which indeed might confuse if not reading the whole of the GFDL text, which is also legalese, but blame RMS/FSF for that),

[...]
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
[...]

ALSO implies that at no point in time there could be found Invariant Sections or Cover Texts in Wikipedia's content. While, if there would be Invariant Sections or Cover Texts in Wikipedia, the formulation would need to be different, still according to Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License#How to use this License for your documents:

If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the "with...Texts." line with this:

with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the

Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST.

If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation."

So you'd have to keep lists of these types of sections, which Wikipedia doesn't do currently. And certainly no copies of these lists are included in the copyright statement.

The problem is, that this also implies (as long as wikipedia keeps to the No Invariant Sections/No Cover Texts copyright statement) no (other) GFDL documents containing Invariant Sections or Cover Texts can be added to wikipedia, while Invariant Sections or Cover Texts remain Invariant Sections or Cover Texts when joined in another document. The only possibility (but then you'd need to be copyright owner of these documents or at least you'd need express permission by the copyright owner to do that) is to copy the text of such Invariant Sections or Cover Texts in Wikipedia agreeing that they lose their statute of being Invariant Sections or Cover Texts, while Wikipedia has no means to protect that statute ("invariant" means that that text should be "literally" kept in every copy of Wikipedia's content, and should be listed as such in the copyright statement; the same for Cover Texts – read the GFDL). Which doesn't happen. And that's why currently the copy of Wikipedia's content at the WikiMedia servers/databases can not accept "Invariant" or "Cover" content according to what these concepts mean in the GFDL.

Note that anybody can copy Wikipedia content, add Invariant or Cover matter according to the GFDL (section 4 et. al.) and distribute such modified versions. But that person can not impose on the Wikimedia Foundation to distribute such version that includes Invariant or Cover texts. Unless, when the GFDL/copyright statement of the WikiMedia projects would change so that the Invariant and Cover Texts are listed, and on top of that there would be a system with which to protect such content in designated places (won't happen in any foreseeable future afaik). --Francis Schonken 15:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle at play on Wikipedia

For reasons I cannot comprehend, the PR person for a new age website run by a former Playboy Playmate kept on removing the fact that the website sold e-mailed tarot card and "love" readings, claiming this was a lie, or that it was suggesting that the website's owner herself was soliciting the customers for the readings (whatever difference that made). After edit warring for awhile, the user account was blocked tonight (for trolling, disruptive threats, etc.), and shortly afterwards, the really interesting thing happened: the tarot card and love readings pages were actually removed from the website (compare the current page with the google cached version; the individual sales pages can be seen here: [2],[3]).

This was a silly dispute on the face of it, and I really can't fathom why a website would not want its business mentioned, and then actually remove the commercial solicitation from the website when it couldn't stop it from being mentioned. But I think it's an interesting consequence of writing an encyclopedia, for whatever inexplicable reason to instigate real-world change to what you're writing about. Postdlf 02:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know why this is on the policy Pump, but it's certainly funny. — Saxifrage ✎ 03:02, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I imagine it's the word "solicit" that had them in a tizzy, since "solicitation" (for prostitution) is a crime. Maybe they don't realize that "solicit" means other things and were worried about getting in legal trouble? They seemed comfortable with the word "offer." · rodii · 03:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

As to why I posted it here, aside from the entertainment value provided by yet another cautionary tale in Wikipedia conflicts of interest, I think there may be a further interesting issue. Assume that the website tarot card business was relevant and encyclopedic information to have in the article. The company, opposing its mention here for whatever reason, removed all mention of its business from its own website in response to that mention. What then should the article say about it? Would it be proper to mention the attempts to alter the article in the article in this case? Sure, it's a far cry short of the Seigenthaler controversy, but once again, assuming the information was encyclopedic in the first place, how do we now address and update that subject after we know Wikipedia changed it? Postdlf 04:09, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah, yes. My brain seems to be done for the day and just hurts thinking about that. — Saxifrage ✎ 04:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the way it works is, they no longer offer the tarot service, so we take it out of the article. Because of that, they restart the service--so we put it back in the article, so they take it out, so we take it out, so they put it in, so we put it in... eventually the sun explodes, snuffing out all life. That's my take on it, anyway. · rodii · 01:47, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

