Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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Trigger Happy

Dear Administrator:

I, like you, am an editor; I create articles and make edits. But, many, I am sure many other people out there, are tired, frustrated and angry with the behavior of many Administrators. I am certain that it is appallingly easy to revert an article, that someone has undoubtedly spent allot of time and effort writing. I have, in the past spent hours, researching, planning, writing, checking and revising an addition to an article only to have the whole lot deleted forever three minutes afterwards.

I know that deletion of material is essential in a free-to-edit encyclopedia, but if you see an article that someone has anonymously devoted their time to writing, why could you not revise it, change it or give a reason for you action? They deserve one.

I know all Administrators are not all Drunk-With-Power-Trigger-Happy-Nazis, many of you do an excellent job and you know who you are.

In closing: Create, don’t Destroy. Make a distinction between “what is right, and what is easy”. Be enriched and enrich others with the knowledge of other people.

And keep that finger off the trigger.

Dfrg.msc 01:44, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

• Seconded. You've expressed very concisely my dissatisfaction with a number of editors over the past, not only administrators. Obviously the admin who is most guilty of this is Tony Sidaway. THE KING 15:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
  • KING, consider this a warning: stop making personal attacks. Even when I'm not the subject myself,[1] I still get rather tired of seeing you wage your campaign against Tony every opportunity you have. You've had numerous people tell you your conduct along these lines is unacceptable; now knock it off or be blocked. Postdlf 01:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
• First, in addressing administrators you are addressing the wrong people. Anyone can do the edits that you are upset about, not just administrators. Second, I've taken a brief look at some of the contributions that you feel have been unfairly removed. They tend to sit in the area of literary criticism and the counter-arguments to your contributions seem to be 'please don't add your personal critique' or 'please no essays' or 'POV', that type of thing. When I first read your post here I thought "gee, someone is doing deep research, dotting i's and crossing t's and getting dumped on". As it is, your additions are on the borderline of acceptable encyclopedic content, sometimes crossing over that border; the surest way of ensuring the content 'sticks' is to contribute content that is notable, verifiable and supported by citations/references. You'll find that additions which have those three properties are very seldom subject to questionable removal, though they will be 'dry' compared to essays and critiques more appropriate for other venues. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Look mate, this Isnt just about me, and what I have done.you know nothing apart from what you have seen backlog through what I have done under this account. The issue here conserns everyone, or I wouldn't have posted it on a public page. Dfrg.msc 11:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

• If THE KING is guilty of making personal attacks here, then the arbcom is guilty of the same thing everytime they make a ruling of someone with bad behavioir. And everyone who has ever left a {{test2}} message on talk page is also guilty of personal attacks. Saying that someone is not behaving appropriately is not a personal attack, especially when there is merit to the claim. Please review WP:NPA before you make accusations. Chuck^(contrib) 02:33, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

  I agree with Chuck. Criticism of someone's actions, provided it remains civil, isn't a personal attack. Whether Tony is actually guilty of these offenses, I won't comment on. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:00, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with Chuck, and I agree that there are many people who abuse the ability to revert. In my experience it is almost always admins, or people who have enough experience to be admins, who do it. In some cases I see people who have lots they want to do, and rather than take their time to do them well, quicken their pace to the point of incompetence. Editors, and especially admins, should be reminded that they are not wikigods, but are equal editors. I myself have been told that admins are above regular editors, with a note I believe was "don't kid yourself" or something to that effect. I won't mention names, cause I've done it in more appropriate places enough. Fresheneesz 00:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• • You must be mis-remebering the exact quote (certainly possible), or it was told to you off-wiki, as a google search for site:wikipedia.org "don't kid yourself" comes up with nothing like that. I'd appreciate if you would "mention names", at least of whoever told you that, because it would be good to hear why they think that, and we can't if we don't know who they are. JesseW, the juggling janitor 08:12, 21 June 2006

I probably didn't tell Fresheneesz that myself, but my own sentiments are close enough to it, that you may feel free to use me for a proponent of it. On this Animal Farm, editors are equal, but some editors are more equal than others, and they've taken to standing up on hind legs and acting quite a lot like farmers, you know. And you know very well why *I* think that. I was indefinitely blocked not too long ago, and without warning, by an administrator who simply forgot WP:AGF, didn't read well, and was trigger-happy. Had it not been for another administrator who had better sense, I'd still be stuck there. This happens. When admins war with each other, generally the blocks are shorter (it's never banning, which is the death penalty punishment for peons, er, plain editors), but if you want a rather droll example of a wheel war with sysops blocking each other and deblocking each other like Wizards using spells and counterspells in a Harry Potter movie, I suggest perusal of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pedophilia_userbox_wheel_war#SPUI. This one had to be stopped by the Deus Ex Machina hisself, pretty much making a mockery of the idea that WP is a community of high-minded types able to police itself.

Not that there was good reason ever to imagine it was, since no organization really is. The military has military police, who are there to see that high-ranking people don't simply do whatever they want (rank doth not have ANY privilege). In fact, the standard police in your city don't police themselves, drawing officer-volunteers occasionally out of the pool to do this out of love. (Like that would work-- and yet it's the WP model). Instead, they have something called "Internal Affairs," consisting of cops who are roundly disliked by their brethren, but who are absolutely necessary for the function of police departments. On Wikipedia, no such organization exists, except Deus Machina, who is usually too busy to do it (except for pedophilia wheel wars and lawsuits-- but this is extreme stuff). Meanwhile, if the average editor gets night-sticked by some administrator during a revert war, nobody notices.

A word about vandalism. I've heard much caterwauling about vandalism not drawing adequate penalties (and I've done some complaining about this myself), since most of it is ispso facto bad faith, res ipsa loquitur (it speaks for itself). So why isn't more of it indefinitely blocked? My own provisional answer: because actually, those who do the work of WP administration are only marginally concerned with vandalism. They are much more concerned with their own egos, and acting against those they perceive as defiant. The only real unforgivable crime in any organization, you see, is defiance-- failure to kow-tow. Which is what heresy is. Thus, you can see anonymous users, and even named users, getting warning after warning, or 24 blocks for adding scatological nonsense to encylcopedia pages--- but if you want to see somebody blocked forever, just take a look at what happens if don't follow the wrong administrators' feelings about userboxes or something. Or using a sockpuppet address to defy a one week block-- neener, neener! Then you'll find yourself out in the cold forever, unless you're an administrator yourself. In which case you get wheelwar, as above. Don't tell me it doesn't happen. It happens. These are my thoughts on WHY it happens. I would like to see some oversight on administrators to see that it doesn't happen as often. Warring among administrators is as rare as wars between feudal lords in armor. But when it happens, it points up the basic problem that Lords are no more likely to be gentlemen than anybody else. They just have a high horse.SBHarris 22:36, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• Please try to stay on topic here; it is quite easy to tumble off the reservation in short order. Being an avid contributor, I share the sentiments expressed by Dfrg.msc; as such, I would appreciate it if the conversation is centered around the initial concern which was expressed about a fortnight ago... --Folajimi 14:36, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps instituting something like a three vote rule on reverts? That would prevent unilateral action, and bad edits would still get reverted soon enough. RandomIdiot 14:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

A three-vote rule might work for other things, but that seems like a bit too much red tape for something as useful as a revert. For example, there are many people (I have been one) that did not understand the rules to Wikipedia and have made awful edits that simply needed to be removed immediately. If it had waited for three votes, some of the articles were sufficiently lacking in traffic that it would've taken weeks. Also revert wars would end with the side that had the most people on it, and just because more people argue for something doesn't mean it's correct. --Stellis 08:32, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Truer words have never been spoken; there is a redirect which I wanted to remove so I could create an actual article from scratch. This was over four months ago, and nothing new has occured in the interim. The additional bureaucracy is unnecessary. Folajimi 10:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Which article? Ian¹³/t 10:12, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Why do you ask? --Folajimi 02:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Because he wants to help? --cesarb 20:53, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

• If something is reverted it isn't gone forever. I personally don't think this is a problem. And anyone can revert, admins can just do it faster. Wikibout-Talk to me! 00:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, speaking here for a moment as someone with the keys to the Admin janitor's closet, I actually find it quicker to revert an article the same way that anyone else would -- go to article history, click on the older version, edit then save -- rather than to find the secret link that lets me do this in one step. But, now speaking as just another user, I don't see the point of reverting any edits -- even if it's undeniably obvious that it was made by some looney under the influence of illicit pharmaceuticals -- without leaving some note about why the reversion was made. The point of having an encyclopedia anyone can edit is to discuss conflicting opinions on a subject & to seek a consensus; & the worst case in initiating a conversation is that the other parties talking prove that they are kooks, cranks or just unable to play nicely with other children. -- llywrch 17:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Down with Trigger Happy Admins! Solution: allow for a special new type of user called a "sentinel" that is greater than a basic user in authority. This new sentinel is not an administrator, and cannot block other users, but cannot be blocked either. The sentinel only has the ability to make 60 edits per day. The primary advantage to a sentinel is that the sentinel cannot be blocked by radical fringe administrators. Yet the sentinel's power is restricted to only 60 edits per day. This idea was a result of the extreme blocking related to these links:

• List of Catholic Prayers
• Prayer in Judaism
• Bahá'í prayers - a list of prayers from the Bahá'í faith.
• Sacred Space a daily prayer site by the Irish Jesuits, using the Ignatian tradition, a branch of Catholic spirituality dating from the sixteenth century
• Live Prayer Network - The largest prayer system on the net, in minutes add live prayer to your site
• Prayer Software - Get prayer, prayer for others and have it sent to any mobile device
• Live Prayer with Bill Keller Live Prayer with Bill Keller

Sure, sometimes there will be linkspam, and some sentinels that abuse their power, but administrators are not immune from the tyranical tendencies of those in authority.Spicynugget 14:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Spelling in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, whatever, is the same.

Check the history tab on this page.

I don't think I agree with this asessment, that footnote is for the meaning of the reference in the whole article, not just that bit about spelling, also, it seems inconsistant (at least to me, I do have some knowledge in this area) to say that spelling is (*all*) the same within the Britsh Isles and within every English speaking country, but differs between each English speaking country beyond the British Isles (just becuase that's how it is "authorised"). Linguistic cirteria does not disinguish "dialects" and "languages." Can you tell me, for example, is there a definite border between US spelling conventions and Canadian spelling conventions. According to the laws of linguistis, there is no inherent reason why differences in vocabulary, word formation, and even spelling need to follow country borders, therefore just becuase dictionarys for a particular country have the same spelling for all places and groups, does not mean that spelling "beyond the dictionarys" is the same. Have you ever heard of Scots spelling, or Black English spelling? Consider dictionarys for a prarticular "national varietys" of a "language" that may provide two different spellings of a word, and consider the possiblity that local usage may favour one spelling over the other. Myrtone

I'm not sure of your point. Yes, linguistics need not follow national or political boundaries, but it may, especially when issues of pride are involved. SFAIK, much of Black English is a conscious protest against the majority culture. Where there is a large natural barrier (i.e. an Ocean), a linguistic divide has been historically inevitable. Whether telecommunications will alter that is speculation. Nevertheless, there is something called "Standard American English" that is taught (with little variation) in schools throughout the United States, and is expected of educated citizens. I assume that the "Queen's English" serves much the same purpose in the UK. Other variants are more problematic, since some are interintelligible only with difficulty. If we admit every local variation of spelling and usage into Wikipedia, then any illiterate, unintelligible scawl can be justified as a "dialect" and no one can contradict -- I've seen jarring constructs justified as "Indian English", which is news to the thirty or so natives of India with whom I work. If we admit only one version, we are being unreasonable. So, we make a practical compromise, as best we can. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the prescriptionist tradition of favouring some spellings over others is biased, but it's also widely accepted, and an encyclopedia written in a mishmash of dialects simply wouldn't be as comprehensible or taken as seriously - we should take advantage of the wide standardization of these spelling in writing to promote widespread comprehensibility of all our material. Many dialects don't even have an accepted orthography, which makes writing in them quite awkward. That said, quotes should reflect the original dialect, whether spoken or written; we should not "translate" dialects. Deco 13:36, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

"Yes, linguistics need not follow national or political boundaries." Well, unfortuately, JackLumber (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) seems to follow (exactly) these boundries, but yet claims to be a "linguist." Myrtone

Myrtone, please. Once again, you completely missed the point, ignoring the context. That was about Canadian English. Whenever Canadian spelling follows British spelling, that's because of historical, political, cultural ties between Canada and Britain, not because of Ireland or Scotland. However, the Irish and the Scots did heavily affect English as _spoken_ in Canada (and the United States too, for that matter), and this is duly noted in that article. Myrtone, when will you start thinking outside of the "boundaries" of the box? JackLumber. 15:28, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

"historical, political, cultural ties between Canada and Britain" I'm not so sure about that historical, let alone, cultural ties with, say England, or what you even mean by the "boundries of the box." Believe me, even serious scholars do not neccasessarily *write* according to community consensus. Myrtone

There are two issues - the words used and the standard spellings. The early dictionary-makers in the USA chose to vary a few common words - honour and honor, for instance. This has remained fixed ever since. English-speakers within the British Empire and later the Commonwealth accepted the UK standard for spelling. Some extra words are used, not only in Scotland but also in English regions.

Microsoft Word 2002 offers English (Ireland) and also Gaelic (Scotland) along with Gaelic (Ireland). I wouldn't be surprised if this changed soon.

--GwydionM 17:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Official guidelines needed for FA director position and what is needed for an FA promotion

According to the archive of the featured article talk page Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article/archive_2#Ratification_of_User:Raul654_as_Featured_Articles_Director, User:Raul654 was chosen to be the FA director with only 17 affirmative supports back in August of 2004. He has been director for two years. Millions of new Wikipedians later he is still FA director and, as there are no guidelines for the position or guidelines for succession, he is currently de facto FA director for life. This isn't kosher for a supposedly open and free website that claims "anyone can edit". Wikipedia is now the 15th largest website in the world. I feel the position should either be expanded into a committee of at least four Wikipedians with a chair position that is held for no more than a year and revolves among the committee members. Sans this, the FA director position should be term limited to allow other members of the committee to have a chance to participate and to keep the important position from becoming a personal fiefdom. As the position chooses willy-nilly what is allowed to be an FA and what is allowed to be placed on the main page of this website, it is one of the most important positions there are here and Wikipedia's credibility should not be left permenently in the hands of a single man chosen by 17 people (himself included) two years ago. Additionally, as it stands now, FAC instructions state that "Consensus must be reached for an article to be promoted to featured article status. If enough time passes without objections being resolved, nominations will be removed from the candidates list and archived." However, there have been cases when this unofficial guideline has been ignored by the current FA director who has sometimes allowed articles to be promoted with outstanding and unaddressed reasonable objections (See: Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Hurricane_Katrina for a recent example). This fluidity in promotion guidelines fosters anomosity and should be ended. There need to be concrete standards for FA promotion. The current process is unfair to those who work hard researching and writting articles only to have them fail over a couple of objections while seeing other articles also with objections pass. Thank you for listening to me. Regards, --Jayzel 14:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

That seems to me to be a valid point. No mechanism is in place if, say, the gentleman suddenly found a megabuck in his hip pocket and took an extended vacation to a carribian island without a 'net connection. Some mechanism should be in place to fulfill the position, should unforseen situations arise. Jayzel68 says more than that, but at a minimum I would say a mechanism should be in place to replace FA director. Of course it is normal for young, budding organizations to just go ahead and develop. But as an organization matures then people begin to want some stability and some assurance that the organization will continue to be a stable one. Terryeo 14:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

If Raul ever steps down as FA director, we'll select another one, by some means or another that will be decided at that time. Creating a procedure for doing that now seems silly, in the absence of any demonstrated need to do so. Wikipedia can survive without a FA Director for a short time in the event Raul is hit by a bus. Kelly Martin (talk) 15:38, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I am happy with raul at the helm of FA. FA is no big deal.

An objection on a FAC does not necesary improve articles quality. And a FAC is not the end of story. Issues that require further discussion can be addressed in articles talk page even after a FAC. We do not {{protect}} featured articles...

I do not believe FA ever existed to set standards. If wikipedia is going to be about "solid standards" why not let articles be written by a computer and block all editors?

A replacement for raul is only going to be necesary when a replacement is necesary. And no, you may not assasinate raul :p

--Cat out 16:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

The position is extremely aberrant for Wikipedia. As far as selecting the Main Page article, the fact is, Raul does such an excellent job that it would be absurd to throw it up to aimless community consensus. As for deciding which articles qualify as featured, I'm not sure why we don't have the usual "any admin can close it" setup, though. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I was one of the people who helped establish the position in the first place. It was better than having edit wars on the main page (which started the whole thing), but I honestly don't know if we still need it. Things have changed since then, we have more editors, and the main page wasn't protected back then and it is now.

The position is indeed extraordinary, compared with how things are normally done on Wikipedia. The questions that need to be answered before anything is changed are what problems do we expect if this reverts back to usual wiki process and, will dealing with them be more trouble than it's worth? Zocky | picture popups 00:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Ideally, any FA article should be suitable for the Main page, and therefore it is not a big deal? —Centrx→talk • 07:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The big deal was changing the main page FA once and only once per day. Zocky | picture popups 10:02, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Interlingual Namespace

Please notify me if my suggestion is not right here. I am wondering why one needs a separate account for every language version of WP and every language version of every other WikiMedia project. Personally, I feel disturbed by the fact that I need multiple accounts to contribute to WikiMedia projects. On the other hand I see that with 1.6 Million members and a rapid growth of the number of users names would sometime became rare. I do also see the diffuculty to change the system since the same user names might be already used by different users on different language versions. Nevertheless, I think it is worth discussing whether new accounts should became valid for multiple WikiMedia projects or at least different language versions of Wikipedia. What is your opinion on this idea?

--Falk Lieder 16:40, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

It's being worked on. Please see this press draft for details. Angela. 17:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Not too much to add, but I like the idea of having transwiki logins. I imagine the current setup came about primarily out of technical concerns, but I couldn't say for sure. The main argument against would probably be a resulting drop in the supply of available names, but I'm dubious of that argument's significance. Luna Santin 10:34, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Awards, Best of and Top 100 lists

I've been putting together an essay about lists of awards and the kind of lists that institutes, magazines etc. throw out and their presentation on WP. I'm not pushing this for guideline just yet, but past experience has shown that at least a few eds agree on most of it. The copyvio component is interesting and afaik hitherto largely unaddressed. So, wiki-deodorant at the ready, because here comes WP:BO. Deizio talk 01:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Lists of articles should not contain uncreated articles

I'm not sure uncreated is a word, but...

There are lists (some of them long and consisting of extremely obscure content) that have many red links. I use specifically the example of List of bands and musicians by country. If there is no article about a band, why should there be a link to it on the list page? If the band is notable enough to appear on the list, someone will create an article for it.

I propose that it become Wikipedia policy not to include things in lists that are not notable enough to warrant an article on Wikipedia. Otherwise you have people (again, I'm thinking of bands) adding themselves to lists to promote themselves.

The benefit of this is that people working on the articles themselves decide if the entry is worthy of appearing on a list: if the article is deleted because it is not notable, then someone will eventually remove the link from the list. --Stellis 07:34, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I would say that list should be deleted, and replaced with categories. --Golbez 08:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Lists are great for red links, and red links are good, not evil. There are very many notable things we don't have articles about and lists help us identify them. If a band is not notable enough to have an article, simply change the red link to plain text. Zocky | picture popups 10:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Red links in these lists are certainly not evil. But they attract a great number of vanity entries (often with external links). -- Hoary 12:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Bare lists which are solely designed to help readers navigate around Wikipedia - otherwise their existence could not be justified as they contain nothing other than a collection of linked items with no further information, context or description - should NOT contain redlinks OR plain text when there is no proof that the item in question is notable. More at WP:REDBLUE. I also reject the notion that such lists should instantly become categories. Lists are fine, as long as they provide info about what they are actually listing. Deizio talk 13:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The possibility of including redlinks in lists is what distinguishes them from categories: surely List of municipalities in Zaragoza serves some purpose, even with the redlinks... Physchim62 (talk) 14:19, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

That list DOES have a use, because 1) It is finite, Zaragoza is unlikely to add many new municipalities, and 2) The redlinks can encourage articles. On a list as broad as "musicians by country", it is NOT finite, and there is no guarantee any of the links on the list will be article-worthy. Also, the Zaragoza list is not a simple link list, like the original example, because it includes other information (population). --Golbez 17:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

It also has the advantage that real world places are, by convention, inherently WP-notable, so each redlink on the list should one day become a fully-fledged article. In short, lists should:

have definite criteria for inclusion (and hence for non-inclusion);

be finite in length at a given point in time (OK, so there are only a finite number of porn stars with blue eyes, but we no means of knowing what that finite number is so List of porn stars with blue eyes would fail here);

contain additional information on the subjects beyond the page title;

only contain redlinks to subjects notable enough to merit a WP article (compare List of municipalities in Zaragoza with the list of municipalities at Jennersdorf (district): in the Austrian example, the subdivisions of a municipality are unlikely to get an article on English WP at anytime in the near future, and so are unlinked (they are linked on German WP)).

What do people think? Physchim62 (talk) 06:56, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Lists should be allowed to have redlinks and poeple removing them are doing no service to Wiki. By having redlinks, the items go on the 'wanted articles list' which some editors review and then write articles about. Thanks Hmains 18:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Seeing an interesting redlink is usually the start of the process by which I start articles; they're not inherently evil. That said, I've also removed freshly inserted redlinks from, say, "year" articles (ie, 2006), and asked the editor in question to create a stub before linking... I'd say the difference there is in the visibility and current status of the list. Having a fair number of redlinks which are likely to end up being created at some point? Valuable. Adding redlinks to long-standing articles and lists, or FAs and the like? Probably not as good. Redlinks aren't inherently bad, but they're not inherently good, either; there is some distinction, and judgement of some sort is required. Hopefully somebody can extract a good meaning or policy idea from that. Thanks, Luna Santin 10:42, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Common sense is what is needed. Something should be redlinked if and only if the editor placing it thinks Wikipedia definitely should have an article on the subject. It should be removed if and only if other editors believe the first was mistaken. Whether the redlink is in a list or an article is unimportant. Lists should exist if and only if it is clear why they exist as lists rather than categories. More than this is instruction creep. Robert A.West (Talk) 01:23, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Policy pages in general

I just have a general comment about policy pages, so this seemed like the best place to put this, even though it is not about a specific policy.

I think that the policies can be rather difficult to navigate because of the number of pages dedicated to them and the excess of information included on each. For example, if a user wants to find out about how to go about having an article deleted, he or she would find at least 6 articles on the topic: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, Wikipedia:Deletion process, Wikipedia:Deletion policy, Wikipedia:Guide to deletion, Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, Wikipedia:Proposed deletion. Each links to the others and seems to contain redundant information. This makes it difficult to find a simple explanation of the policy and the process, and may be intimidating. The intimidating nature of these pages may prevent some users from contributing when they see something that does not belong, or it may make them do something wrong because it is hard to follow a policy that one does not fully understand.

I understand the need for specific policies and procedures, particularly on a site this large (without some guidelines, I'm sure all heck would break loose). However, it seems to me that there is room for improvement. I think it would be helpful to reduce the number of articles and provide simplified guidelines, or at least use some kind of "quick reference" to the procedure (such as a step by step guide for determining which procedure to follow, such as speedy deletion versus proposed deletion, and where to go from there, while avoiding the circular links to and description of every process on each page). I would try to improve those pages myself, but there is just too much information there, and I must admit that I feel intimidated when it comes to editing such "official" documents. --Dan128 08:41, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

There's a fairly complete list at Wikipedia:Community Portal. It might be a good idea to have a "quick reference" giving a brief "in a nutshell" of each one. Generally though, I think our "you find out about it when you break it" approach isn't a bad one. Deco 03:07, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking about creating a Wikiproject that deals with organising guidelines and make them more "reachable". If you want to create it, I'll join it immediatly. CG 08:25, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Help with picture upload

I wrote an article on Ignaz Schuppanzigh. I found a photograph of him from the Beethoven-Haus museum in Bonn. I wrote the museum asking permission to include the photo in the article. Here is their reply:

Dear Mr. Epstein,

We grant the permission to use this picture in this size on wikipedia. No bigger size or other picture is granted and you have to set a link to our website below the picture. (http://www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de)

Best regards,

Boris Goyke

Can I upload this picture, and include it in the article, according to Wikipedia policy?

Your help greatly appreciated.

Ravpapa

Write back and confirm it can be used anywhere, and not just Wikipedia. We don't allow Wikipedia-only images here. Otherwise, it probably seems fine, though I'm not sure. --Golbez 17:30, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the link requirement is also not kosher. I suspect we'll be unable to work things out with them. --Improv 19:44, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, we'll skip the picture. I will add a link to the web page, so that the curious can see what the guy looked like. Thanks for your advice.

BTW, is this the right place to ask questions like this? Or is there some sort of help desk specifically for people like me who are new to W and don't know the ropes yet?

Tnx,

--Ravpapa 05:27, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

On the left side of your screen there is a "navigaton box" with a button for Help. Or click here for a useful menu. --Doc Tropics 05:45, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Continued Vandalism.

Just an idea, but could a policy be devised wherby users/IPs who are blocked 10 times or more for vandalism (not including 3RR, NPOV, etc), automatically incurr an indefinate ban next time they are blocked. --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 18:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

That could block legitimate users though, with services like AOL sharing the same IP amongst many users. Celardore 18:17, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I suppose known dynamic IPs could be excluded. --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 20:11, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

• It seems like this might be rule creep -- it seems like it'd be within the realms of discretion of an admin to do progressively longer/perma blocks as things progress. I don't think a policy authorising/mandating this would be necessary or useful. --Improv 20:42, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

• It's not like admins don't take action against persistent vandals. I think you'd be hard pushed to find a named account that gets to even 5 blocks for vandalism without at the very least being under some kind of arbcom sanction, and with a very long or perma ban explicitly promised for future infractions. People who go "off the reservation" and wage vandalism wars do so through IPs and / or a variety of usernames. Can you point to a named account that's had 10 vandalism blocks? Deizio talk 23:24, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

posting a link to your own page, with ads?

At Chi-square distribution there is a discussion of if it's OK for a user to link to his own page. User:DanSoper added maybe 5 links to his webpage (including 3 on one wikipedia entry) with text like, "Free Chi-Square Calculator from Daniel Soper's Free Statistics Calculators website. Computes chi-square values given a probability value and the degrees of freedom."

There are two questions. The first is if this is an appropriate (encyclopedic) link. The second is if it is okay to link to your own page that has little use other than it's google ads. Blog spam mentions that it is possible to make ref="nofollow." but that does not appear to be possible. Any thoughts? 128.135.226.222 00:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Generally, it is frowned upon. WP:EL is the relevant guideline. Off the top of my head, I'd say you'd be justified in cutting them. Cite the policy in your edit summary. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 00:34, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, looking over it, the links might not be a bad thing. I don't claim to fully comprehend the article, but it just seems to be calcuation links. If there's a duplicate link(s), delete that. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs)

Someguy0830 has it right. rel="nofollow" has been turned on for non-main namespace links, and Brion has indicated he plans to turn it on for articles once some things have been worked out. So that's coming, and it'll make a difference for people who want to use Wikipedia to raise their google pagerank. But it won't solve the problem of direct ad-revenue driven links. Anyway, it's all spam, and unless an editor can make the argument that his links add encyclopedic value that can't be gotten any other way, the links should be deleted. In this case User:DanSoper seems to be trying to do just that, so I guess you have to judge the merits of his argument. But the link definitely is driving traffic to a site that is selling stuff, and in that case I'm of the guilty-until-proven-innocent school. · rodii · 01:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I thought the Wikipedia community soundly rejected the idea of using nofollow on external links in articles. Has there been a new community decision as of late that reverses the earlier rejection? —  Stevie is the man!  ^{Talk | Work} 07:05, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

There was a poll on Wikipedia talk:Spam (started by me), with notes about it on the relevant Village pump pages and on the Administrators' noticeboard. There was also some talk on the mailing lists prior to that. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

But that's for non-main namespace links, and I think using nofollow on those is uncontroversial. Turning on nofollow for articles, which are in main, hasn't been approved as far as I can tell. —  Stevie is the man!  ^{Talk | Work} 17:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Diacritics

There's a new proposal at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics). Zocky | picture popups 12:39, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Orthodox topics

Exactly how many articles are there on orthodox specific topic, espeicially such topics only notable within orthodox circles, wikipedins that work in this area may be aware that another encyclopedia wiki Orthodox wiki exists for this area. On a related notem why does wikipedia (officially) render its aim over human knowledge as if it is going to be *complete* someday, and even claim that becuase it is "not paper" that there is "no practical limit" in terms of information, the printed Encyclopædia Brittanica already takes up enough volumes to fill a bookcase, though I must admit that I was surprised to discover how much info can be found on wikipedia, nevertheless wikipedia does have to complete with, and not defeat, other encyclopedias, such as Encarta, it's aim of being the "most complete encyclopedia in the world" and the aim of all the human knowledge being accessable for *free* seems like another example of America world domination (my father *likes* America and does not beleive in copyright, for example). Myrtone

Please don't America bash in mid-paragraph. Having a lot of information for free is world domination? Also, this is the English Wikipeida, not the American Wikipedia. Wikibout-Talk to me! 15:32, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand your point, yes this is the English language *edition* of wikipedia, but it was founded in the USA and its servers are hosted in the US state of Florida, by the Wikimedia foundation which itself is was founded, and is still owned by, Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), who lives in the USA and was born and grew up there (though I am not sure about his background, I think his family came from somewhere in Europe, not that many generations ago). Also, America is responsible for so much world domination. Myrtone

You're just being paranoid. America doesn't dominate the world. Sure, we're pushy and annoying, I'll give you that, but we're hardly the dominating force you seem to think. Plus, I agree with Wikibout. How is information gathering in any way dominating, aside from that "knowledge is power" angle? This site, regardless of its home, is available to the entire world. You're reading it in Australia right now. How is it domination if its vast archives are publicly available? – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 16:22, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't feed the troll, guys. · rodii · 16:24, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm. Good point. Very well, Rodii. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 16:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Let me explain, if wikipedia gathers only so much informatin it could practialcally take over the web (well, not the entire web, but if not the world, by defeating only so many information sources). The states is the world's most powerful nation and besdes, here in Australia there really is a conception that in the US "nothing happens outside your borders." The belief in "free stuff" has been associated with "cowboys" and US liberterianism, and the very fact that this is avalible to the entire world seems (to me) like an example. Myrtone

Wikipedia is a collaboration between people from all over the world and there is no sort of conspiracy behind it, any more than there would be if it had been founded in Iceland. Chicheley 21:13, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I got that point but what about getting back the the bit about Orthodox wiki and wikipedia redering its aim as if it is somehow going to be complete someday, does anyone realise that in "the days before computers," there was another medium for storing vast archive of information, it was microfilm, if a microfilm encyclopedia were to take up enough volumes (books consisting of pages of microfilm, did/do they exist?) to fill an entrie bookcase, how much information could it hold? Myrtone

I don't get what your connedtion getween Orthodox Wiki and collecting all knowledge. And of course wikipedia won't have everything, have you ever heard of an article being deleted because it isn't notable? If you havn't look at about 8 out of 10 AfD pages. Wikibout-Talk to me! 01:24, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes I have actually heard of an article getting deleted along these lines but before getting back to the startting point, no one has answered as to why wikipedia reders it's mission as if it is going to be *complete* someday? Now getting back to the starting point, wikipedians that work on Orthodox specific topics maybe aware of the existance of Orthodox wiki. Myrtone

Again, what is the connection between this and Orthodox Wiki? Just to clarify, your question is why Wikipedia says it will be complete when certain things could never be included because they aren't notable? Wikibout-Talk to me! 15:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

The fact is that wikipedia proclaims its aim to be to encompass *all* the human knowledge. Also, on that thing about "free stuff," I did not actually state that there even was a conspiracy behind (even if you think I was implying it). The fact is that it *has* been accosiated with US liberterianism, and that has nothing to do with cospiricies. Myrtone

Does this have a point? So Wikipedia wants to gather up all human knowledge like a primitive Brainiac? How does it affect you? Why should you even care? Though it may not be techincally possible, what's the harm in saying it? It's like someone saying "I'm going to be the best at [pick a field]." Realistically, this is something they could never fully accomplish, because there will always be someone better eventually. However, setting such a goal drives the person to do their best. It's the same prinicpal here. You wouldn't honestly have Wikipedia saying "to be as complete as is possible in an ever-developing world with some leeway given for subjects we deem to be unimportant", would you? This has nothing to do with liberterianism, because it's simply setting a goal. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 05:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

"local" blocks?

posting this it occurred to me that it would be no problem, technically, to implement "local blocks", i.e. blocking certain IP ranges (or user accounts) from editing specific articles only: In cases of persistent trolling of particular articles, this might be useful for reducing collateral damage. As a possible objection, I can see that "locally blocked" users will be likely to indulge in indiscriminate vandalism out of spite, so that their range would have to be blocked "globally" after all, but how frequently such behaviour would occur would be a matter of experiment. Thoughts? dab (ᛏ) 14:16, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Just as a page can be protected yet still be editable by those with the right level of access, I don't see why a page couldn't be protected against just the users who have attacked it. To be more clear, any admin can modify a protected page, and anyone with a mature account can modify a semi-protected page. This would just be an extension. Al 16:22, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

that's right, but would it be an extension useful enough to implement? dab (ᛏ) 00:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll admit I have no idea of the technical issues at play, but I'd say the idea might have a good deal of merit. Luna Santin 10:48, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, "local" blocks may be more useful on Uncyclopedia, where editors can get blocked for engaging in rv wars with admins. Myrtone

Need more eyes on proposed 3RR change

Please take a look at Wikipedia_talk:Three-revert_rule#Suggestion:_Mandatory_warnings_before_blocks. and offer your feedback. Al 16:22, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Including fact tags

Over at Talk:Programming language we are having a dispute over including numerous fact tags. I tried to tag it to a level necessary for Featured Article status, but was met with howls of protest that this resulted in nearly every sentence being tagged. One editor in particular is refusing to discuss with me and has threatened to revert any such changes on sight. Please advise. Ideogram 22:20, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

--Kilvia linda@yahoo.com 11:30, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

He, or you, cannot breach WP:3RR. Try getting a mediator, such as myself, or an advocate, such as myself. Computerjoe's talk 17:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Pictures of three-dimensional artworks

There has been some discussion at WP:PUI on pictures of statues that are still under copyright. Photographs would be derivative works but using them for critical comment would easily fall under fair use. A tag for copyrighted paintings exists already, it's called {{Art}}. My proposal for a new tag is at User:Dr Zak/Statue, the discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:Image_copyright_tags#Pictures_of_sculptures.2C_statues_etc. Some eyeballs are needed. Dr Zak 19:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Quotations...

I have started a new guideline on quotations within Wikipedia, Wikipedia:Quotations. Nothing is really too new. Mostly common sense stuff with some stuff stolen from various other policy pages. I figured it would help centralize the information. I didn't include too much technical stuff, but wouldn't be too opposed to the idea. There is some room for expansion, and comments are welcome. Thanks. --LV ^{(Dark Mark)} 19:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for deletion to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion

Now that all the preliminary steps are complete, need a competent administrator to make the move (the page is move protected). The steps are detailed at Wikipedia talk:Categories for deletion#Ready to roll.

--William Allen Simpson 08:54, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Handled by the wub (talk · contribs). Thank you! Hopefully, there will be less confusion about process naming and more useful discussion.

--William Allen Simpson 23:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

"WP is not on a deadline"

I'm sure I read that somewhere... maybe in the archives of WP:NOT, but it could have been anywhere (possibly an essay). Anyone know where this can be found? SB Johnny 11:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I've think I've quoted User:Steve block/Wikipedia is a work in progress in a couple of places. Not sure if there's another essay. Steve block Talk 11:28, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Curiously, "Wikipedia is a work in progress" is a meme that seems to have propagated itself among editors without ever having an official project page. It's mentioned on Wikipedia:Avoiding common mistakes, Wikipedia:Content disclaimer, Wikipedia:Replies to common objections, Wikipedia:Introduction to deletion process, Wikipedia:General complaints, Wikipedia:Wikitime, and a great many discussion page. Perhaps it's time to create one? Deco 23:42, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

WP:CHILL maybe? Mr Stephen 11:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Nah, skip that. here. Mr Stephen 11:47, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I also noticed Wikipedia:The World Will Not End Tomorrow Ashibaka tock 23:12, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Policy (and perhaps technical) on transwiki issues

Came across this article the other day: Organic_lawn_management. It's definitely a how-to article. I'd like to transwiki it to WB where it can grow into a chapter or book (it has good information in it, but rather stubby), but not sure how to go about this. So a few questions... after some feedback here I'll bring up the appropriate parts on technical:

1. What's the best way to get it discussed? Should there be a poll on the talk, or is the case pretty much a no-brainer?
2. Is there a way to transfer it to WB with the history intact? I suppose one way would be to c/p it to WB, leave a link to the history of the page as a reference, and reduce the article to just "what it is, history, and external links". The article has had a lot of editors and good collaboration.
3. Am I walking into an edit war with this?

SB Johnny 11:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Dunno, but [2]? Whose violation is this, their GFDL or our copyright? · rodii · 21:21, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Weird site, but considering they also have copied other articles from Wikipedia, it's not a violation on our part. Garion96 ^(talk) 21:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The WP article has a long history and quite a few contributors... I think I'll run a spam search on that site though.

Any thoughts on the transwiki issue? SB Johnny 12:52, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler warnings

Comments are invited on the nature and purpose of the page Wikipedia:Spoiler warning at the talk page. Thank you, Steve block Talk 11:46, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

moving a section

Shouldn't the discussion at Reference_desk/Humanities#Communism be moved to Talk:Communism? ...IMHO (Talk) 14:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

You can wait until it's automatically archived (should be in a week or two), create a new section on Talk:Communism (called something like "Copied from Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities"), and copy the whole discussion's wiki markup to it (which preserves all the formatting). As long as you make clear where it was copied from, and don't change anything, there's no problem doing it and it can be useful to help finding it later. If you don't want to wait, you can copy it and add a comment to the original saying it's been moved (to avoid a split discussion). --cesarb 15:16, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

• It probably shouldn't be moved -- that's random chatter on the topic, not on the article. Wikipedia isn't a discussion board, and that content would be out of place on Talk:Communism. --Improv 14:52, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

New User - Article Submission Templates

{ { NewUserUnverified } }

File:Pdnbtn.png

GRRRRR CHOMP, GET LOST You STUPID Newbie! Where is the salt when I need it? RUN! And don't come back, or next time I'll EAT your LIVER!! GRRRRRR!

• Bitten Newbie I think the reason why I had a bad newbie experience is based on my own ignorance. I think a lot of embarassment pain and confusion can be alievated for the poor ignorant well meaning newbies, by creating a new user submission template. If we look at the process, Wiki-Pedia's current process is a process of exclusion, not a process of inclusion. Any one can submit, and then another must remove it if its not good enough. This causes pain and strife between those who submit and those who review. A minor change in the Wiki-Pedia process, can save the newbies from what appears to them as a severe bite. On the surface it may seem only a minor change in policy, but underneath it is a major change to the Wiki-Pedia psyche that will affect the well being of all those involved.

• Wiki-Pedia, provider of light and wisdom to all for free. How does it work? The concept of Wiki-Pedia is to let anyone contribute. Something is better than nothing. On the whole it works, because on the whole human nature is good. That being said, human nature is not always good. The problem with allowing any one to contribute is that it allows the lesser side, the dark side of human nature to rise and voice its opinion too. This leads to garbage contribution: lies, malicious rumors, untuths, vanity and self glorification posts which have nothing to do with the purpose of Wiki-Pedia. We as contributors, and especially as editors must be vigiliant and constantly clean up these things.

• Ouch, Bad newbie! Bad! The problem is that we newbies, good people new to the process, are basically ignorant of how it works. We are bound to make mistakes, and we are sometimes lumped in with the rest of the garabage. Feelings are hurt, and those who have great potential to contribute may leave and never return.

Remember, our motto — and our invitation to the newcomer — is be bold Don't bite the newbies

• Don't Bite, Lick. A suggestion and Possible Solution. Instead of tagging someones article as unverified after someone has spent time working on it, the suggestion is that all articles must start out with an unverified tag, and a note that it can or will be deleted. (This can be accomplished through code or perhaps a default template setting for new users) The editors job is now to remove the tags once they feel it is worthy of being part of Wiki-Pedia. We all mean well. We are all here for the dissemination of the truth, and basically put hard work in for free. We do this because we feel this is right, and because we believe in it. This kind of person should not be abused, either because they are doing their job as an editor, or doing their job as a newbie contributer learning the ropes.

• Little things add up. A minor change in the process can make a major difference. When the article is first posted it is automatically marked with a tag that it is unverified and subject to deletion, until it has passed editorial review. The newbie has been educated.

Much like this tag ...

{ { Unreferenced } }

Only its inserted for them automatically when they submit the article

No ones feelings will be hurt by this. And... the best part is the editors are now viewed as the good guys by the newbies. They newbie hopes that an editor will come along and help him or her remove the tag. The Editors remove the unverified tag... or they submit it for deletion. The editor's main task now is to include the work. The whole of Wiki-Pedia changes from a process of exclusion to a process of inclusion.