With a good night's sleep, that sounds fine to me. Except the sun-splodey part, but then you can't win 'em all. — Saxifrage ✎ 01:53, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Jiang

Jiang was reverting his user page and talk page to a state that, in my opinion, called disruption of Wikipedia. (See [4].) I am tempted to revert it, but I might very likely be block by either Jiang or Nlu. However, I would like opinions on this. Should his preferred version be allowed to stand? Is it a personal attack (albeit against a group (specifically an ethic group, not an individual), deserving consequences? Am I wrong about this? --Freestyle.king

Political expression on User pages is generally given a great amount of leeway. However (not reading the required language, I can't judge) if it it outright hateful then it probably merits action. Perhaps you should start an RfC to solicit comments on whether it's appropriate or violates any policies. Alternatively, you could ask administrators to look into it at the admin noticeboard. — Saxifrage ✎ 01:56, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Does this fit WP:RS and WP:V?

I would appreciate some comment on a current problem with the pages Sammy Davis, Jr. and Elvera Sanchez. Davis claimed in his lifetime that his mother was Puerto Rican, but that has quite convincingly shown not to be the case in a 2003 biography which was very well reviewed and seems to have been thoroughly researched [5]. His mother was in fact a New Yorker of Cuban heritage and said so herself. Two users have reverted my edits placing both Davis and his mother back in the Puerto Rican categories which to me seems just misleading given the research in the book. Arniep 12:49, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

There was also this comment made on the talk page of Sammy Davis by the niece of Jesús Colón. Arniep 12:58, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

According to the readings of V and RS that I've heard a number of editors give, Davis' statements are not considered any more reliable than some random blog and should not be given precedence over actually-verifiable sources. In this case, I would add something to the article like, "Though Davis' claimed his mother was Puerto Rican, her own statements and research by X showed that she was a New Yorker of Cuban descent," and remove the Puerto Rican categories. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:44, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely concur. Verifiability trumps "truth", suggest you use Saxifrage's excellent phrasing suggestion. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:48, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

...With the caveat that my phrasing suggestion assumed that there is a verifiable source for his mother's statement. Amend as necessary. — Saxifrage ✎ 21:18, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

It appears his mother may not have personally commented on her Cuban heritage to the author but the author says "Upon Elvera's death, her nieces and great-nieces related to me the story of the family’s Cuban history, which Sammy, for reasons I explain in the book, never talked about." [6]. It is not really credible that the Cuban info is incorrect as the other editors claim as the book was published in 2003 and no one has challenged it's conclusions since then. Arniep 01:16, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Copyvio on talk page?

Hi there:

I have a somewhat unusual situation. I have a copyright violation: the text of http://www.rockabillyhall.com/RobertMorris.html appears to have been copied to Talk:Robert Morris. I have treated this talk page as if it were an article in attempting to apply Wikipedia:Copyright problems, but some of the policies don't fit very well. In particular, {{copyvio}} seems to assume that the copyright occurs on the main article, not on the talk page.

I have subst'd the copyvio template into the talk page and then modified the resultant text to better fit the situation.

My questions:

• Am I doing the right thing here or should I have taken other actions?
• Are my changes to the copyvio text OK?
• Should we have a separate template for copyvios on talk pages?

— DLJessup (talk) 00:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

It's just a talk page, so I would imagine no special efforts need be made and it can just be removed. — Saxifrage ✎ 00:59, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Just to be clear: Are you saying that I can simply blank the talk page? If so, why aren't we concerned about the history, the way we would be if this were an article page?

— DLJessup (talk) 01:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

As it says in the instructions for articles in WP:CV,

# Revert the page to a non-copyrighted version if you can

The infringing text will remain in the page history for archival reasons unless the copyright holder asks the Wikimedia Foundation to remove it.

There is no inherent problem with the copyvio being in the history, unless the copyright holder complains about it. So I agree, just blank the page if you can't revert to a version without the copyvio. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 01:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Excellent! Thank you, Saxifrage and Donald Albury!

— DLJessup (talk) 11:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)