• Experienced User Submission Template when a user figures out how to change his or her template for submissions, I think its safe to say they have figured out enough not to get their feelings hurt by the process. Thanks --BrittonLaRoche 19:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Historical information

Wikipedia:Historical information (WP:HIST) is a proposed guideline which is still very much a work in progress. I ask people to contribute to it and/or its talk page.—msh210℠ 20:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Need help on founding a policy

Wikipedia:WikiProject professional wrestling has no clear cut consensus of this issue, so I throw this out to the world at large: should professional wrestlers be organized under their real names or the names that they adopt in the ring (this, of course, is moot for those that wrestle under their real names)? There are arguments to both sides of the equation. Consider the following arguments:

• WP:NC says that the best-known name be used - these tend to be ring names (Triple H, Shawn Michaels).
• If a wrestler is equally well known under two different ring names, using a real name may avoid the issue of debating over which ring name is more notable (Monty Sopp is equally notable as Billy Gunn and Kip James, both of which are more notable than his real name)
• Others claim real names should be used to separate the real world and the kayfabe of professional wrestling - effectively forming a separate identity out of a person and the characters they portray. These cite articles on the film industry as examples (eg. Jean-Luc Picard is separate from Patrick Stewart). Some note that this allows a clear separation of roles - a wrestler may use more than one ring name, and a ring name may have been used by more than one wrestler.
• Still wrestlers themselves may prefer one name over another (CM Punk prefers ring names as he views that using real names are "elitist and arrogant", while Edge prefers to use his real name of "Adam Copeland" out of the ring, as seen in his autobiography, Adam Copeland on Edge)
• Some wrestlers use a slightly misspelled or truncated version of their real names as their ring names (eg. David Bautista wrestles as Batista)
• Some wrestlers have wrestled or currently wrestle under their real names, but are more notable under certain gimmicks (Mick Foley, who was best known as Mankind, now wrestles under his real name)

Your comments are welcome. kelvSYC 06:16, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

• It's unclear to me what it is that you are organizing but it seems to me that you ought to be able to do it both ways. You could decide to have the articles about wrestlers be either under their real or stage names and have the other name be a redirect. If you decide to use the stage name but there may be more than one wrestler that used that name you could add the real name after as a disambiguator. Or if the real name were used for the actual article you may then need a disambiguation pages for a stage name that had been used multiple times. If you're talking about lists, there's no problem having two different lists for the different names. If you're talking about categories, it is possible to assign redirects to categories. --JeffW 07:25, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

As most wrestlers use many different gimmicks throughout their career, I think the core article about the person should be under the real name, with redirects (or disambigs) as suggested by JeffW. It's not perfect, but then this is not a perfect world... --Stephan Schulz 07:44, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Putting the redirect pages in a category wouldn't work, would it? How can a redirect page be added to a category (unless it's a soft redirect)? --DaSchick 21:35, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that if the category tag is placed on the same line as the redirect tag that it will work as desired. --JeffW 02:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be on a case by case basis rather than one policy to cover everyone. Like people who are widely known under one name should be listed under that(like Shawn Michaels or The Undertaker) while others listed under their real names. TJ Spyke 22:51, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: I don't think totally case-by-case is actually workable. The problem is that it just all turns into a big debate and everyone has different criteria. Several wrestlers' pages get started under their real names, and then a debate is proposed to move them to their ring name. After that change, another debate gets going to move it back. Then another debate. And another. And another. And the result is that the wrestler will end up temporarily at their real name or their ring name depending on what users were really paying attention for the short time it was debated. That will be stopped by the creation of an actual policy, with real criteria for determining which to use. Those criteria can then be applied to each page, a decision made as to how to index the person, and that will be the end of it.

Here's my proposal:

• PROPOSED POLICY FOR INDEXING WRESTLERS: By default, all wrestlers are to be indexed under their real names, or "Real Name (wrestler)" as appropriate. Character names should redirect to the page of the wrestler playing the character. If the character name has multiple meanings (Example: Kane, Undertaker, Sting, etc.), then a note should be placed on the term's disambiguation page linking to the appropriate wrestler's page. Exceptions to indexing in this manner should only be done if: 1.) The wrestler in question actually owns the rights to the character name in question; AND 2.) The wrestler in question regularly uses their character name outside of wrestling. If those two criteria are met, the character name is more akin to a stage name, and the wrestler should instead be indexed under their character name.

• Explanation: Many reasons, but here are a few:

1. Their real name will not change, so you'll almost never have to change the indexing of the wrestler's page (e.g. less work for everyone involved).

2. In 99%+ of situations, the characters and the wrestlers playing them are two different people. Steve Borden is not a surfer boy (or Crow rip-off); Mark Calaway is not an undead zombie/evil mortician; Mark Henry the person is not actually a 400lb. sex addict. The article is about the person, not the character, and so it's normally factually incorrect for an encyclopedia to treat them as identical by indexing under character names.

3. Other reference resources (e.g. IMDB.com) also index wrestlers under their real names and treat the characters as "roles" they've played on TV shows/PPV's.

4. Almost all wrestlers will use multiple gimmicks over the course of their careers. Their "best known" gimmick today may not be the same tomorrow. Their birth name is highly unlikely to ever change.

5. If the person makes little or no attempt to use the character name in other media (music, books, acting, etc.), then it's difficult to argue that the character name is a "stage name" for the person. It's really just a character.

6. If the person does not own the name...well, it doesn't belong to them. If it's not theirs, why are we using it to identify them in an encyclopedia? They also wouldn't be able to use it at all outside of the wrestling industry (without serious kickbacks to the gimmick's owner or facing a trademark infringement lawsuit).

• Application: Some examples (I swear I'm almost done...):

1. Glen Jacobs (Kane): Jacobs does not own the Kane gimmick, WWE does. According to the policy, he would be indexed under his real name and likely never move.

2. James Janos (Jesse Ventura): Janos created the character on his own, owns the name, received his acting credits as Jesse Ventura, and was elected to political office as Jesse Ventura. According to the policy, he would be indexed as Jesse Ventura and likely never move.

3. Steve Borden (Sting): Steve owns the rights to the gimmick, but he does not use the name "Sting" outside of the wrestling industry. His acting roles are credited to "Steve Borden", not "Sting." According to the policy, he would be indexed under his real name and likely never move.

4. Chris Irvine (Chris Jericho): Irvine owns the rights to the name and makes extensive use of it outside of wrestling. He is credited as the lead singer of Fozzy as "Chris Jericho", and his acting credits are as "Chris Jericho." According to the policy, he would be indexed as Chris Jericho and likely never move.

Apologies for being long-winded. Comments (or flames) appreciated. Tuckdogg 04:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem with this idea is that it violates WP:NC on so many levels - a professional wrestler's real name is rarely the best known name of the person. Sting is better known as the single name, and only smar(k/t)s would refer to him by his real name. As per WP:NC, the article belongs at Sting (wrestler). Same deal for, say, Rey Mysterio. The separation of the real person and the gimmick is largely irrelevant to the name of the article - that's an issue for the article's content. kelvSYC 07:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I would disagree. The title/name of the article is, essentially, the subject of what the article will be about. If you look up the article "Carrots", you don't want a discussion of apples. When there's a disconnect between the wrestler and the character he plays (which there will be 99% of the time), the two are not the same person. It's factually incorrect, then, for us to index the article under the character name since it isn't about the character. I don't think it violates WP:NC to make sure the name is one that the person actually goes by, even if it's not as well known as a name they don't own and can't use.

As an example, I would bet that just about everyone knows Steve Urkel. If you polled a hundred random strangers, maybe ten of them would know that the actor who played Urkel was named Jaleel White. Most people don't know him as Jaleel White; they know him as Steve Urkel. Should we index the wiki article on Jaleel White at Steve Urkel? Of course not. Putting aside the fact that Jaleel White absolutely HATES being called Urkel, he's not the same person, he doesn't own the name or the character, and he never used it outside of Family Matters. Regardless of how much "better known" he is as Steve Urkel, that doesn't mean we should index his article that way.

We can disagree as to just how closely wrestlers resemble other TV characters, but the analogy is largely sound. In both cases, the character and the person playing them are not the same. People know many actors on TV shows simply as the name of the character they play but are clueless as to the actor's real name, same as with wrestlers. Neither one (usually) owns the rights to the characters, or uses the name in other media. In those situation, I just don't see how we could factually equate the two. It's not an issue of "better known" names, it's an issue of whether or not the indexing is even accurate. Sting is a perfect example of someone who should NOT be indexed as his character name, since he does not use the name at all outside of wrestling and has referred to his real name many times on wrestling shows. Put kayfabe articles at the character names; leave the wrestlers under their real names. In situations where the two are not disconnected (Jericho, Jesse Ventura, possibly CM Punk), then sure, index under the character names. In all other situations, though, it isn't appropriate for an encyclopedic resource. Tuckdogg 14:25, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

By your logic, Snoop Dogg should be moved to Cordozar Calvin Broadus Jr., given that Broadus is presumably somewhat more law-abiding than the character he depicts in music videos and self-referencial works. The policy that the Professional Wrestling Wikiproject has used thus far is to have an article at the real name of the wrestler. We have diverged from the policy where the wrestler in question has used a given ring name for the bulk of their career and appears unlikely to change their ring name. Your arguments show a lack of understanding of the wrestling industry, given that wrestlers frequently used the same name regardless of what "character" they are depicting, and that wrestlers frequently prefer to be known by their ring names. McPhail 23:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Apply my proposed policy. Snoop owns the name Snoop Dogg and regularly uses it outside of the rap industry. It's his chosen stage name for all things. He'd continue to be indexed as Snoop Dogg. I have a quite good understanding of the wrestling industry, thank you. If they own the name and use it outside of wrestling, that sounds like a stage name to me, and so they should be indexed like that. But if they don't even own the name and have no right to use it, it's a character. If it's a character and is distinct from the person playing it, they should be indexed under their real names. Just because you don't think they'll change gimmicks doesn't mean they won't; most probably would have thought Monty Sopp would have been Billy Gunn for the rest of his career. Most probably would have thought in 1996 that Bret Hart would be with the WWF forever. Things change in wrestling on a dime. Their real names won't, and if they own the name and make use of it outside of wrestling that won't change either. Amy Dumas will not always be Lita; Glen Jacobs will not always be Kane. Tuckdogg 00:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The legal ownership of names is somewhat irrelevant in the long run. Wikipedia should not based naming conventions on trademarks, which are both a fairly modern creation and which do not last indefinitely. McPhail 01:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Erm...actually they do last indefinitely. As long as you continue to use the mark/name/label/etc., you get protection forever. In the context of wrestling, as long as Vince is pumping out videos and marketting old footage with his trademarked characters...well, let's just say he's gonna have valid trademarks for a LONG time. But this isn't necessarily about trademarks. They factor in, sure (thanks, Vince...*grumble*), but that's not the main issue. It's the disconnect between the character and the wrestler. That disconnect isn't there for people like Jesse Ventura, CM Punk, etc., who've adopted their ring names more like stage names. But when someone else owns the trademark on the gimmick (or you do, but voluntarily choose not to use it), you don't even get the option of adopting that name for your own. The disconnect is there, and likely will be forever. Unless you're The Rock, since according to him he basically said, "Hey, Vince. Gimme 'The Rock.'" And Vince said, "Sure, why not? Here you go!" Vince must've either been stoned, or Rock's got some SERIOUS dirt on him. Tuckdogg 01:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism final warning template

While reverting some vandalism, I noticed that on a few users' talk pages were multiple vandalism warnings that say, "final warning." Many of these accounts have never been banned, and not even for a short time. Having dozens of "final warnings" makes the control system of Wikipedia look rather useless, and, in my opinion, encourages people to vandalize more. The change I'd like to see is either an elimination of these "final warning" templates, or something that notifies the admins when a final warning is given. I know that this seems like a cosmetic solution to vandalism, but I believe putting up a strong front is a start down the right path. I apologize if this doesn't seem very well written. - Mirage5000 09:37, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

If you are not an admin and don't have the power to give a block, you can go through the test1 to test4 templates, skipping when appropriate, and then post to Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism to have the user or IP blocked. The blocking admin will check the evidence to make sure that it is appropriate. As for multiple final warnings, the person may have been blocked after each final warning was given or may have stopped for a while and then started vandalizing, resulting in another final warning before being blocked. When dealing with a vandalizing IP, the editor doing the warning may start over with the templates, or at a lower level than they would otherwise, if they do not know if it is the same person doing the vandalizing. This can happen when a significant period of time has passed since the account edited and/or vandalized, when the IP might be dynamic and when the IP is static but could be shared by other people. I think it might be nice to have a template for accounts and IPs that have had repeated warnings and/or blocks so that the older ones can be removed, though. -- Kjkolb 10:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Kjkolb has replied for IP numbers. For logged-in users, I agree with much of what I think you're saying. I'm not interested in "putting up a strong front", though, and indeed, I'm against impressive-looking, colorful warnings. Instead, warnings should be short, simple, uninteresting (see this discussion above) and of course acted on: rather more bite, a lot less bark. -- Hoary 10:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Sources that require a fee to access

The issue concerns the citation of sources. If the only reference source given in a particular case requires the reader to first pay for a subscription to the site, is this fair in a free encyclopedia? As far as I can see, the present policy regarding the citation of sources does not cover this. I believe, in a free encyclopedia such as this, a reader should not have to pay for the information; most especially if the source is the only one given.

Michael David 12:31, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not at all pleasing, no. But if that truly (and credibly) is the source, then it should be credited as the source. Certainly the writer should not pretend that he or she used other sources instead.

I'm not opposed to pay websites, even though I don't happen to subscribe to any right now. Actually I'd rather pay money to a good website I use a lot than have it inflict advertising on me. Any policy against linking to pay websites should I think raise the question of linking to websites that perpetrate pop-ups, irrelevant Flash animations, etc etc etc. -- Hoary 12:40, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

A consequence of your principle would be to disqualify most books and journals, as they require buying/paying a subscription fee, or at least getting a library card or enrolling at a university, either of which may require a fee, in some countries and places quite a substantial one. We will basically be stuck with what's freely available on the web already. You can't build an encyclopedia from that. Tupsharru 12:45, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

(after edit conflict, and I see I'm repeating much of what Tupsharru said) This issue has come up before. The problem is that editors using university or big city libraries often have access to these subscription sites because the library has a subscription. Most of those editors see no problem in using the subscription sites as sources. Those of us that do not have access to libraries with subscriptions to those sites tend to object to their use. On the other hand, I've used books that may not be available in every library as sources. Magazines/journals are often used as references, and they also require either a subscription or access to an institution with a subscription. Similarly, to verify the information cited in a book, you either have to buy the book or find it in a library. IMHO, verifiability does not require that every source be easily available to every editor and reader, just that it is available to a decent sample of all editors/readers. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 12:51, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

If it is a better source than the others sources available or is the only source that can be found, I would go ahead and use it. A lot of references are very difficult for readers to check out themselves, such as cites from rare books that cannot be found online or in most libraries or library systems (libraries that share books). Some books and magazines might not be available in libraries at all and must be purchased. I don't see why a pay site would be much different than those situations. Even if the cite is from a not so rare book, you would still have to go down to the library to get it and possibly have to wait while it is sent from another library, if they don't have a copy. Also, some readers may not have a local library or may not have transportation to it. However, I would stay away from the extremely expensive sources, like the ones that cost tens or hundreds of dollars for a subscription, or even just a single article.

However, the Wikimedia Foundation likes to use free things, even when it is detrimental in some respects (although it is sometimes much better to use something that is free, I don't think it is always worth it. also, we're here to build an encyclopedia and should not let the promotion/use of free software interfere with our mission). I would guess that they'd strongly favor free sources or even prohibit unfree sources if it were at all feasible to do so. I doubt that it is unless we are willing to greatly reduce the quality of some articles, though. -- Kjkolb 13:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

The vast majority of human knowledge still remains offline. The question of whether to allow reference to pay-sites can be expanded in principle to whether to allow reference to information that is not online at all. The answer to this is most certainly 'yes'; therefore, the answer from my point of view regarding the pay-site question is 'yes, such links are useful and don't conflict with the goals of the encyclopedia'. One thing to consider is that many pay-sites provide access to content abstracts, such as in the case of scientific journals by and large; linking to the abstract is useful if an indication that the information being referred to in the article actually exists in the article by way of inference from the abstract, but this is not always possible to demonstrate. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 13:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I have cited on-line abstracts without being able to see the full article. You really can't base an article on abstracts, but they can be useful for saying things like "so-and-so supports/proposes an alternative to/etc. such-and-such position/theory/etc." -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 14:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Kjkolb's position. Nearly all sources available on pay databases (like the very expensive LexisNexis) are available offline in paper form, though they are much harder to access. I would stay away from things on Lexis or similar high-end databases that are not generally published in libraries on paper, such as the InfoUSA mailing address database for all living Americans or the deed/mortgage index for nearly all real property. Those things don't show up on WorldCat, so you can't retrieve them through interlibrary loan! --153.18.106.170 23:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The objective is to provide the best information in Wikipedia, and sourching issues should never stand in the way of that. Calsicol 06:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Usage of the word "we" and/or "you" in articles

I notice some articles I've run across use.. I'm not sure the literary term for it, but use the words we and you in reference to the reader, or presumably humanity as a whole. A generic example might be something like:

"We can determine, due to recent research in the field that X is true" "Though it is theoretically possible to do X, you will find it realistically unfeasable"

Or similar such constructions. Is there an official policy on such things? I would think that constructions in that sort of tone should be rewritten, I just want to be sure before I reword those phrases I come across that fit that old. Errick 16:17, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

This is addressed in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, specifically Avoid self-referential pronouns and the next section. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:29, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I'd skimmed that but I must have overlooked that section. Errick 17:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Another term is second-person voice. See grammatical person.--153.18.106.170 23:27, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Jimbo makes mistakes

I have written this as an essay. If anyone thinks it should be something more, then edit it freely and mazel tov. Ashibaka tock 23:14, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the Wikipedia thought police got to that one. Calsicol 06:33, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Dang! How do we read that article now to judge whether the deletion was justified? This is what I hate about deleted stuff - you can't read the damn things. Hopefully there is still a deletion debate somewhere. Carcharoth 00:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair use images in lists

See Wikipedia:Fair use/Fair use images in lists for a request for comment about the use of fair use images in lists. This RFC arose out of a dispute about the use of images on list of Lost episodes and has grown beyond that article to have broader significance for lists generally. Please join the discussion if you are interested in this issue. --bainer (talk) 05:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Page move protection on major Wikipedia namespace pages

I was wondering if it would be a good idea to limit the moving of major Wikipedia namespace pages to admins. My apologies if this is a perennial proposal that I've just never seen before. Also, this proposal is assuming that it is difficult to move the pages back, that moving and/or fixing them is a strain on the servers or that the pages are frequent targets of page move vandalism. If it's no big deal, then forget it. I'm referring to perhaps a dozen or fewer high-profile pages like Articles for Deletion, Criteria for Speedy Deletion, Deletion Review, Administrator's Noticeboard and Administrator's Noticeboard Incidents. The pages are few in number, and their names change very infrequently. Therefore, I think that there is not much of a drawback to protecting them and that it should be considered if page move vandalism is a significant problem. -- Kjkolb 10:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Two questions: (1) Who is 'me' on Wikipedia and (2) What is credit policy?

At the top of Strategic Air Command Aircraft it currently has the phrase: Joseph F. Bauer, Norman Polmar and Timothy Laur have granted me permission to use their copywritten material as long as they are give credit for that use.

1. Phrases like 'me' and 'I' appear to make no sense on Wikipedia. Do others agree?

2. With thousands of contributions to an article, do we permit them all to have prominent credits at the top? What is the policy on this?

bobblewik 13:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Click the History tab at the top of an article to view the creation of the edits which lead to and include an article as it presently appears. An examination of SAC history shows that the first edit of the article, [3] by R.E. Mixer, on 16 Mar 2006 at 11:45, included the phrase, NOTE: Joseph F. Bauer, Norman Polmar and Timothy Laur have granted me the right to use their copywritten material as long as they are give credit for that use. So that's the answer. R.E.Mixer is the "me" referred to. That user's discussion page, User_talk:R._E._Mixer has already received a few comments and will probably receive more. I'm not sure what policy or guideline is directly violated by his claim to exclusive ownership of permission, but it doesn't sound right. On a discussion page, in a discussion, a user might make a statement like that, but it seems inappropriate to me on an article's page. Terryeo 13:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I will watch and learn. bobblewik 13:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

no, stuff like this should be removed, or as a courtesy, copy-pasted to the talkpage with a request for clarification. If R.E.Mixer complains, point them to Wikipedia:Verifiability. I can post all over Wikipedia that the Dalai Lama himself gave me personal permission for stuff, and none of you could prove otherwise :) dab (ᛏ) 13:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the policy that's violated is in fact the GFDL. When you license a contribution under the GFDL, you can't retain any rights, including the right to require credit (at least, that's my understanding, but this is a confusing area for me). And even if the sources agree to license the text, they have to do it themselves in a proper way, not through a third party. So as it stands, that article has copyvio problems. Also, the word is "copyright", not "copywritten" (sorry, pet peeve). · rodii · 17:26, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

If I'm right, the GFDL does actually require attribution to be given to the original authors, but as a matter of convention we give that attribution through the page history and not in the article itself. If we are using external material licensed under the GFDL, we would have to include - probably in the article - attribution for those authors. However, this can probably go at the bottom along with the references. Deco 00:27, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Is deductive reasoning original research?

There is currently disagreement over the use of the WP:NOR policy to exclude people from lists of Americans by ethnicity. A user has claimed that they think that if an American is described as having an Irish parent/grandparent etc., unless they are described somewhere as an Irish American they absolutely cannot be included in a list of Irish Americans, even though Encarta and many other reputable and reliable sources describe Irish Americans as Americans who trace their ancestry to Ireland. Is this a correct interpretation of policy? Arniep 15:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No original research says "Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article in order to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research. "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article." We know that Irish-Americans are Americans of Irish descent. That's A. We know Person X has an Irish grandma. That's B. Joining the two together to declare that person an Irish-American on Wikipedia is original research - forming "C" on our own to advance the position that Person X is an Irish-American. We're running an encyclopedia here. If we have a list of Irish-Americans, the people on it must actually be Irish-Americans, as described by reputabline sources. Not people with some kind of Irish connection who in the opinion of Wikipedia editors are Irish-Americans. We're not here to label people who have not previously been labelled as exactly that. Nor is Wikipedia here to publish the "deductive reasoning" (i.e. subjective thinking) of editors. Only to publish facts as stated elsewhere. Mad Jack 15:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not set out to define the usage of Irish American. Encarta lists Irish Americans as Americans who trace their ancestry to Ireland. It doesn't say an Irish American is only someone described by somebody as "Irish American". Arniep 15:53, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Precisely. We do not make our own definitions for an Irish American. We only list people who have already explicitly been defined that elsewhere. No one on earth considers everyone who has some Irish ancestry to immediately be an Irish-American (there is such a thing as a non-hyphened American, you know). An Irish American is some who is of Irish descent. But not every American of Irish descent, however thin, is an Irish-American. And as you've said, we do not set our own criteria and do not do the A + B = C math on our own. Every part of Wikipedia has to be published elsewhere first in order to be included. The lists and people we explicitly label as Irish-Americans are no exception. Mad Jack 15:57, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Where would one find a published list of Irish-Americans? Does this train of thought limit Wikipedia's list of Irish-Americans to current members of Societies with published membership lists? Is this what "no original research" really means? --Wetman 16:19, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

No, this isn't about an already published list. What it means is if a person has been described as an Irish-American in a good source (or "Irish" if they are American), we can include them in a Wikipedia list of Irish-Americans. If not, it's only our opinion that their Irish grandmother automatically makes them an Irish-American, even if no sources have applied that particular label to that individual before. Mad Jack 16:22, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

This might be a silly question, but are we talking about users calling themselves this-or-that, or are we talking about (non-auto-) biographical information? I'm Irish-American, but also Scott-American, German-American, Dutch-American, and "an American with Jewish Ancestry"... which really just means I get to feel home at all sorts of heritage festivals, and could probably have all sorts of funky userboxes cluttering up my page if I were so inclined. Unless it's St. Patricks day, I generally don't consider myself Irish American just because my bloodline is 17/32 Irish, and wouldn't think it appropriate for my biographer to call me such. SB Johnny 16:44, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

No, this is about Wikipedia lists (and categories of people, not users). If a person is explicitly asserted to be, say, Irish-American, then we can/should include them on the Irish-American list. If they are asserted to be anything else, like "having an Irish grandmother", then it's just the opinion of whichever Wikipedia editor that they are Irish-American and belong on the list. I.e. we can't foist labels on people that haven't been foisted on those exact people in a good source. Mad Jack 16:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Am I right in thinking that the short answer here is that previously unpublished deductive reasoning, like any other reasoning, is indeed original research? There seem to be a lot of editors who feel that very pure, logical deductive reasoning doesn't fall within the novel synthesis section of WP:NOR. Right now, WP:NOR doesn't contain the word "deductive". Perhaps we should add a few words to the synthesis section to make it clear that even the purest logic counts as OR if unpublished? The Irish-American example is not a case of pure deductive logic -- there are all sorts of implicit assumptions -- but perhaps a clarification of the principle would still help? --Allen 16:57, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

You're right - it's not "pure" logic in this case because there are disputed and various POVs on who is or is not Irish-American. I suppose it's possible that pure deductive reasoning could exist - but it would have to be some case where basically absolutely no one would disagree with this logic. I suppose that could be put in the NOR policy, but it would have to be stated that it must be completely undisputed logic that anyone would agree on. (Which doesn't appear to be the case with labeling a person X-American) Mad Jack 17:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, active thread. Just to clarify, I was not suggesting that pure logical deduction be allowed, but rather that it be explicitly disallowed just like any other novel synthesis as described in WP:NOR. --Allen 20:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Definitely. The main problem seems to be is that "logical deduction" and what exactly that would entail in every case is up for a lot of debate. Which is precisely why it should be disallowed. Mad Jack 20:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Irish American has an accepted definition in reputable reference works- an American who traces their ancestry to Ireland. You are the one doing original research in asserting that an Irish American is only someone who has been referred to as an Irish American. Arniep 17:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

OK! So someone says they have an Irish great-grandmother and no other Irish ancestry. This person is now an Irish-American for Wikipedia. Let's foist as many labels as possible on everyone, especially if no one else has foisted it on them. Read the policy. I have quoted this to you time and again. It explicitly states that we can not add A and B to make C. Yet you keep saying we can in the face of it. Mad Jack 17:20, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The definition in reputable reference works is an American of Irish descent. There is no limit as to how far back that descent can be according to reputable reference works. It is not original research to say that an Irish American is an American of Irish descent, it is the view of reputable sources . Yes, this may mean the lists have a large possible scope and ultimately question their validity. I really don't see why we have to class everyone on Wikipedia by ethnicity, could we not include just a few examples of people with a name of that ethncity on the relevant page i.e. Irish American? Arniep 17:31, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I will say it again. What we need is the view of a reputable source on the person you wish to add to the list. We can not and will not connect A, the definition of Irish American (which is vague, regardless) and B, information about a person you wish to add to form C - that the person is Irish-American. I thank the Wikipedia Gods for inserting specifically that into the policy precisely because of this, to stop people from inserting their own thoughts and foistering their own labels on people who have not been so labelled before. Wikipedia editors and Wikipedia do not make judgments. We report exactly what was said about every person. No tweaks of it to fit what we want to say. Please do not answer this post without reference to the bit of the original research policy that I keep quoting to you over and over again, which explicitly states that we can not "Connect the dots", so to speak, to promote a point - in this case the point being that "Person X" or whoever is an Irish-American. As for your idea on a complete reform of the lists (i.e. delete most of them), sure, that could work, but that needs to be discussed in a separate post. Mad Jack 17:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

and also, you are correct, "It is not original research to say that an Irish American is an American of Irish descent, it is the view of reputable sources". That is true. We can define an Irish American this way. The original research comes in when we decide every single person with any Irish ancestry is an Irish-American and label them as such, even if no reliable sources have labeled that person as that. Mad Jack 17:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The idea that people of proven Irish descent do not belong in the Irish-American category is bizarre. I don't believe that simple obvious deductions were meant to be excluded by the No Original Research policy and even if application of wiki-lawyering can lead to that conclusion, my understanding is that it is long-standing wikipedia practice that if a policy or guideline leads to an undesirable outcome that the policy or guideline should be ignored. --JeffW 17:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying that we should put anyone with any Irish ancestry in the Irish-Americans category? That's what you call an undesirable outcome? Does this mean that there are no non-hyphenated "Americans" anymore? Everyone is labeled as a "something-American"? What the outcome has been so far is that we have people listed on these lists who are actually Irish-American, Polish-American, etc. instead of any random person with some kind of Irish or Polish connection. This is perfect for an encyclopedia, which is not a random collection of information and does not make lists of people based on their great-grandparents' nationality. Mad Jack 17:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, my opinion is that the category and all other ethnic categories should either be deleted or renamed to something like Category:Americans with near Irish ancestry and limit it to one or two generations. --JeffW 18:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The fact is the way you are implementing the policy is unreasonable. You say your implentation is ensuring that only people who actually ARE Irish-American, Polish-American, etc are listed. Firstly, what do you mean by "who are actually" (given the definition in reputable sources that it i s any American who traces their ancestry to Ireland) and secondly, many of those people are sourced with completely vague statements such as I'm part Irish, xxx has Irish eyes etc. What we need is some accurate detailed sources about their ancestry so we can verify that it is correct. Arniep 18:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Who are actually means a reliable source that says they are Irish-American or Irish. I am not aware of any people who are 100% Irish, for example, who are not on the list. If someone is "actually" Irish-American in whatever way, they will sooner or later be described as exactly that. I did not source the whole Irish list. I'm sure there are some sources there that are dubious and need be removed. I am iffy on this whole "half Irish" thing and unsure how it relates to the policy. On one hand, the person is clearly saying they are "Irish" themselves, not that they are of Irish ancestry or have an Irish grandma. For instance, we would probably list someone described as "part-time politician" on a list of Politicians. But as I said, the "half" bit is iffy, and seems borderline to me. I am unsure. Mad Jack 18:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

As to JeffW - well, what difference does it make between what is going on now with this NOR thing to what you're suggesting? We're gonna end up with roughly the same amount of names if we do it the way you suggested or if we do it the NOR way. A person can definitely be Irish-American and consider themselves as such even if their ancestors left Ireland a long time ago. There's no point in "Americans with Near Irish ancestry". "Irish Americans" is a perfectly fine labe acknowledged in reliable sources and should be user here if it is used on those same people elsewhere. Mad Jack 18:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Again the problem here is people trying to set their own definition of Irish American when there are reputable sources that give a definition in that they are Americans who trace their ancestry to Ireland, without any specific limits or qualifications. I really cannot see a problem here apart from people who get upset when someone with a Jewish surname appears on Irish Americans or with a German surname on Hungarian Americans- people are related to their mothers and grandmothers you know! Arniep 18:21, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Jack O'Lantern/Mad Jack, you are clearly missing the point. NOR does not mean "turn off your brain completely". If someone is of Irish ancestry, and is of American nationality, they are an American of Irish descent, an Irish American, however it is phrased. I cannot believe you argued for however many thousands of words with Arniep about this. for future reference, Arniep is so strict on sources that when we've disagreed on that topic, it has always been his very disdainful dismissal of a source I consider acceptable for what is being cited. This is not a sourcing issue. This is a logic issue. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:27, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The point here is not about people who are, say, 100% Irish. Are you telling me that a person who is 1/64th Irish is an Irish-American? Really? How about 1/256th Irish? Still Irish-American? The problem is we as Wikipedia editors are not allowed to come up with a cut-off point for Irish ancestry. Another problem is that "Irish American" is a label. We cannot and should not apply labels to people that have not been applied to those exact people by reliable sources. We don't make judgments on who is or is not an Irish-American. We just report what reliable sources said. Since nothing hangs on any of these people being Irish-Americans, especially those with lesser ancestry, we have no reason to call them that if no one else has called specifically them that. Mad Jack 18:38, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Arniep, we are precisely avoiding any of our own definition. We are putting in only those who have been defined as Irish-American by reliable sources. You forget that Wikipedia is the messenger, the reporter - we report the definition and we report the people that sources have said fit the definition, not who we have decided fit that definition. No one on earth, including most likely you, would describe a person who is 1/128th Irish as an Irish-American. The definition for Irish-American (which you are not allowed to mix with anything else to create a "C" anyway) does not say it defines Americans of 1/64th Irish descent, or Americans of Irish, French, Swedish, Jewish and Dutch descent. It is possible for people to be just "American". "X-American" is a label that refers to a combination of a cultural, ethnic, national and self-defined identity. Where and to whom specifically to apply this label is not for editors here to decide, just report. Mad Jack 18:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Jack the problem is you are so obsessed with excluding people not specifically identified as Irish American, believing that will somehow make the list "better", that you seem to be throwing WP:RS out of the window. Going by your method of "improving" these lists, we are getting rid of people for whom we actually have exact names, places and dates relating to their ancestry, but including people who are identified as "Irish" or "Irish American" in the most frivolous and unreliable way without any specific proof or evidence to back it up. Arniep 19:00, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

There's no reason to not include both kinds of sources, if you wish to give more detail about someone's Irish heritage. But for the most part, the deletions have been of people who have an X grandfather, which in most eyes would frankly not make that person X-American, or at worst, one X parent. If you think the sources are unreliable you should question them specifically and/or remove them. As for documented ancestry, if you can prove say, Person X had an ancestor who left Ireland in 1752, and this is the person's only Irish ancestor, what does that have to do with the person themselves being Irish-American? Nothing. It's a distant fact in their family tree and no one, including themselves, would consider themselves Irish-Americans. So this whole "family tree proof" is something that may be relevant to the person's own Wiki page, but how is it relevant in labeling them with a tag that refers to an ethnic, cultural, national and self-defined identity? As you told me before, if someone has an X-American parent that they have never met, how are they an X-American except in the most vague ethnic sense? Mad Jack 19:05, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Why are talking about date limits and self identification- I thought your only argument was about not including people who haven't been referred to as Irish Americans? The fact is many of the sources that you are using I would consider unreliable, and that includes statements from the person themselves (unless there is some kind of evidence is backed up by verifiable research). Arniep 19:19, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok that is it. Now you are saying statements from the person themselves are unreliable! I'm sorry, but this is not a geneaology site. If a person describes themselves as Irish American, then they are Irish American, regardless of what you think. I'm talking ancestry because you are talking ancestry. You seem to be trying to justify listing people of distant ancestry. If a person who is .0001% Irish is described as Irish-American, they should be listed. I am tired of this discussion, and tired of you trying to bring in this "family tree"-based POV, going as far as saying that if a person says they are Irish-American, that's not sufficient. There is no better source for a person's ethnic, religious and cultural affiliation then the person themselves. As I have told you before, an Irish American is a combination of ethnic, cultural, national and self-described identity. It is not even close to being strictly ethnicity based. We do not decide who fits these criteria. Only external sources may point us to exactly who is or is not an Irish American. There is no clear-cut definition of an Irish American, and quite obviously, if a person says they are Irish American, they are a reliable source for themselves, regardless of what your family tree says. Mad Jack 19:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm just going to pipe up my opinion here. I'm fully in agreement with Mad Jack, and was in agreement before I read his arguments here. Arniep's note that a person who has provably one ancestor of a certain nationality is a good one and in this case, I would not remove the nationality category but would never add it myself. I am, I believe, one-thirty-second Irish (possibly 1/32 Scottish instead) but as I have never been to Ireland and as Irish culture does not make up a significant part of my identity, I believe it would be inaccurate to describe myself as Irish-Canadian (or Irish-English, or however you want to describe me). Once again, though, I would not remove such a category from a Wikipedia article. Apart from that, I think we should only add the category if the person identifies themselves this way or if a reliable source identifies them as such. --Yamla 19:30, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Who the heck in their right mind is going to label someone who is 1/50th or 1/125th Irish an Irish American? No one is arguing that, Mad Jack, except for you using an extreme to prove your point. Most people using logic or deductive reasoning would consider an American with an Irish mother or Irish father, and who is described as being of Irish descent by a reputable source, as an Irish American. I think that the interpretation of the policy and perhaps, the policy itself is just flawed and needs to be re-evaluated. I also believe a section for those of mixed heritage would be helpful since Americans have such diverse roots. This is just an daily exercise in semantics for you folks, isn't it? --IsisTheQueen 19:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was hoping it was over as of yesterday, but Arniep - a blast from the past for me - showed up today to renew this "fascinating" dialogue. It isn't completely unreasonable to list someone with one full parent, but there were plenty of "people with grandparents" listed, including Ms. Leoni on the Polish page. However, the more I write on this, the more I realize that "X - American" is a specific label, and Wikipedia can't apply labels to people if they have not been previously applied to that same person. Since nothing hangs on calling someone an "X-American", why would Wikipedia do that if no one else has? How do we know that "Person X" considers themselves "X-American" if no one has told us specifically that? What if they just want to be identified as an "American"? "X-American" is not specifically ethnicity based. As I keep saying, it's a combination of an ethnic, cultural, national and perhaps most importantly, self-identified identity - just like any other "label" or "identity" we would choose to use on someone. We should only use it when told by external sources. Mad Jack 20:04, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Jack, I think you are getting too upset about this. You clearly thought that applying a fixed rule was better, however many people here clearly do not agree. Again, you are saying you are deciding for yourself that X American is "a label" whereas reputable sources just say they are any American who traces their ancestry to X Country. I agree that we need some guidelines, but this guideline is not it. For example, it would be silly to, on the basis of a published genealogy put a person in X American category if their great x 5 grandmother was from X country. However, if a person actually spoke of that ancestor, that might be sufficient for a mention in the list, if a closer forebear was not mentioned. I would personally limit the inclusion to grandparents if they hadn't spoken or written of them themselves, and no limit if they actually have (presumably it would be highly unlikely they would speak about any ancestor much further than a grandparent's grandparent). Arniep 22:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, Arniep, we can not have any of these rules to determine who we can "label". If we want to "label" someone as something, we need a reliable source to label that person that first. I can not forward you to the Original Research policy enough times. It explicitly says that you can not take A and B and mix them into C when the sources don't explicitly mention C. You can not take the (unsourced) statement that you seem to be saying is "Every American of Irish descent is Irish American" and mix it with statement B - "John Doe has an Irish grandmother" and emerge with labeling that as an X-American - statement C - when no source explicitly labelled that person as that. I do not understand why you continue this argument when the policy explicitly forbids this kind of "math", not to mention that we should be especially careful when dealing with "labels", and even more careful when living people are involved. As for who does or does not agree with you, we have one or two people who did not understand the question, one person who agreed with me, one who seemed to suggest criteria of his own, one who seemed to say that everyone who is at all Irish should be Irish-American, one (Yamla) who agreed with me, and one (Isis) who seemed to say at least people with one parent should be included, and noted that she seems weary of this (on that last point I agree with her). Your problem here is that you did not suggest an alternative method for doing this which would override Wikipedia policy, so you can never gain consensus on anything because you have nothing to gain consensus on (not to mention that editor consensus can not override Wikipedia policy). I, on the other hand, plan to continue enforcing the very specific Wikipedia policy, and am not going to let editors put labels on people based on their opinions on the subject matter. If you want to label someone, you had better make sure a reliable source labelled a person as exactly that. "deductive reasoning", whether allowed or not, is not "deductive reasoning" when there is disagreement on what the reasoning should be. Mad Jack 22:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Jack you seem to be ignoring just about everyone who has posted here who do not agree with you that original research applies in this case. You keep saying people do not agree what an Irish American is- however reputable reference works agree that it is an American who traces their ancestry to Ireland, not just on the male line, or less than a grandparent or insisting that the person has spoken about it. You are the one making the original research that an Irish American is only someone that has been referred to as an Irish American. Arniep 22:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I cannot quote this enough, can I? You seem to be making the mistake outlined here: Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article in order to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research. "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article. First, you have no reliable source that anyone with any Irish ancestry is Irish-American. Second, even if you did, you can not join this with point B to make point C. The sources tell us the definition of Irish American and then the sources tell us specifically who fits this definition. Nothing else. We don't get to decide who does or does not. And next, if I am ignoring everyone who agreed with you, then you are ignoring everyone who agreed with me. And besides that, even if you had 100% consensus, which you don't have anything close to - Wikipedia policy can not be overridden by three editors. You know very well that I will paste this part of the policy, which you seem to be ignoring, in my next reply. We do not pass judgment, Arniep. We just quote. Mad Jack 22:33, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

And another thing. You can not possibly accuse me of original research because if I directly quote what a source said specifically on the subject, that is the complete opposite of Original Research. Original Research is combining two separate pieces of info into a brand new one that has not been published anywhere else specifically on that topic. Mad Jack 22:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

As I said it is original research to decide that an Irish American is not an American who traces their ancestry to Ireland, but someone who has been explicity referred to as an Irish American. Arniep 22:44, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to continually misunderstand this. If we wish to define the term Irish American on Wikipedia as whatever you just said, that is fine. Find a source that defines an Irish-American that way and add that definition. However, there's quite a difference between defining the term Irish-American and defining people as Irish Americans. AGAIN, we do not connect A (the definition) and B (the person in question). They are separate points and they are sourced separately. Reliable sources tell us what an Irish American is. They also tell us specifically which people are Irish-Americans when they label them as that. Wikipedia editors do not get the authority to make that labeling themselves. We do not form C by ourselves, just quote it. Mad Jack 22:50, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Hum.. People might want to check out the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_French-Americans where we can see all sorts of frankly wonky original research going on in regards to this very subject. There is a reason we don't allow original research. If we are going to list someone as a X-American - got to have sources.

--Charlesknight 22:33, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Charles, of course we should have sources! I think that many of the sources currently used for the ethnicity lists are not reliable sources at all. But, to say, as Jack has done that to say an American who has been shown with clearly reliable facts, names and dates to be of Irish descent is not, by the definition of many reference works an Irish American is completely unreasonable and many people who have posted here agree that that is the case. Arniep 22:44, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Arniep, you seem to be once again saying that if some has a verified Irish great-grandparent, they are Irish-American for Wikipedia purposes. And that is something that is not only ridiculous, but conflicts directly with our policies. Neither you nor I get to apply these labels to people. Only reliable sources do. Mad Jack 22:50, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is another nugget from the NOR policy: "But in an article about Jones, the paragraph is putting forward the editor's opinion that, given a certain definition of plagiarism, Jones did not commit it. Regardless of the fact that his opinion appears to be supported, other things being equal, by the Chicago Manual of Style, it remains the editor's opinion." So, to paraphrase: In an article about whether or not Person X is an Irish-American, Arniep is saying that, given a certain definition of Irish-Americans, that person is Irish-American. Regardless of the fact that Arniep's opinion appears to be supposed by certain definitions of Irish-American, it remains Arniep's opinion. It must be supported by sources that express this opinion on the person themselves. Mad Jack 23:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Jack, the majority of the people that have replied here clearly do not agree that it is original research to say that an American who in a reliable source is shown to have an X parent or grandparent can be included in a list of X Americans. It is not against policy to propose guidelines, and I have already proposed guideline above which does not include people by great grandparent as you said, but only by grandparent which would agree with Jeff's suggestion to limit to 2 generations, unless the person had specifically identified with an ethnicity further back than a grandparent. Arniep 23:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

What "the majority of the people that have replied" think is irrelevant. Their "thoughts" are not backed up by logical expression of policy; Jack's (and Charles' and Yamla's, for that matter) is. This thread was originally about the generic, and Jack is clearly right there: we cannot add two and two and say that they are four. But on the specific issue of labelling people, we cannot do that, either - it is opinion and must be sourced. Being "Irish-American" is not simply a matter of holding an American passport and having an Irish granny. I'd be p*ssed off if I were Notable and someone wrote a Wikipedia article saying I was English - even though I was born here and have always lived here. One's identity is more complex than that. --JennyRad 23:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Jenny, of course it matters what people have said here. Neither Charles or Yamla have expressly supported Jack's stand that a person with an a X parent or grandparent should not be listed on a list of X Americans. The fact is the meaning of Irish American is given in reputable reference works as an American whose ancestry traces to Ireland without any qualification that that person must have commented on it or have knowledge of it. One must apply some sort of deductive reasoning for most lists, and this is no exception. Arniep 23:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Arniep, I don't understand you. Must I quote the passage again? It is irrelevant what the meaning of Irish-Americans is when it comes to labelling specific people as that. That's one. Next - it is irrelevant if four editors think we can go over Wikipedia policy. And Yamla explicitly said he "Agreed with me". Anyway, I am going to simply quote this every single time when I debate this with you. I am tiring of writing. But in an article about Jones, the paragraph is putting forward the editor's opinion that, given a certain definition of plagiarism, Jones did not commit it. Regardless of the fact that his opinion appears to be supported, other things being equal, by the Chicago Manual of Style, it remains the editor's opinion." So, to paraphrase: In an article about whether or not Person X is an Irish-American, Arniep is saying that, given a certain definition of Irish-Americans, that person is Irish-American. Regardless of the fact that Arniep's opinion appears to be supported by certain definitions of Irish-American, it remains Arniep's opinion. It must be supported by sources that express this opinion on the person themselves. Mad Jack 23:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

As I and others have said, thst example is not directly comparable to the example I gave. The term Irish American is defined in reputable reference works as an American of Irish descent, just as American is defined in a certain way. We do not specifically require that a person is referred to somewhere as an American to put them on a list of Americans, merely that they fit the accepted term of what is an American. I obviously do not think that every person of Irish descent should be listed in the Irish American list which is why I suggested the guidelines above. Arniep 23:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, as "I and others" have said, plaigrasim too has a definition, and a definition that is much, much clearer than that of Irish-Americans. Regardless, we can not use either definition to support our opinions on who is or is not a plaigarist, or on who is or is not an Irish-Ameican. That's what the policy says. You can not just say "Plaigraism" has no clear definition but everyone agrees 100% on what an Irish-American is! As the policy says, no definitions allowed unless they have been applied by reliable sources to the specific subject you are discussing, i.e. wether person A is Irish-American or whether that same Person A is a plaigarist Mad Jack 00:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I just gave you a passage from the NO policy that explicitly forbids this kind of thing. I do not understand why we are still discussing this topic. We do not represent Arniep's opinion, nor mine, nor anyone else's. Only the reliable sources' opinion on what an Irish American is and their opinion on specifically which people are described as such. Mad Jack 23:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

We are still discussing it as you are refusing to acknowledge the fact that people do not agree with you that the WP:NOR applies in the cases I cited above. Arniep 23:17, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOR applies on all of Wikipedia. No exceptions are noted. Please do not mis-represent user opinion with phrases like "the fact that people do not agree with you". I do not care what you think. Do you understand? As per WP:NOR, the opinions of Wikipedia editors do not matter one bit and are not represented in articles. We aren't going to make exceptions in the XXX-American lists. If you enjoy listing people there, then please find a source that explicitly says the person in question is X-American, per WP:NOR, which, in both paragraphs that I have given you, forbids you or anyone else from expressing their own opinions by inserting content in a way that it has not been inserted on that particular subject - i.e. whichever person you are inserting - before. That's all I can really say. I thought this was over yesterday and now I had to spend another day on this nonsense. Read the policies. Until and unless they are changed, I will remove anyone who I can not find a source to as being X-American, as much as I am able under 3RR. I am not going to allow editors to place labels on people that have not already been placed on them. I don't know why you are so eager to do so, but I guess that's irrelevant. Please follow the policies exactly as outlined. Mad Jack 23:22, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a collabarative project and many people do not agree with you that the original research policy applies here. Do you understand? Arniep 23:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Nope. The Original Research policy - as far as I know - applies everywhere on Wikipedia. We don't make exceptions for it, as far as I know. And stop acting like you have the majority backing here, which, factually speaking, you do not. And please do not reply to this message with a vote tally or anything similar. This has been a very unpleasant conversation, frankly, especially after I produced passages from the NOR policy that directly forbid what you are trying to do, and you ignore them. Mad Jack 23:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Jack, I am sorry if you find criticism unpleasant but that is the point of a collabarative project. I realise you have put a lot of effort into these lists, which I congratulate you on. Yes, a WP:NOR policy exists, but as KillerChihuahua has said "This is a logic issue" and "NOR does not mean "turn off your brain completely". If someone is of Irish ancestry, and is of American nationality, they are an American of Irish descent, an Irish American, however it is phrased.". The common usage to describe anyone of X ancestry in the United States is to call them an X American, just as it is common usage to call a citizen of the United States of America an American. It is not original research. Arniep 00:05, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Arniep, the policy is there precisely to stop editors from using definitions on particular subjects that they have not been used on. I do not really care if you or anyone else thinks that an Irish-American is a "logic issue", while Plaigarism is such a heated and debated topic in comparison. They are both concepts that have definitions attached to them, and we are explicitly forbidden from using these defitions according to the policy, regardless of what might seem "logical" to you or anyone else. The policy states no exceptions to this rule. That's all I can really say to you, and all I will keep saying to you. The policy is clear, and I am sure you understand it. If you think you can make edits that are somehow exceptions to it - that's your business. But I will continue enforcing it. Mad Jack 00:14, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

We've been through this countless times with Arnie. The short version is that the policies of Wikipedia are clear enough. Unless you have a source saying X is a foo, you may not say X is a foo. How difficult is that to grasp? And KillerChihuahua, you are simply wrong. You may not employ your brain. That is precisely what WP:NOR forbids. You may not take item A and item B and create item C from them, no matter how "obvious" or "logical" item C seems to you. How much clearer could the policy be? It specifically forbids synthesising new theses from the sources. If you don't recognise that deducing a thing from two other things is precisely synthesising that new thing, you need to give it more thought. Neither can you employ the "everyone knows" line of argument. You cannot say, for example, "everyone knows that the population of Paris mostly speaks French". If you want to write that in an article, you must be able to present a source that says so. (Which would not be difficult, of course, but the careful reader will grasp the point here.) So Arnie may not say "everyone knows x is a foo" (as he and his cohorts are prone to do). We should not care that everyone on this planet knows them to be a foo: if no one has seen fit to publish it in a reputable source, we do not say it. It really is as simple as that.

How easy disputes of this nature should be to resolve! You either have a source or you don't. It's no more complicated than that. Find something that says x is a foo or you cannot say it. That's the whole of it. You cannot deduce from their love of smoked salmon that they're Jewish, or from their enjoying the polka that they're Polish, or from their having been spotted at a Mass that they're Catholic. -- Grace Note.

But, Grace, that is not what is being done. A quote from someone may say, "I am of Polish-Irish descent," yet Mad Jack will not accept that, as the person does not use the wording, "I am Polish and Irish," or "I am a Polish and Irish-American". Personally, if I am citing my heritage, I might say: "I am Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Austrian, German, Russian-Jewish, and French". Then again, I might say, "I am of Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Austrian, German, Russian-Jewish, and French ancestry." It means the same thing. To ignore such, we would be remiss in our duties. On several pages, Mad Jack, you have said we cannot apply our own definitions, but, to be honest, it seems that you have developed your own definition as to how such should be applied. No one says we should add someone who has 1/256 of a certain ancestry to a list, but to deny that someone is Italian-American, because they say, "I am of Italian descent," or even to deny that someone with a grandparent of a certain descent should be excluded from the lists (even if we note that it is only through a grandparent). No one is asking to go back farther. When a definition reads, "A Polish American is an American of Polish descent," that does not allow you to twist that to mean that someone can really deny the fact that they are a Polish American. It's a fact. You seem to only wish to cite it as a feeling of being Polish, but when an American states, "I am of Polish ancestry," that means, "I am a Polish American." It's that simple. Michael 06:09, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Grace Note the whole issue with the list of British Jews was that people were adding people with a distant Jewish ancestor, which is not the commonly accepted meaning of Jew- I agreed that the title did not support the inclusion of these people. However, every reputable reference work states that an X American is an American who traces their ancestry to X country, without any qualification that they must identify as an X American, just as a citizen of the United States of America is commonly described as an American. This is in no way an original research issue. Arniep 09:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

No, it does not, and I am not spending any more time discussing this. People who are familiar with Wikipdia's policies, including me, have already explained exactly what we do here. If we have a source that something is X, then we may call it that. Not anything else. I've quoted two bits from the NOR policy that directly apply here, and I refuse to quote them anymore because certain people seem to want to simply ignore them. Well, you can't and I won't let you. If you say "I am Polish, Irish, French, Welsh and Dutch" or whatever you are not saying you are "Polish", you are saying you are "Polish, Irish, French, Welsh and Dutch", which is a strange sort of thing that has nothing to do with a page called "List of Polish-Americans". As Grace Note said, you either have a source that says exactly what you need it to say, or you don't. We do not make our own synthesis on anything. Mad Jack 06:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but we are certainly not in agreement here. I advise you to go change the definitions as to what every ethnicity is if you are to continue under your current pathway. As it is, a person of "x-ancestry", if an American, is an "x-American". We cannot contradict ourselves, so why don't you go revise that, providing sources, to re-define it, because presently, it supports inclusion of such people who say things to the effect of, "I am of Polish descent," or "I am of Italian heritage." How do the definitions not support this? Michael 06:18, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Did you really the policy? Wikipedia:No original research says "But in an article about Jones, the paragraph is putting forward the editor's opinion that, given a certain definition of plagiarism, Jones did not commit it. Regardless of the fact that his opinion appears to be supported, other things being equal, by the Chicago Manual of Style, it remains the editor's opinion." So, to paraphrase: In an article about whether or not Person X is an Irish-American, Arniep is saying that, given a certain definition of Irish-Americans, that person is Irish-American. Regardless of the fact that Arniep's opinion appears to be supported by certain definitions of Irish-American, it remains Arniep's opinion. It must be supported by sources that express this opinion on the person themselves. Do you understand? Mad Jack 06:20, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

If those are your feelings on the matter, then perhaps you should revise every page that defines what someone of a certain background is, because as it is right now, they do not support your viewpoint, saying that an American of a particular heritage is an "x-American". I'll bring up my point from last night...What if we have a woman who is a lawyer is listed in a category as a female lawyer, yet she says nothing to expressly identify with this? We're making an inference in this case, aren't we? Does that negate the fact that she is a female lawyer? No, it does not, nor does it refute it. It's the same thing. Michael 06:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Every page and category should be under this. We can not make up labels for people if they have not been labelled specifically that, even if the definition of that label matches the person in our opinion. This is, mercifully, specifically forbidden in the policy, using the example of an editor inserting that something "is not plaigarism", and backing that up with a definition of plaigarism. Unless that specific definition and opinion was used specifically on that person/subject, we can not use it. Anyway, the lawyer wouldn't have to describe herself as a female lawyer. She can be described as that by a reliable source (i.e. not the IMDB:) ). That is perfectly fine. I.e. Gloria Allred. Says here she is a female attorney.[4] Other sources call her a "lawyer", etc. You get the point. If something is worth noting, it will be noted in exactly that format somewhere. We need not draw our on conclusions, and will not ignore policy. Mad Jack 06:36, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

So you believe that Gloria Allred, for example, could only be defined as a female attorney with documentation, even though her gender is known, and it is a known fact that she is an attorney? I believe that such things are classified as common knowledge, and I'm certain that when you have written research papers, you have had to cite sources. Sources are only required for specific facts that may not be well known. If you look at literally any article out there, I assure you that not every sentence has five citations following it. Michael 06:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course not every sentence has a citation on it. But when an editor challenges the factual accuracy of something, it must be sourced or it can (and will) be removed immediately. So, I challenge the fact that the people listed on all those lists are X-Americans. Therefore I set out to source these lists under Wikipedia's policies. You are free to query any bit in any article we have, and remove it immediately if it is not sourced, and keep it removed until it is sourced. That is every editor's right. Mad Jack 06:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Then, in that case, you would need to erase the definitions laid out on the specific pages, as they do not support your argument in whole. Find me a reliable source to define a Polish American and each other ethnicity category, because as it is, the current definitions do not support your actions. Michael 06:50, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you reading what I'm writing here? We can have a definition of X-American from a proper source, just as we can have a definition of plaigarism. What we as Wikipedia editors can not do is pick who does or does not fit the definition for plaigraism, X-American, homosexual, gardener, career criminal, etc. I just gave you this example from the policy page. We quote the description of the term from a good source, and then we quote which people good sources have decided are fit to be included under this term. We do not make our own decisions on who is or is not included based on the definition. This is so clearly outlined in the plaigarism example that I don't see what's left to discuss. Mad Jack 06:54, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

In regards to your inquiry on citations...Why not just use to request a citation? Wouldn't that be better than potentially using a fact in the mess by just deleting it? Michael 06:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, seemingly discourages this practice here [5] (and this is now quoted in the "BLP" tag). Not only does it make the page look unprofessional - i.e. explicitly saying we don't know for sure and we need help - but I find most of the time it doesn't get cited. It can just as easily be on discussion, which in my opinion is fair enough. Mad Jack 07:02, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

But that is not the case if it never makes it onto the discussion page for some reason. Michael 07:05, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry if that has happened, but I believe I saved everything, except maybe the people that were already listed as Cajuns when I removed them from the French Americans page. But if you want me to be extra careful when removing names - I will be. Mad Jack 07:09, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

No, not the french page in particular. I've noticed it on quite a few occasions...pretty sporadic, actually...Of course, let's ensure we stay on the main topic here so as not to lose the previous arguments. Michael 07:23, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh for goodness sake, let's not. I just know Arniep will show up tomorrow and continue this, using the absolutely brilliant argument that Wikipedia policy somehow does not apply to this and that his "deductive reasoning" on this must be bought as undisputed fact. Well, he's wrong. Wiki policy applies to everything. This is why, when he returns with more of the same tomorrow, I will simply copy and paste the parts of the policy that apply to this as my reply. Maybe I'll even set a bot to automatically paste these policy parts every hour or so, as a reply, because I am sick and tired of this argument. I have honestly nothing left to give to this discussion - the policy specifically says what it says, and you either want to follow it, in which case I thank you, or you don't, which means I'll have to go running around Wiki cleaning up after Arniep or anyone else who wishes to enforce their opinions on which person is X-American according to what they think, as opposed to what sources have said specifically on that person. Sigh. Mad Jack 07:28, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Mad Jack. If the fact that someone is an X-American is relevant, some outside source will have mentioned it. That source should be cited. If no reliable source has found their nationality important enough to mention, we needn't mention it. In regards to Michael's comment about stating someone is a female lawyer, because we know that she is female, and we know she is a lawyer, that is a completely different situation. In that situation, you know darn well she's female. With the example Arniep is using, the conclusion is being drawn that someone with one Irish grandparent is perceived as "Irish-American," even though they may only be 25% Irish. If the other 75% was, say, Kenyan, most people (and most sources) would probably perceive them as being African-American. In the case of your female lawyer, it's unlikely she's only 25% (or an even smaller percentage) female. You have to bear in mind, most Americans are mutts. If I'm ever famous enough to rate a Wikipedia article, you'd have to list me as an Irish-American, Native-American, British-American, German-American, and probably some other random stuff as well. I have an Irish grandfather, but I'd never call myself "Irish-American," and I'm willing to bet no reputable news agency would either, even though I have a fairly common Irish surname. I'm only really Irish on St. Patrick's Day (like a lot of my fellow countrymen, even though some of them don't have a drop of Irish blood). DejahThoris 07:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Deja, the entire problem is that the sources used by Jack are not reputable or reliable. A reliable source has to show that they have had some kind of expertise in the field on which they are reporting. Being an X American is specifically about ancestry- I am not aware of anyone suggesting that one can identify as an X American but not be of X ancestry, therefore the claim must be verifiable, and in the vast majority of cases it is not. Arniep 09:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I am quite bemused by this but actually looking at the sources on these lists it appears that they do not actually say a person is an X American, and Jack is just making subjective judgements about what statements seem to qualify a person as an X American! Many of the entries do not say that the person is an X American, but was "born into a family of X Americans", or "born to an X father", or "is X on her father's side", or the amazing "I was born with the Irish virus. That's easy. I came by it honestly through centuries and centuries of ancestors" (from List_of_Irish_American_musicians! Arniep 09:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

From Lists of Irish-Americans: "I'm proud of my Irish heritage, but I'm not Irish. I'm not even Irish-American. I am American, period." Now, are we going to actually agree on some sensible guidelines or keep on pretending that everyone in these lists is explicity sourced as an X American? Or alternatively delete all these lists and just have a few examples on the actual X American articles? Arniep 10:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Example: Grace Note made this edit[6] to change east to south-east. Grace Note could have seen this on a map - That is not OR. A source is not needed which specifically states "approximately 9 miles south-east of the town of St Ives by road" (and if one is used, its probably a case of copyvio). A map would work. Or a source which states that St Ives is approximately 9 miles north-west of Hayle. Or a source which gives the difference as 9.17203 miles as measured by road surveyers - we would not jump on Grace Note and state: Oh, that's OR, that's not what the source said! Because Grace Note does not need to turn off all brain function. Rephrasing is a good deal of what we do here. KillerChihuahua^?!? 12:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

No; by Grace Note's own logic, he can only say that A is south-east of B if he has a source that says so explicitly; deducing it from "B is north-west of A" is original research. After all, Grace Note himself said that just because David Miliband's parents and brother are Jewish is not proof that he is.--20.138.246.89 12:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

If we have a reliable source connecting person Y to X,Y,Z ethnicity/ancestry, then the person is X,Y,Z-American, no matter how thin the connection is. Anything else is an WP:OR interpretation of... WP:OR! :NikoSilver: 13:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

From NikoSilver: "If we have a reliable source connecting person Y to X,Y,Z ethnicity/ancestry, then the person is X,Y,Z-American, no matter how thin the connection is. Anything else is an WP:OR interpretation of... WP:OR! "!!!! Yes! No, Nikko. We don't use "THEN" here. That is your opinion and it needs to be kept away from articles. As I keep quoting, the policy explicitly notes that you can not make this "then" or "in that case" connection based on your opinion, even if the defintion for X-American agrees with you. You need to quote the definition of X-American from a good soure, and then you need to put in the article those people that the sources explicitly labelled as being X-Americans, not anyone who in your opinion feets the definition. From WP:NOR (and this will be pasted instead of subsequent replies, since people enjoy ignoring it and making up their own rules): "But in an article about Jones, the paragraph is putting forward the editor's opinion that, given a certain definition of plagiarism, Jones did not commit it. Regardless of the fact that his opinion appears to be supported, other things being equal, by the Chicago Manual of Style, it remains the editor's opinion." So, to paraphrase: In an article about whether or not Person X is an Greek-American, NikkoSilver is saying that, given a certain definition of Greek-Americans, that person is Greek-American. Regardless of the fact that NikkoSilver's opinion appears to be supported by certain definitions of Greek-American, it remains NikkoSilver's opinion. It must be supported by sources that express this opinion on the person themselves. And as for Arnie's quote, the person explicitly says they're not Irish-American! Who gives you the right to list them as that? Why is that important to you? If you think some of the sources are dubious, feel free to replace them or remove the name. A lot of these were sources a long, long time ago, and some not by me. The page definitely needs a clean-up to be brought fully under Wiki policy, which I would do, and will do soon, if I wasn't stuck here "debating" this. However, Mr. P, if you think a person's own words are a dubious source, which you seem to, well - that might be your problem. Mad Jack 16:54, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Jack, but you have somewhat hoisted yourself upon your own petard here. It's not just a few, but the majority of the sources for people on the Irish American lists do not explicitly say that the person is an Irish American. Therefore you have subjectively decided what wordings qualify a person to be an Irish American which by your own and GraceNote's arguments is original research and therefore not permitted. Arniep 17:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I've told you, arniep, I am positively certain that there are people now listed on the Irish page, and others, that do not fit under the policies and should be removed. An overhaul is definitely needed. Mad Jack 17:51, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Let me say it is not my own problem that a source is unreliable, that is why we have policies such a s WP:RS and WP:V. Frankly, insisting that a person must have been identified as an Irish American is really not going to make these lists any more acceptable as there will almost certainly be somewhere on the net with big lists of Irish Americans that have all these people on. There is no way to say what is and what is not a reliable source as the whole idea of Irish American is subjective according to the listmaker. Arniep 18:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it definitely will. We will get people who unquestionably identify as Irish-Americans, or have been identified as such, not just anyone with any random Irish ancestry. There are so many people with Irish roots of some kind - who really cares that Vince Vaugn or Frankie Muniz have Irish ancestry? They've never been called Irish-Americans, it clearly isn't a big part of their heritage, and putting them on a list because of their grandparent (who was no doubt American, not even Irish-born) it pretty silly and of little to no encyclopedic value. That said - this whole paragraph is just my opinion - it has nothing to do with the policies. But I believe the policies were designed specifically for this purpose - to blurt out random nonsense or editor's assumptions that would lead to a generally unproductive or misleading list or article. Sure, we may "miss" a few people who consider themselves Irish-Americans but haven't explicitly said so, but that's part of the difficulty of editing a major encyclopedia. Mad Jack 18:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Mad Jack is entirely correct in his use of policy to ensure that original research is not used to decide just who is or is not "Irish American". Wikipedia does not make these kinds of decisions, but simply relies on reliable sources which make these claims. Attempts by Wikipedians to classify various individuals based on "blood" are not only against policy, but verge on something quite unpleasant. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:04, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Likewise, editors, then, do not have discretion to make such decisions, yet Mad Jack has, on several ocassions, defined what one must classify as. How is it that if an American explicitly states, "I am of Italian descent," that that does not mean the person is an Italian American? Look at our own definitions of what an Italian American, a Polish American, a German American, etc. is, and you will see that the definition means (not just implies) that an American of x-descent is an x-American. As I said before, it's the same thing with a female attorney. If she is female and an attorney but the two are never stated, how then can we put them in the "Women lawyers" category under that logic? The definitions in place on Wikipedia directly contradict the practices of certain users. Michael 06:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

"Of Italian descent" is an ambiguous phrase; the speaker may view themselves as being of Italian, Irish, Welsh, German, and Congolese descent, all simultaneously. Furthermore, even if their ancestors were 100% Italian, they may resent being described as "Italian-American"; their view may be "even though I am of Italian descent, I am American, plain and simple, not a hyphenated American." Jayjg ^(talk) 19:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Say, do you really want another link to the policy, which explicitly states that we can not take and match definitions? Like, y'know, the plaigarism example, which explicitly demonstrates that, even if the definition for plaigarism supports your opinion that someone is a plaigarist, it is still your opinion and we can't use it unless a good source used it on that particular topic? So, like, if the definition for X-American supports your opinion that a particular person is X-American, it is still your opinion and remains and as such until a good source uses that term on the person? Must we continue this? Almost every single long-time editor here who is familiar with the policies has just stated the same thing. Enough already. I'm sure you completely understand the policy by now, so I'm just repeating myself for nought. BTW, check out List of Welsh Americans, which, as of 3 minutes ago, completely and totally fulfills Wikipedia policy. Please use it as a model for others page. Every name on that list has a proper source that states the person is X-American. It even has some family history details for good measures, to show people like Arniep that the reliable sources weren't just fibbing when they said the people were Welsh-Americans. Mad Jack 06:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

There appear to be two positions here:

1) You should not classify someone as Irish-American unless they have been described as such, because the definition is fuzzy and could be disputed, so someone making the connection between Irish descent and "Irish-American' could be expressing a POV or just be completely wrong.

2) You should not classify someone as Irish-American unless they have been described as such, period. It doesn't really matter whether or not anyone disagrees with the definition or whether you might be making a connection that other people disagree with--you're just prohibited from doing it, regardless of such considerations.

These are *very* different. And the whole long thread above seems to be full of type 1 arguments disguised as type 2. If all that matters is that a logical deduction is being made, then the female lawyer example is perfectly valid. If you know that someone is female and a lawyer, you're not allowed to deduce that they are a female lawyer. On the other hand, if you say that the female lawyer example is different because "you know darn well she's female", then you're really not making argument 2 at all. If you were really making argument 2, how certain you could be of an unsourced deduction is of no relevance.

I find it absurd that we need sources to say that someone who is female and a lawyer is a female lawyer, or that if one town is northwest of another, the other is southeast. The George Bush article says that he is a businessman and politician. If you have separate sources for him being a businessman and being a politician, do you need a third source for the claim that he's a businessman *and* a politician, since going from "he's A" and "he's B" to "he's A and B" is making a logical deduction? That's Wikilawyering. Ken Arromdee 06:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't understand. 1 and 2 seem the same to me - it's not the reasoning, it's the result. The reason it isn't logical deduction here is that no one would disagree that a woman is a female, and you can likely find plenty of sources to support both descriptions. And as you said under 1, whether a person is or is not an Irish-American can not be a logical deduction, because, like plaigarism, it isn't a 100% clear cut issue, and definitely fits under OR. Mad Jack 06:59, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

1 and 2 are differet here precisely because of the reasoning. There's a big difference between "you can't deduce that someone is Irish-American because the deduction isn't 100% clear cut" and "you can't deduce that someone is Irish-American whether the deduction is clear-cut or not".

If being clear-cut doesn't matter, then *don't try to argue that it isn't clear-cut* because that is completely irrelevant. Ken Arromdee 16:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, what difference does it make? Positions 1 and 2, in execution, are the same thing. I believe, as I have stated down below somewhere, that a certain basic logical deduction is always required. But logical deduction is always, always, always, something that is 100% agreed upon and something no one could ever even think of debating. Neither plaigraism, the example given in the OR policy, nor Irish-Americanism are clear cut, undebated, terms. You can't just say "oh, in this case it is clear that the person is Irish-American" but in other cases it isn't. Mad Jack 16:37, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Mad Jack, you've given up common sense for Wikilawyering, in your attempt to get people to mention facts of significance with regards to ethnicity. I'm sure a majority of people are behind you with regards to the mention of X-ancestry when it is significant, but I don't see how following a simple if/then statement in concert with a commonly understood definition is conducting original reasearch. -Freekee 17:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

This isn't about mentioning X ancestry, though. That is fine, I am all for that, when cited in the person's own article. This is about sticking people on lists or in categories of X-American and applying specific labels. As for the "commonly understood definition", it is about as commonly understood as the definition for plaigarism. If that one is strictly prohibited from being applied if no one else has, I can't see how this is any different, bar our desire to please those who want to stick as many people as possible on these lists. Mad Jack 17:11, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

As stated above, phrases like "of Italian descent" are ambiguous; the speaker may view themselves as being of Italian, Irish, Welsh, German, and Jamaican descent, all simultaneously. Furthermore, even if their ancestors were 100% Italian, they may resent being described as "Italian-American"; their view may be "even though I am of Italian descent, I am American, plain and simple, not a hyphenated American." Alternatively, even though their ancestry may be 7/8 Scottish, they may insist that they are "Navajo", not "Scottish-American". Ethnic identity is a complicated thing, and it's not up to Wikipedians to "deduce" what someone's ethnic identity is. Instead we follow the very sensible WP:NOR policy, and simply quote what reliable sources say on the matter. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Question: Sorry, but I refuse to find out by reading all the long text above: Apart from Mad Jack, is there anybody else who agrees that if someone is sourced to be partly X and wholly Y, they cannot be listed in category X-Yians because 2+2=4 is considered "original research"? Really, is there anybody else who makes this WP:OR interpretation of... WP:OR, apart from Mad Jack? :NikoSilver: 00:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, NikkoSilver, those people would be Allen, Yamla, JennyRad, Grace Note, DejahThoris and Jayjg (sorry if I missed anybody...). Even if no people agreed on it, the NOR policy has a very clear and unambigious example of matching definitions with people's names when no such matching has been done by anyone else. Mad Jack 02:15, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Even if others agree that this example violates the original research rule, it's important to figure out *why* it violates the original research rule. "This violates the rule because it's an unclear deduction" might make sense. "This violates the rule because it's a deduction" makes no sense. Ken Arromdee 18:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

So, to take an example remote from ethnic lists, if I have a source that a man's parents had two sons and two daughters, is it OR to write "he was one of four children"? Would Mad Jack subscribe to that, and would the other editors he mentions?--Runcorn 19:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article in order to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research. "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article.

That principle can't be absolute. If I have a verifiable source that says that Alan Smithee was born June 1, 1968, and a verifiable source that says he was married June 1, 1990, isn't that enough to say that he was married on his twenty second birthday? TheronJ 19:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The two examples offered above - the marriage and the children thing - are cases where absolutely no one on earth would disagree under reasonable grounds. I am not 100% certain, but that indeed does seem to be deductive reasoning that is allowed - or at least not identified as not allowed. This is not, however, the case for "Irish American", because, as you can see, its meaning and where the term can be applied is definitely not agreed on. Mad Jack 23:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

So, let's presume an article says, "Mary, born in New York, is of Italian descent." She is an American, and she is of Italian descent, thus making her an Italian-American. Isn't that logical? You cannot implement your own definition as to what an Italian-American is. Wikipedia defines it in a certain way. If you don't agree with that, I implore you to find a source and re-write all the ethnicity articles to conform to this or your arguments are baseless. Michael 00:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

That's it. I'm calling the police on you - you're going to be a convicted "phrase repeater". Someone who repeats the exact same argument over and over, despite the fact that it has been specifically refuted. It's been explained to you, and will be again and again and again and again, ad nauseum, that we can not mix and match definitions. The NOR policy explicitly uses the example - if you think Jones committed plagarism somewhere because the Wikipedia or other definition of plagarism matches what Jones did, and you put that in the article, that's original research. You can not look up definitions and match them with what people have been described as. It's that simple. That's what it says. There is no "Own definition" of Italian-American, except one that you are trying to use. Wikipedia reports the definition of Italian-American from good sources, and then if we wish to have a list of Italian-Americans or call people that, we report specifically which people have been called that by reliable sources. In summation - we report everything, from the definition to people who match it - from the top down. At no point do we go around looking for people who match the definition of a term but have not been labelled with it. It is that simple. Can you not use that "definition" argument again, then? Explaining this over and over, while good for my finger muscles, is really stretching my patience. Mad Jack 01:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It's the truth, though. You seem to have taken your own definition as to what an "x-American" is when it is laid out on Wikipedia and by other sources as mentioned earlier herein. Were it another case (my female lawyer example, for isntance), I highly doubt you would object to a female who is an attorney being put in the Women lawyers category. How is this different? If we cited a woman who happens to be a lawyer as a woman lawyer, but no source explicitly stated that, would you object? Her gender may be known, and her career may be known, but under your mindset, she could not be included without a source directly saying she refers to herself as a female attorney or a source calling her a woman lawyer. Michael 01:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

If we have a source that she is a woman, and a source that she is a lawyer, that is fine. That is A + B = AB. There is no "C" created and, this is the crucial part, we do not have to consult any definitions and mix-and-match them with the description. Now, read the below excerpt from Wikipedia:No original research very carefully, and if you want to reply to this message, please explain how "Plagarism" in the below case is any different than "Irish American": "in an article about Jones, the paragraph is putting forward the editor's opinion that, given a certain definition of plagiarism, Jones did not commit it. Regardless of the fact that his opinion appears to be supported, other things being equal, by the Chicago Manual of Style, it remains the editor's opinion." Mad Jack 01:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Consider the same argument made for a female lawyer example. "in an article about (name), the paragraph is putting forward the editor's opinion that, given a certain definition of "female lawyer", (name) is one. Regardless of the fact that his opinion appears to be supported, other things being equal, it remains the editor's opinion."

It is not true that "we do not need to consult any definitions". A female lawyer is defined as someone who is female and a lawyer. If you only have separate information about someone being female and being a lawyer, calling them a female lawyer is OR by your definition. If the OR policy actually says that that is OR, then it's worded improperly, and going by the letter of the policy is Wikilawyering. Ken Arromdee 15:37, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. A definition would be "a female human who practices law", and we aren't using that. If a source says someone is a woman and that someone is a lawyer, that is perfectly fine. We need not consult any definitions. We simply are repeating what the source said. Mad Jack 17:24, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This isn't a response to a particular comment above but more a response to the whole ... a point which I think is being slightly overlooked:

Some things are more than the sum of their parts - the hyphen in "Irish-American" (or any similar term) makes it a whole new term which means more than the sum of its parts; "Female lawyer" lacks the hyphen, isn't a new term, doesn't have the same problem.

If Person A is American and we have a verifiable source saying his father is Irish, we could (in my opinion) put him on a list of "Americans of Irish descent", but we cannot (again in my opinion) put him on a list of "Irish-Americans". Because "Irish-American" is controversial, does not have a fixed definition, and in short, means more than merely "American person of Irish descent". Or at least, some people think it does (me, for example!) and therefore its controversial nature is established.

--JennyRad 13:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, there's the question: is it OR because it's a questionable deduction, or is it OR because it's a deduction? Ken Arromdee 15:37, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

As for hyphen or not, apparently there is a move to remove the hyphen from page titles, though I can't tell the difference. There's no encyclopedic value in "Americans of X descent". Listing people who are, say, 1/16th X or even 1/4 is a random collection of information, which is not allowed by Wiki policy. Mad Jack 17:24, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

WHAT IN THE HELL IS WIKIS PROBLEM?

We really should not be worried about copyrighted pictures from government sights. These are COPYRIGHTED PICTURES from a GOVERNMENTAL SOURCE im talking about here. This source could be department of defence, department of economics, or department of face-painting. ITS FROM THE GOVERNMENT. ITS AUTOMATICALLY FAIR USE YOU .. im not going to say it. The editors on here just seem to want to block anything that is on the internet but thats IMPOSSIBLE because to display something on the internet it obvioulsy has to come, at some point.. FROM THE INTERNET. Dont you get it?

WTH is wrong with you guys?

Id like a fair response to my question please. Jeremy D. 19:40, 2 July 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Itchy01ca (talk • contribs) .

The mere fact that you find an image on a government website does not mean that that image is necessarily an "image produced by an employee of the government of the United States in the performance of his duty". The government routinely acquires images from third parties for its own use, and when it does so the images may (depending on the circumstances) remain copyrighted by their original creator. It is necessary to examine each image on a case-by-case basis to determine whether or not it falls within the boundaries of the federal work product doctrine. Fortunately, government webmasters are usually quite responsive and all federal government websites are required to have a "contact the webmaster" indication, so if you find yourself needing an answer as to whether a specific image falls within the FWP, it's very easy to get a solid answer. Kelly Martin (talk) 19:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the person may be refering to an image from a Canadian government site, [7] which of course is not subject to U.S. copyright laws. [8] older ≠ wiser 19:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be appropriate to block this user, without consideration of his (incorrect) position, due to his extreme and unnecessary hostility. We face enough challenges with copyright there is no need to subject our volunteers to such treatment. Wikipedia is not your favorite web flame forum. If you have a concern or compliant please express it with civility and without hysteria. Mistakes are made and polite feedback is appreciated. --Gmaxwell 20:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Unfortunately i see these copyright problems all the time. In my opinion, any form of bits and bytes should not be allowed a copyright. ITS BITS AND BYTES PEOPLE. Don't be such a prude when it comes to pictures and other material because as we all know (well.. MOST people who are ADULTS know) you cannot possibly please everyone. If this wiki experiment is going to succeed it HAS to be willing to go against the larger corporations and ideals of US corporations (copyright). So a picture that is from a Canadian Defence website should not be considered an unlawful thing. It just make sense.. to an adult at least.Jeremy D. 21:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Please read about fair use and public domain. Many works of the federal government are public domain, but this needs to be verified on a case-by-case basis, as Kelly explained. Many works that are not automatically public domain can be used under fair use, but this requires extensive justification. Nothing is "automatically" fair use. Please check your hostility until you've learned more about the subject. I would not advise blocking this user for incivility at this point, since they seem to be acting in good faith. Deco 23:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Having looked the source over (the .ca site "Important Notices" page) it appears that while it may well be usable as fair use for the specific aircraft's page (Canadair CT-114 Tutor) it's certainly not applicable for other pages. I beleive the editor may be mistaking "automatic fair use" for the policy of the U.S. where governmental publications are automatically public domain. Canada does not have the same laws as the United States (see the page, again) as far as governmental publications. While fair use may be applicable, it is certainly NOT public domain, and in fact cannot qualify as GFDL as the governmental site shows restrictions on reproduction, specifically commercial reproduction, which is GFDL-incompatible. If my two cents are of no help, please return along with $5 shipping and handling to: ~Kylu (u|t) 00:09, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe these statements to be accurate. Deco 00:23, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Canada sucks. Fair dealing is a joke. FAIR USE is the way to go!--153.18.156.242 17:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Canada sucks? You talk about blocking users. Block this guy. I guarantee that I wont be thrown in jail or my website will be taken down if i post torrents up on a Canadian server. Whereas in the United States, there have been NUMEROUS arrests of torrent server clients. Canada rules because we know that bits and bytes are bits and bytes and are a random collection of data on a computer screen. In my opinion, Canada is a much more free country when it comes to personal rights and freedoms. Corporations run the lives of every United States citizen. Not Canadians. Thanks Jeremy D. 21:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Itchy, please calm down. Very few people will take you seriously until you do. Shouting accomplishes nothing. Our personal opinions of copyright law have little or no direct effect on the legal framework; sure, the law may need adjustment, but I would strongly oppose any attempt to use Wikipedia as a soapbox for the purpose -- if I want to take a legal risk to make a point, I'll do it, but I won't readily drag someone else, much less an entire online community, into it. Again, please remember to keep a cool head and stay civil. Thanks, Luna Santin 11:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Understood. It just all seems rather unfair to people who are attempting to find good, historical pictures of rare objects and such. There seems to be a fair amount of grey area in copyright law concerning historical photos.

Multi Page Delete

Rather than list every article listed on List of people by nationality for AfD, I think it would be easier to have one AfD for them all. Also, the only reason one would be deleted and not all of them is if people with different veiws on notablity voted on them. Without knowing about the rest, I listed List of Iranians for AfD. As of now, it looks like it would be deleted under the reasoning that it is unmaintainable and could be a category. That would apply to all lists in List of people by nationality. But how to go about this? Would I put an AfD notice on all of them and have them be redirected to one AfD? I would like to get input on how to do it as well as support before I do this. An suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks. Wikibout-Talk to me! 23:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It now seems it will be kept so I withdraw this suggestion. Wikibout-Talk to me! 14:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Why concealing user's contributions to deleted pages? (repost)

Why is it still not possible to review my own deleted contributions? Not the content itself, but just the names of the articles the contributions were to?

I have already asked that in March, and received the answer that it's a technical issue, namely that reviewing deleted contibutions is an "everyone or noone" permission.

AFAICT, currently the fine-grained control over the permissions is implemented in MediaWiki and used on Japanese wikipedia.

So, why do you still conceal from users their own contributions? --tyomitch 01:50, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, the fine-grained permissions just aren't that fine-grained - I don't know whether a particular user can be given access to deleted revisions of a particular article, and even if so, I don't know if that could be done automatically for articles they contributed to. Someone with more technical background might be able to give a better answer, but in short I think that would require modifications expressly for that purpose. Deco 02:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Can permission be granted to everyone to view just editors' names in deleted articles' histories? If those names are insulting, then there's no big deal in exposing them anyway, as they are already visible on the block log. --tyomitch 10:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The archived deleted pages are stored separately in the database. Since they're deleted, there is normally no good reason to view them. It is possible to view deleted edits on the tool server, and if there is sufficient demand I suppose the various edit counter tools may be adapted to show such data in a suitable form (usernames and timestamps, perhaps). --Tony Sidaway 11:52, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the reason they are unavailable is that deleted edit summaries sometimes contain offensive content, personal information or stuff that could get Wikipedia sued, which is a good reason for hiding it. However, I have found it to be a hinderance in dealing with vandals because most or all of their past vandalism has sometimes been deleted by the time I investigate, so I cannot block or warn the editor. If I have the name of the article(s), I can check the deleted versions of the page, but that is usually not the case. -- Kjkolb 19:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Notification

I believe that before a 3RR complaint can be considered, the editor allegedly violating 3RR should be notified of the complaint. I have seen discussions go on about a user who has no idea that they are being discussed and have no idea that there is a rule such as the 3RR. I'm speaking from experience, as I was blocked when I first started editing for violating 3RR, and had no idea about the rule, had not been warned, and had no idea that someone had submitted my name to this page. It wou;dn't be that hard to notify people that are reported here. What does everyone think? Chuck^(contrib) 01:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

This talk page doesn't seem to get a lot of traffic. Chuck^(contrib) 21:21, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

That is likely simply an error on the blocker's part. I never see users being blocked for 3RR without being aware of it nowadays. --Lord Deskana ^{I VALUE YOUR OPINIONS} 21:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh ok, I have noticed things working differently since my block ages ago, however it would nice to be notified that discussion is ongoing at WP:AN/3RR, in case they have any imput or defence. Just a thought. Chuck^(contrib) 21:28, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... what sort of input are you expecting them to give? Typically their opinion adds nothing to the debate. It is clear whether or not 3RR applies to their edits. Do you simply believe that discussions about users should not be held behind their backs without them being notified? --Lord Deskana ^{I VALUE YOUR OPINIONS} 21:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess that's the underlying concern. I was horrified when I googled my username and found at at a 3RR violation. I think people would just want to know. Chuck^(contrib) 21:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd say on most 3RR violations it's not necessary. It's a case of...

1. Someone reports a 3RR violation
2. Someone blocks

But perhaps on 3RR violations that involve debate the user should be notified. Hmmm... something to think about. --Lord Deskana ^{I VALUE YOUR OPINIONS} 21:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Not informing someone they have a 3RR against them is a pretty good way of maximizing the chances that there won't be a debate. If we believe in civility the least we can do is require people who pst a complaint to WP:AN/3RR to also inform the person they are accusing on their talk page. Homey 03:58, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, probbaly 85% of reports follow the 1-2 step above. Thanks for the imput. Chuck^(contrib) 21:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

No problem, any time! --Lord Deskana ^{I VALUE YOUR OPINIONS} 21:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Very few 3RR blocks are issued to editors who are completely unaware of the 3RR. In situations where there is an ongoing discussion about whether or not the 3RR was violated it might make sense to notify the alleged violator, but usually it's the 1-2 described above. An editor who has genuinely violated the 3RR should realize that they have done something wrong regardless of whether they're aware of a specific policy; edit warring is something that people should realize is naughty just from first principles. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:28, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

ethnicity, hyphenation, and membership

There's a long list of ethnicity nominations heating up at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 July 3.

We need a firm policy on this for Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories).

1. When hyphenation should be used?
   • I propose that hyphenation should always be used where the ethnicity is followed by the nationality (for example, Category:Irish-Americans). It is my understanding that this follows common style practice in American newsmedia.
   • I propose that hyphenation should never be used where the nationality is followed by the ethnicity (for example, Category:British Asians). It is my understanding that this follows common style practice in British newsmedia.
2. When categorized?
   • The recent earlier discussion indicates that membership should be self-identified and verifiable. I agree.

This needs clear policy and forceful enforcement. We have a real problem with racism among some of the editors.

For example, folks with 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16 Black ancestry are again being categorized as "African-American" without any verifiability. I don't want to go back to the days where folks were called "mulatto", "quadroon" and "octaroon". It's certainly not appropriate for a modern encyclopedia.

Another example:

No African or Caribbean or Asian or Indian immigrant is referred to as "English", no matter how long they or their generations have lived here.

I find the racist sentiment repugnant. It is contrary to current practices. For notable examples in the popular media:

• "Shefali Chowdhury is a Welsh actress." Therefore, she is in Category:Welsh film actors.
• Afshan Azad from Manchester is in Category:English child actors and Category:English film actors.

Are there any existing Proposed guidelines or policy or essays? I'm planning on writing a new one, and it would be helpful to know where the previous attempts have been made.

If folks could point me at past discussion, I will try to formulate something in the next few days. Thank you.

--William Allen Simpson 06:45, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It's as simple as 1 2 3. Using Shefali Chowdhury as an example. If a reliable source called her a Welsh actress, so can we and so should we. If a reliable source called her something else, so should we. We are reporters of what others have called these people, especially when it comes to national or ethnic labels. See how the reference to Keira Knightley's nationality was settled - with a reference that called her "English" (well, she called herself that) Mad Jack 06:49, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I suggest the policy be that a person has to publicly identify himself/herself with a specific group. Even then there are curious cases: everyone assumed until 2002 that John Kerry was Irish, even his press secretary. Kerry was often introduced that way and never denied it--but he has no Irish ancestors. Rjensen 10:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Relying on self identification only is problematic for that very reason. There are now reliable, verifiable published sources that show Kerry's ancestor was Jewish not Irish which reference exact names and dates. These are the kind of sources we should be accepting, not just vague frivolous statements made on whoever's national day it happens to be, which are usually not backed up by any kind of evidence and cannot be verified. Arniep 13:21, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

So are you saying that Kerry should be categorized as Jewish American? I'm sorry, but that is just silly. While I completely agree that self-identification by itself is not sufficient (Kerry obviously should not be categorized as Irish American), Wikipedia is not a geneological database. It is pointless to try to categorize people based on ancestry alone. The categories used by the Census are highly problematic and have come under sharp criticism in recent years, so I don't think we should be building Wikipedia's category structure around it. The thing is that such labels are a complex mixture of cultural heritage as well as of genetic background. How should a person adopted in infancy from one culture into another be categorized? If the infant grows up knowing nothing of their biological heritage, what sense does it make to categorize them as of that heritage? By extension, if a person happens to have had one or more biological ancestors of a particlar ethnicity, but grows up with little or no connection to that cultural heritage, what is the point in categorizing them as part of that heritage. This is very problematic and deeply troubling. older ≠ wiser 14:39, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Arniep seems to want to base ancestry stuff here exclusively on ancient family trees. If someone says they are Irish-American, they are presumed to be such until they are explicitly mentioned as not being that. That was the case with Kerry. If the press made that mistake originally, then we should have - at the time - as well. It's that simple. If we can find a reliable source that says Kerry is Jewish, he can be categorized as such. If good sources call Shefali Chowdhury Welsh, we can call her that, unless there are more/better sources that call her something else. Mad Jack 16:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course Kerry should not be in the Jewish American category as the term Jewish American isn't usually applied to people based on distant ancestry alone, whereas the term X American is very often used in that context. I have suggested a guideline for the lists that would allow people to included if in a reputable source such as a biography, they are said to be of X descent, and I would suggest that it be limited to grandparents, unless the person has personally spoken or written about an ethnicity which is part of their ethnic makeup which is more remote than a grandparent. Arniep 17:40, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The term Jewish can be applied to any person of any Jewish ancestry, if they or a reliable source choose to apply it. And I wouldn't call Kerry's ancestry "distant". His father is "fully Jewish" by ethnicity. If a reliable source called Kerry Jewish, we could, too. If not, not. Mad Jack 17:42, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Well his father wasn't Jewish religiously, and did he actually know anything about whether his father was Jewish? I think X American is much more commonly used for distant ancestry than Jewish American is so the terms are not really directly comparable. Kerry may be called a Jewish American by certain sources, whether those sources can be considered reliable sources is a matter od debate. Arniep 18:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Can we not have this Jewish vs. everyone else thing again? If you have this opinion, good for you, but must you share it time and again? Not only is it incorrect, it can be offensive to certain people. If a white supremacy site calls him Jewish, obviously we can't use them (We can't use them for sources on anything other than themselves, anyway). If a reliable publication calls him Jewish, we can too, pending a source that explicitly says he isn't (and the same is true for anyone else, obviously). Mad Jack 18:07, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

No, I think it is very problematic to categorize people by ethnicity and should ONLY be done when a person verifiably self-identifies with a heritage. There's no problem with making attributed statements in an article ("X source claims John Doe is a Y-American" or "according to X source, John Doe has Y-ethnic heritage"). But IMO, categorization should only be done where there is explicit self-identification (at least for living persons--the standard for historical persons may need to be based on descriptions in reliable sources). older ≠ wiser 17:20, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, sure, but if a New York Times article categorizes someone, they are presumed to have done their research :) Mad Jack 17:26, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Self identification is somewhat problematic as it leads you into the realm of deciding what phrase qualifies a person to go on an X American list. For example, a person may say: "I am proud of my Irish heritage", "I have a great interest in my Irish forebears", "I feel Irish", "I am Irish going back generations", "I am Irish on my father's side", "I have Irish blood", "I often dream of my Irish ancestors". Which of these qualifies a person as an Irish American? You see saying we must rely on self identification is really not that easy. Arniep 17:58, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

You either have a source saying someone is Irish or you don't. Not great interest, not proud of, not have, no dreams. "IS", "AM", or anything you can conjugate from that. Mad Jack 18:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Jack, you connecting the fact A that they are an American citizen and fact B that they have said they "are Irish" to mean C that the person is an Irish American! Oh wait, is that deductive reasoning?! You are making a subjective decision about what phrasing qualifies someone as an Irish American. If we are going to stick to your strict interpretation of the WP:NOR policy we need a source that says they are an Irish American. Reputable reference works just say an Irish American is an American whose traces their ancestry to Ireland, it doesn't say they have to say "I'm Irish" as far as I can see. Arniep 18:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

You two are filling volumes here and don't seem to be making any progess. Might I suggest taking this to a dedicated page somewhere and perhaps request an impartial mediator to try to help things along. FWIW, I think I disagree with both of you. To Arniep, I agree that self-identification is somewhat problematic, which is why I would insist on verifiable self-identification. Essentially, would not only have to self-identify with a heritage, but would also have to have some verifiable evidence for the claim. Note that is is about categorization. As I replied above, there's no problem with having attributed statements in articles (regardless of whether someone self-identifies), but I think it is inappropriate to label anyone through categories as having a particular heritage if they do not self-identify with that heritage. For historical persons, there would have to be verifiable evidence not only of biological heritage, but also that that heritage played some signficant role in the person's life. older ≠ wiser 18:48, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Bkonrad, the problem is what would be verifiable self-identification? If someone said "I am Irish" or "I have Irish blood", or "I have Irish roots" or "My family traces back to Ireland" or "My Irish roots were a big influence on me" or "My grandfather used to tell me stories about our Irish homeland and I never forget them", which would qualify the person as Irish American? Jack is claiming that he only accepts if they say I am Irish, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything different to any of the other statements. Arniep 09:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry if this sounds non-politically correct or non-diplomatic to someone, but I am not spending any more time discussing this, and I am certainly not going to any other page to discuss this. I don't have this kind of time to give. The NOR policies are clear. If someone is called Irish, we may call them that. If someone is called American, we may call them that. If someone is called an actor, we may call them that. They are all labels. We can apply the labels separately, or we can apply them together - Irish American actor - though not in the header of an article, of course. What we can not do is translate anything other than the label to mean that the label has been applied - it is this translation that is forbidden. On the much-discussed List of Methodist dentists, if a person is described as a Methodist, they can be on it, if they are also described as a dentist. Not "practiced dentistry once" or "raised a Methodist". The OR comes in when we translate these phrases to mean dentist or Methodist when they don't explicitly say that, same as when we translate "Irish grandma" to mean the person themselves is Irish-American. Mad Jack 18:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Jack you are translating the facts that they say "I am Irish" with the fact they are an American citizen to make a conclusion that they are an Irish-American. You are making a judgement about that. You can't just fall back on WP:NOR when it suits you. Irish-American is a specific label. If you want to change the title of the list to Americans who have said I'm Irish on St. Patrick's Day that's fine. Arniep 09:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I am not making a judgment. Like I said below, it's like seeing "Person A owns a dog" and "Person A owns a cat" and repeating it as "Person A own a dog and a cat". No translation is not involved, but simple repetition of what the sources say, in the same wording. On a list called Irish American Catholics, we need the source that the person is A. Irish B. American C. Catholic. If we have a source that says all three in the same sentence, all the merrier. But no translation or synthesis is needed - we don't need to go looking up a definition - when we repeat that the person is Irish, American and Catholic. It's all in the definition - if we need to use one to turn a description into a term, that's OR. When we repeat the exact wording the sources use, it's not. Mad Jack 16:16, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Commercial links

What is the policy of commercial links where an editor claims they are based on review of films? Namely in the article Erik Rhodes (porn star) there are numerous links both as External links and under Filmography that are to commercial sites for selling pornography. I would just like to know what guideline is expected here. Thanks. Doc 08:02, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:External links. Generally an official site for the actor would be linked to, but otherwise highly commercialized sites would be avoided in most cases. What is appropriate can be something a judgment call. Dragons flight 08:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that confirms what I believed to be the guideline. Now we'll see if the user that placed the 13 links to commercial sites selling the pornography and multiple pop-ups on each page will see it the same way. Doc 09:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam will support you if there's any problem. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 09:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, but if I read that page correctly Spam project is not for commercial sites, but for linking to one's own site. Doc 19:36, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not the most active editor on the spam project but I still think you are wrong. We very much care about links to commercial sites and many members of the project routinely delete some of these links. I think it would be helpful of you posted your concerns on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam talk page. Pascal.Tesson 14:55, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

If you're just looking for definitions, try WP:SPAM. SB Johnny 15:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

It is not so much deffinitions that I need, I believe that I understand the concept, but support on the links particularly under filmography section of the above porn performer's page which links to the sale of pornography. I'm not even sure of the notability, but would prefer other input. Thanks, Doc 21:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

NPOV and naming convention conflicts

Since WP:NC moved from being a guideline to a policy it can potentially come into conflict with WP:NPOV. If this subject is of interest to you please share your opinions at WP talk:NC#NPOV and naming convention conflicts --Philip Baird Shearer 11:51, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (books)‎

The guideline linked above has been proposed to establish notability standards for books. I invite the community to visit the project page and make comments on its discussion page.--Fuhghettaboutit 21:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

99942 Apophis

Discussion moved to Talk:99942 Apophis.

Deductive inferences in OR

While Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Is deductive reasoning original research? is not an example of a reasonable deductive inference, this was discussed recently on Wikipedia talk:No original research under the heading Reasonable inference, and there was also a recent question on section Mathematics that happens to be related. The fact is that unless an article is going to have identical sentences as its sources, some sort of deduction is being made. Synthesis is necessary for creating an article from multiple sources. The mathematics relation is that, here, we have an example of pure deduction under the rules of mathematics—which are verifiable—and a situation where simple demonstrative proofs cannot be made without either making those deductions or duplicating text from elsewhere. —Centrx→talk • 06:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

You are most likely quite right. Some deductive reasoning is probably necessary. But deductive reasoning is not deductive reasoning unless it has 100% agreement. No one would disagree that a woman is a female (ignoring the whole sex-change thing). Or that the US is short for United States. But there are people out there who think that even if a person is 100% Irish ethnically, they are not Irish American unless they define themselves as such and not reject the "Irish" part, considering themselves just "Americans". So if there is disagreement - it stops being deduction and becomes a majority, middle ground, or minority opinion, and we can't accept it under anything that is even slightly disagreed on. Mad Jack 06:54, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

In this particular case, we have a contested word meaning. If it was certain that stating "Irish-American" precisely meant at least x% of Irish ancestry, then it would be a reasonable deduction. —Centrx→talk • 07:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I think arniep butchered his own discussion when he brought up a quote by a person who was almost certainly all Irish by ethnicity, but who explicitly said that they did not want to be identified as an Irish-American. As long as these people exist, no "deductive reasoning" can be done on the X-American subject. Mad Jack 07:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The quote- from Lists of Irish-Americans: "I'm proud of my Irish heritage, but I'm not Irish. I'm not even Irish-American. I am American, period. As you can see he says "I'm not Irish." and another statement "I'm not even Irish-American" so he clearly thinks the two statements have different meanings and usages! Yet Jack has decided that the a statement "I am Irish" is enough to put a person on the Irish American list, but not "I have Irish blood", "I have roots in Ireland" or "I was strongly influenced by my Irish heritage" or "I wrote a book about my Irish ancestors". If the lists are going to exist (which I'm not sure they should do) we either have to use sources that specifically say a person is an X American, or just use reasonable judgement about whether a person has clearly shown an interest in X part of their ethnicity. Arniep 10:07, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

If I might just throw in my own two cents about the lengthy debate the two of you (Mad Jack and Arniep) seem to be having. My impression is that your issue is more about criteria for inclusion than it is about deductive reasoning. Just establish a firm rule for inclusion and be done with it (possible ideas might include the person has self-identified themselves as X, or perhaps the person is at least Y% of X, or if you can find a reliable, textbook definition, go for it). Beyond that, more in general, I think some deductive reasoning is good, perhaps even required, but it's something to keep a very close eye on, at all times. Luna Santin 11:19, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment Luna. The definition of Irish American in reputable reference works is an American who traces their ancestry to Ireland, which definition in itself is slightly ambiguous. According to some users people can only be on a list of Irish Americans if a reputable source specifically says they are an "Irish American". Jack thinks that if someone says "I'm Irish" on St. Patrick's Day that is also OK, and I think that there are many things that someone can say or do which equally indicate that they are an Irish American. Arniep 13:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The criteria for inclusion is "Is there a reliable source that refers to them that way"? Anything else contravenes policy. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

We can not have any "criteria", other than the source calling the person X-American, which is the "criteria" for any Wikipedia article - repetition of what a good source said specifically on that person/subject. On a list called Irish American Plaigarists, the person needs to have been referred as 1. Irish 2. American and 3. Plaigarist. If there are sources that refer to the person as two of those things in the same sentence, the better for us. In the case of the person being called these three things in three different places, we are not making any synthesis, but still repetition. I.e. if something says "Person A owns a dog" and then "Person A owns a cat", when we sat "Person A owns a dog and a cat" this is an exact repetition that means the same thing as the original version - no need for looking up a definition and attachin a term, which is what the translating of X father to the person themselves being X-American would entail. It's all in the translation. If we have to go look up a definition, that's OR. Mad Jack 15:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Jack, as you have pointed out yourself "Irish-American" is a label. If you are going to stick so rigidly to policy in regards to these lists as you seem to wish to, you need a specific source that says someone is an "Irish-American" not a source that says a person said "I'm Irish" on St. Patrick's Day. Arniep 19:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I have proposed that the Irish American lists be merged with the Irish American article Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lists of Irish-Americans including only those people who are actually partly famous for being Irish-Americans. 19:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

No one is famous for being an Irish American. Not a single person on the planet, actually. This is because Irish American is not a profession. If a writer is famous for writing on Irish Americans, they are still not famous for being an Irish American, because they may well be 100% Dutch and still write exclusively on Irish Americans for whatever reason - maybe their wife is Irish. Some famous people, however, may well be known to be Irish Americans - whether correctly or not. I would advise you not to use the "St. Patrick's Day" thing because, A. no one is sourced to such a reference, as far as I can remember, though I haven't seen them all and B. This conversation is about all X-Americans. People don't say "I'm Polish" on St. Roman Polanski day (you get the point), precisely because we don't have a day associated with any other ethnicity, as far as I can remember (though some may say "I'm African American on African American History month:) ). The point is, "Irish" and "American" together is A + B = A and B. "Having an Irish grandfather" matched with the definition of "Irish American" to equal that person being Irish American is A + B = C. Or, put it another way - when we mix two ingredients and and get those same two ingedients as a result, that's not OR. When we mix two ingredients and get something new - that's OR. Anyway, I'm sourcing these lists one a day - yesterday was List of Welsh Americans - which perfectly satisfies Wiki policy and has no gaping holes (although I'm sure both of Hilary Rodham Clinton's Welsh great-grandparents are devastated at her exclusion). Mad Jack 03:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

You said, "We can not have any "criteria", other than the source calling the person X-American," but I'd take some issue with that -- it's certainly one available criteria, but I've presented other options. If someone's father is reliably sourced as being X% Irish, and their mother is reliably sourced as being Y% Irish, simple logical axioms would declare that the person in question is (X*Y)% Irish. If the percentage of Irish blood happens to pass whatever particular threshold we're using, congratulations, the person is Irish (again, a reliable definition of "Irish" would probably offer some guidance, here). If they just-so-happen to also be reliably sourced as being an American, there's no stretch of the imagination to consider the person Irish-American -- just as a building described in one sentence as "yellow" and in another as "a house" could reasonably be described as "a yellow house." I say again, in my opinion, this whole argument is about criteria for inclusion. Regards, Luna Santin 08:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but as has been said, Wikipedia does not make up any criteria for inclusion for anything, much less based on "Blood". Doesn't matter how much of what their father, mother, or great-grandmother was. Just like we don't have criteria for what is or is not plaigarism. If a source said it was plaigarism, we quote it. If not, not. Same thing here. Mad Jack 08:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd be a fool to deny that a reliable source specifically calling someone X-nationality should be a direct road for inclusion -- you're very right that it should be. But what I'm getting at is this: through logical axioms, "Tim's dad is half-Irish" and "Tim is a quarter Irish from his dad" are in effect the same statement, are they not? Logically, the statements are equivalent and interchangeable. Luna Santin 09:19, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

But, "Tim is a quarter Irish from his dad" is NOT equivalent to "Tim is Irish-American". -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 10:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

You'll have to explain how I made any claim that it was. No offense intended, but I get the feeling you haven't read my above posts. Luna Santin 10:26, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

This discussion has been primarily over whether one can draw the conclusion in Wikipedia that someone is Irish-American because they have Irish ancestry. Your example doesn't address the question. Saying that someone is 1/4 Irish because his father is 1/2 Irish is not the same as saying that someone is Irish-American because his father is Irish-American. Hyphenated ethnicity is a matter of reputation. If a published source describes someone as whatever-American, we can put them in the list. We can't make up our own rules on when someone is a whatever-American. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 13:47, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes. We don't usually use the "phrases" "quarter" or "half" in the entries anyway. It's perfectly fine to mention that someone had an Irish "something" in their Wikipedia entry. This discussion is just about applying the label Irish-American in terms of categories and lists. Mad Jack 16:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

They're Irish, they're an American... what more could you possibly want? Again, a building described in one sentence as "yellow" and in another sentence as "a house" could reasonably be called "a yellow house." And, hyphenated ethnicity is a matter of reputation? That's not what the Irish American article or Dictionary.com say. Luna Santin 20:19, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, here's an example of how sticking rigidly to policy (note WP:IGNORE exists) will result in something almost non-sensical. This actor: Maurice Costello was born to Irish immigrants Thomas Costello and Ellen Fitzgerald in 1877. Yet, I have searched far and wide on google and I can find no source that says he was specifically an "Irish-American", but SURELY SURELY SURELY this person IS an Irish-American and certainly a lot more Irish than a lot of the people currently on the lists of Irish Americans who are only there due to some vague statement about Irishness. Arniep 23:07, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• A. "SURELY SURELY SURELY" is a blatant opinion of yours. It should be kept away from articles.
• B. Maybe Costello didn't consider himself Irish-American.
• C. Some articles say he was part Spanish D.
• D If we have a source that they are "Irish", that is fine, as long as we have a source that they are "American". But specifically "Irish", not their mother or whatever.
• E. I don't see the problem with the definition of plagarism. You copied someone else's work and you got caught. You're a plagarist. Shame you. What could be simpler? Surely a plagarist is easier to classify then ethnic, cultural, and national identity.
• F. And yet, we are not allowed to mix-and-match definitions of plagarism and anything else that isn't 100% certain.
• G. If you don't think "X-American" is debated, just read some of the (more sensible) comments above.
• H. That's really all I can say without lapsing into profanity. Mad Jack 23:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Jack, Jayjg and GraceNote specifically disagree with you there. According to them, Irish American is a label, and to be on a list of such they must be specifically sourced in a reputable publication as "Irish-American" not a quote of them saying "I'm Irish". Arniep 00:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

No, they didn't. As I've told you, Grace Note said on the List of British Jews talk that if we have a source that a person is "Jewish", that is fine as long as we know they are "British". Jayjg also explicitly noted that X-American is almost completely a matter of self-consideration, so a quote is the best thing we could possibly have. Mad Jack 00:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes they did: "The criteria for inclusion is "Is there a reliable source that refers to them that way"? Anything else contravenes policy. " i.e. refers to them as an Irish-American. Arniep 00:28, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the point in a discussion when we have stopped discussing policy and started intrepreting what other users said is the point where the discussion has become a joke on those still willing to participate. I have told you, just now - Grace Note said, quite specifically, and you know because you were there, on the British Jews page that "Jewish" is fine as along as we know or can source them being "British". You don't have to believe me. Ask him. Mad Jack 00:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is the quote, from [9] : "X is Jewish" + "X is British" = "X is a British Jew". Feel free to translate to "X Is Irish" + "X is American" = "X is Irish-American", aka "A + B = A and B", which is allowed . What is not allowed to add A and B and get a C, which is what changing "Irish mother" to the person themselves being Irish would entail. Mad Jack 00:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

But Jack, I offered two reputable sources to support my definition of Irish American; per your own reliance on WP:V, where's your source for the definition of self-identification? Luna Santin 04:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

What's your point? I can offer you a thousand reputable definitions of "plagarism", does that mean we're going to go and erase that part from the No Original Research policy? The whole point here is that we don't mix-and-match descriptions with definitions to produce results that have not been produced specifically on that subject/person. Mad Jack 04:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Jack, sorry, you have tied yourself to abiding by WP:NOR rigidly so I suggest you do that. As you said yourself, "Irish-American" is a label. The list is a list of people described as "Irish-Americans", not a list of Americans who are also Irish, which is original research and presumption on your part. Arniep 09:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

And here I will refer you to both WP:IGNORE and WP:UCS. You and I both know that someone who is simultaneously Irish and American is an Irish American -- the specific examples in WP:NOR refer to matters of far more opinionated content, while a person's ethnicity can largely be treated as an empirical question. Wouldn't any rational person, seeing "Tim is Irish" and "Tim is American," side by side, instantly ask, "Then why didn't they just say 'Tim is Irish American?'" I agree that your point is significant, I don't think you're a bad person or anything... I just don't think this is the right dragon for the fight you're having. Luna Santin 10:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Irish-American may seem harmless enough as a label, but other hyphenated ethnicisms may not be. I say that, especially with living persons, we may call a person what he or she calls himself or herself, or what a reputable source calls him or her, with appropriate attribution. Of course, I don't like most lists anyway. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 11:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Notability for hotels

Hotel articles are particularly spam-prone and a number of articles have been created about fairly unknown hotels. Since precedents on AfDs have generally established that touristic information should be on WikiTravel, I've been trying to draft a guideline for the notability of hotels to ensure that the new articles created have some encyclopedic value. Comments would be greatly appreciated. Pascal.Tesson 15:16, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

"Notability" shouldn't be an issue for hotels at all. The world is full of independent hotel guides that are considered reliable in the real world. An audited listing by a tourist board, travel organisation, etc, should be enough to establish that the hotel exists and is of a given type. Spam can be removed in the course of normal editing. Where there is no suitable independent guide entry, consider deletion. --Tony Sidaway 15:29, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

But Wikipedia is not a travel guide and Wikipedia is not the Yellow Pages. If the content is not encyclopedic then that info belongs on WikiTravel. Pascal.Tesson 16:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree on this one, Tony. There's at least 3 chain hotels in every city, and none of them are much more interesting than your local McDonalds or Sears. I might be more inclined to keep a more unique and interesting hotel. Deco 15:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Some hotels are indeed notable - Waldorf-Astoria Hotel comes to mind. However, I have my doubts about all the hotels on List of famous hotels as indeed I see others also have, judging by the dispute tag on the list. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of lists

I recently found that a list article that I maintain was deleted per the following discussion: see the AfD discussion. Doesn't it seem like a bad idea to delete the list before the category is created? I'm specifically referring to the fact that all the state-specific lists (bands and musicians) were deleted. Those pages were not "a yellow pages for musicans", they were useful tools. It's too bad that warning can't or won't be given to the people who have a stake in articles that have been nominated for deletion. And when a page is deleted, who should take responsibility to fix all the redlinks that are left behind? -Freekee 16:29, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Just real quick, I saw you seemed to be using a wikilink format, but you put a URL in it, instead of an article name; could have been something akin to a typo, but if not I'd encourage you to stop by the wikilinks tutorial, real quick (I'm lazy and I'm not going to check if you're new because it doesn't make a huge difference to me, no disrespect intended either way). Anyway. I'd say you bring up a good point or two -- if we delete a list before merging with a category, how can we be sure we're not losing good content? In a good situation, the editors involved in CfD might have gone through the list, adding relevant articles into the category where necessary; I can't say if they considered that or not. Your other point, about notifying interested editors, is something I'll strive to consider in the future (I'm involved in AfD fairly often), but in the meantime I'd encourage you to watch pages you feel you have a stake in -- while the AfD notice is intended to be the notification you're mentioning, it's not perfect, and I like the idea of avoiding too many hurt feelings; in what I might call ideal, we might even be able to convince an article's creator that there's no offense intended, but that whatever decision's being reached probably is for the best. In this particular case, the list did seem redundant to a category, though I never saw either of them. Anyway, thanks for your time, and I hope this hasn't soured your experience too much. Luna Santin 18:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I just mixed up my internal and external linking tagging. Thanks, I fixed it. The thing is, I did have the list article on my watchlist, and watched it very closely. There was no mention of an AfD on the talk page - it was just gone, one day. But yeah, they don't need to notify the frequent editors if they mention it on the talk page. Is every editor with a stake in an article supposed to watch the AfD page? The other big problem is that the list was not redundant to a category because no such category exists! No, it's not disgouraging, it's just annoying, and I'm hoping we can find a way to make sure these sorts of things don't happen again. In this case, it was laziness on the part of the noms. The list mentioned above was a list of lists. When they deleted "list of US musicians", they also deleted the sub list for each state. And also the related "lists of (state) bands". So that was over 100 articles. I can see why nobody wanted to tag all of those lists, but that's no excuse. And since the list pages have been deleted, I can't even look them up in order to populate the categories. It's frustrating. -Freekee 19:05, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Freekee, in order to delete at AfD, there was supposed to be a notification placed on the page (not the talk page). If they didn't follow the process, please bring it to Wikipedia:Deletion review, where it should be automatically undeleted. If they did it for a lot of pages, the administrators should be spanked.

--William Allen Simpson 21:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree. If they didn't tag the articles (the tag should be placed up at the top of the article's main page), that goes against established procedure. AfD discussion shouldn't even begin until the article is appropriately tagged; if the nominator fails/forgets/doesn't know yet, every other editor should be looking at the article anyway (elsewise, how would they be able to comment?), and should notice the lack of a tag, and should then fix that. People make mistakes, yeah, and I wouldn't hold it against everybody, but an untagged AfD goes against deletion policy and stifles discussion. WAS has a good suggestion, if that's what happened. 67.116.68.97 00:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC) I forgot to sign in, apparently. Luna Santin 01:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The page was appropriatly tagged, I had a look at the pre-deletion version. So, not reason to go to review. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 14:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe the point is the sublists, e.g. List of bands from California, were not tagged (and they weren't). IMO, this is a clear violation of policy and will be shortly overturned. Freekee - if you'd like the list content (before they're restored and relisted, assuming that's how this will play out) please let me know. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Sublist was indeed not tagged, so hat will be overturned soon indeed, and probably be relisted at AfD. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:02, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Guidelines for notability of people

Grateful for comments on my suggestion at [10]--Runcorn 20:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

good suggestions but drop Who's Who--it's much too broad a base for an encyclopedia. Rjensen 20:12, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes indeed, they sent me three letters, and I'm not even close to notable. KillerChihuahua^?!? 21:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Was that the British one?--Runcorn 21:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Legal threats

The legal position in some countries (I am thinking of Ireland, where the libel laws are ferocious) is such that it probably does represent a threat to Wikipedia. Never mind the editing environment, that is far from the main worry - you have to be able to let people remove or amend offensive articles, or you are contributing to the damage by continuing to publish the libel. However, I suggest a variety of ways around this;

Make it a condition of use (including reading) that any disputes are settled under the law of a free speech jurisdiction like the US

Make it a condition of use that disputes are the subject of arbitration rather than law - Wikipedia providing the arbitrator

Permitting a "Two sides of the story" article until the dispute is resolved. --Jpmills 11:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

IANAL but I believe the position of the Wikimedia Foundation is that since the servers hosting Wikipedia are physically located in the state of Florida in the United States, in a legal sense the only laws that apply to its content are the laws of Florida and the United States. If a user in Ireland reveals their true identity and adds content to Wikipedia violating Irish libel laws, I suppose the user might have some legal exposure but (again, I believe) the Foundation considers this to be no threat at all to itself. According to http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy, information enabling a specific contribution to be correlated with an individual will be made available only in response to "a valid subpoena or other compulsory request from law enforcement". Since Wikipedia's policies of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR effectively preclude libel, it's hard to imagine a case where a government would pursue legal action against an individual Wikipedia contributor since the most that could feasibly be kept in Wikipedia would be a sourced statement. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:23, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, eBay had some legal issues selling Nazi memorabilia even on a U.S.-based site. There are still a lot of fuzzy issues around jurisdictions and web sites. Deco 15:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, here's the libel problem. I'm sitting in England. I read a website. Because that website has sent the information to me, an English court is free to (and they have in the past) construe this as "publication" in their jurisdiction - after all, hasn't it been read by someone here? This may be tightened up in the future - courts have turned down some cases they felt were obviously forum-shopping, but not all of them.

This is not an opinion held by the laws of most countries - the UK, perhaps Australia, perhaps Ireland, offhand - but as matters stand now, it is possible for anyone to sue a website (or author) published anywhere in the world. The plaintiff doesn't even have to be English - they just have to be known and 'defamable' in England. (The Don King case is a good example of this sort of thing - [11])

As to the idea of "condition of use", it won't fly. It's vastly improbable a foreign court would accept something that's the equivalent of publishing a book and writing "by reading this you agree not to sue me for defaming you" inside; but even if they did it wouldn't matter... the guy suing doesn't have to have read or heard the defamatory material, he only needs to have been told about it. Shimgray | talk | 17:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Resolving content disputes

Is there a way to resolve a content dispute at Wikipedia? I do not mean the simple case if users found a compromise after a discussion or a mediation. The question is about a more complicated case, i.e. if the discussion failed to resolve the dispute, the RfC brought opposite views, one of the parties refused mediation.

According to WP:DR, the last resort is Arbitration, but ArbCom usually does not consider content disputes. It seems there is no way at all to resolve content disputes in complicated cases. Finally, the solution depends on which of the two sides of the dispute is more numerous and persistent and is able to "win" the edit war.

I would appreciate the comments of experienced WP editors.--AndriyK 13:47, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Which article? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 13:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest. I would like to have a general discussion on content disputes not limited to a specific article.--AndriyK 14:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be asserting that the content dispute resolution process does not work. Having access to the article in question, could help understand the problems you have encountered and offer some assistance on how to deal with the specifics of that dispute. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 15:28, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

'A compromise version has to be found'. Of course this cannot apply where one side is factually wrong. But where there is more than one point of view, there is in a sense no mechanism by which content disputes are resolved. This can only work under certain assumptions on the people involved. So, we make those assumptions: we assume editors are reasonable and open-minded. --Charles Matthews 15:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

When discussion seems deadlocked, often the best thing to do is to involve more editors. However the idea of resolving a content duspute "once and for all" is a chimera. Paul August ☎ 15:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Providing that there are no conduct issues, there can never be an unresolvable content issue. If there is an unresolvable content issue, there is a conduct issue with at least one editor. These are the cases that the ArbCom hears (normal disclaimers apply to this advice: do not take orally, overuse may cause extreme death, yada yada). Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 15:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Suppose there are two groups of editors A and B with differnt views on a certain issue. Let's take an ideal case : suppose all the users are civil (I know it is not always so, but let' assume it for the moment). The users of each group believe that their own POV is neutral and consider the opposite one "politically charged" or similar. They sincerely believe in thier views and are acting in good faith.

Any attempt to involve more editors, for instance, by RfC sometimes helps, but not always. It can happen that some comments are in favor of group A while the other ones support the POV of group B. So two groups may even grow, but it does not bring the solution.

What group A proposes as "compromise" is not considered as such by group B and vice versa.

Some of the users refuse to participate in mediation. Therefore, the mediation cannot be started.

There is no obvious user misconduct in this case, but the content dispute remains unresolved. How to resolve it in this case?

(In the real dispute I am involved in, there is a certain user miscounduct issue, and I am trying to resolve it with other methods than RfArb. Still, the main issue is the content one. Therefore I am asking about the way, how "purely" content dispute can be resolved).--AndriyK 16:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

No editor can say "your POV is politically charged" and refuse to include it in an article. That in itself is a conduct issue. Wikipedia does not regard the mens rea as necessary for proving an instance of user misconduct. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 18:33, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, if there is alway a user conduct issue behind every "unresolvable" content dispute, then why ArbCom does not consider such content disputes to look at the user conduct issue behind it?--AndriyK 19:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You are mistaking unresolved for unresolvable. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 12:56, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

A difference of opinion between editors is only really a problem when it leads to disruptive behavior. As an example, the difference of opinion over how to describe Nicolaus Copernicus' nationality in the introduction to that article is quite radical, with some editors proposing that he should be unquivocally described as Polish, and others wanting to go into a little more detail on the nationality and ethnicity issues. As far as I'm aware this has never led to arbitration, and a reasonably amicable truce exists. I do honestly believe that the question of how to satisfy everyone on the correct summary of the nationality issue in the Copernicus article is probably unresolvable, and that it may well be the subject of oscillation for years to come, but since Wikipedia is a wiki that is not really a problem. This minor issue would only become a problem if it seriously disrupted development of the article itself. --Tony Sidaway 16:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

According to my experience, the version of more persistent and/or numerous group wins in such cases. Probably the case with case with Nicolaus Copernicus' nationality is not illustrative as any of the versions is not in obvious contradiction with WP policy. But what about the cases if one of the version contains an obvious propaganda, or extremely biased view? If their supporters appear to be persistent enough, the article content would violate the basic WP policies and principles and remain in such a state for months or even years. Do you think that it is not a problem?

It seems that without a working mechanism of the content dispute resolution the basic policies such as WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:Verifiability will remain pure declarations and the "edit war power" will win.--AndriyK 16:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, WP:NPOV has a section related to undue weight (WP:NPOV#Undue_weight).

Therefore, if one of the POVs is only held by "an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority", it has no weight and can even be discarded.

However, if both views is held are held by a more or less equal number of opponents, provided none of these violate WP:NOR and WP:V, we have a problem. However, I have to see such a case yet (does not mean it does not exist though...)

So yes, it is a matter of number in a way. You can't give the same weight to fringe and to mainstream theories. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The discussion here is not about WP:NPOV. The question is how to make this and other policy working in the complicated cases when the users cannot agree between themselves. Who decides in this case which theory is "fringe"?--AndriyK 17:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, POV-pushing and NPOV are kinda linked...

As for "fringe or not fringe", that is a good question actually. Obvious cases ("Earth is flat") set aside, it is a case by case basis, as there are no set rules, especially since the way to deal with content disputes is quite different in "hard science" and humanities. I would say that a fringe theory is a theory that is not held by mainstream research. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Two points of view, each editing in good faith present their information. One point of view has 50 published books backing them and some newspaper articles. The other point of view has 51 published books and more newspaper articles. The arguement can only revolve around which point of view is better published, the arguement can not revolve around which point of view is more valid (real, actual). If both points of view are equally published, both get equal coverage in the article. The only possible dispute would be of what consitutes a valid publication, which publication is more likely to be viewed by readers as reputable and well known. Terryeo 18:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me, in that case, NPOV requires both viewpoints be presented, and the controversy characterized. 51 doesn't trump 50; counting sources is not a way to resolve a dispute. OTOH, 50 sources in numerous scientific journals does trump a handful of sources, all written by the same individual, and appearing in the same self-published web journal. --EngineerScotty 22:11, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

In certain cases content is decided by brute strength. In others by cleverly playing the dispute resolution game. Neither is legitimate. Fred Bauder 20:42, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

And what is legitimate? This was my question. Thanks.--AndriyK 19:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Just to be clear here, under no circumstances may a content dispute be resolved by climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man. I think this needs to be said. Just zis Guy you know? 14:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

A legitimate resolution would be by consensus after negotiation in good faith. Fred Bauder 21:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The question was about the case if the dispute cannot be resolved by negotiations or mediation. What to do in this case? What is the legitimate alternative to "brute strength" and "clevery playing" in this case?--AndriyK 10:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Should the uploader judge fair use?

One of the central issues of recent discussion around fair use, and I think a difficult question, is whether the uploader should be required to judge whether media is admittable under fair use prior to uploading. The two sides seem to go something like this:

• Yes, they should: if the uploader is not able to determine that media is valid under fair use, then it probably isn't, and there will be so many spurious uploads that we'll waste too much time orphaning and deleting them all.

• No, they shouldn't: many people are not familiar with fair use law and we shouldn't expect them to learn about it just to upload media. Instead we should depend on our many users who are educated about fair use to review these images and add the necessary justifications if possible, or else delete the image.

I'm not sure what the best solution is. Maybe there could be some kind of compromise solution in which new fair use images are uploaded to a "fair use queue" where they are not to be used until they are processed by a reviewer (ideally, the software would enforce that they are not used). I like this solution because I don't really think uploaders will listen to anything we say. Any other feedback or suggestions would be appreciated though. Deco 18:33, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

'Fair use' can only be judged in the context of the article in which the image (or other material) is used. You cannot decide that an image is 'fair use' in isolation. If an image is not 'fair use' in any article, then it needs to be deleted. If it is 'fair use' in one article, it can stay, but that doesn't mean that it would be 'fair use' in any other article. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 19:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

To clarify a bit, holding images in a queue until vetted won't work, as 'fair use' depends on how the image is used in the article. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 20:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Good point, actually -- the keyword here in fair use is, of course, use. I couldn't say what an ideal solution would be... I'm assuming we already have people patrolling freshly uploaded images, so perhaps the thing to do is make the image upload policies more accessible (in my opinion, they're not), or maybe instituting some sort of "help me!" program for uploading, whether it takes place before or after upload. At present, people are just told "You didn't tag it, tag it or we'll delete it," but if they don't know the system, they stand about zero chance of magically understanding it now that they have a scary bot blasting away at their talk page (often, of course, this is the first message anyone ever bothers to send them, even before a welcome message)... so perhaps? Just food for thought, Luna Santin 20:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

There's a problem if something is genuinely used for fair use in one place then used somewhere else in an unfair way.--Runcorn 22:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Species > Race

I've noticed alot lately on Sci-Fi and video game pages, that people are using the term "race" instead of "species". e.x. Klingon race. This is incorrect, as race is like a sub-division of species. If the Klingons are a race, then what species are they from? Human? I have had to clear this problem up with the Mortal Kombat Wikiproject. I think people may be getting the term "race" mixed up with "species" because of the slang term "human race", which is like I said; is slang and isn't Encyclopedic. I think that Wikipedia should make a stand on this issue, so that the correct terms are used. SilentRage 00:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure. It's hard to line up sci-fi imaginings with real-world taxonomy. One the one hand, you would think that creatures from other planets would differ at the species level, at least, from creatures on Earth... but on the other, "race" is the word generally used in sci-fi, and since its meaning with respect to people is poorly defined anyway, how do we know they're using it in any particular sense? And even if they are using it as taxonomists use it, different "races", at least in the Star Trek world, can generally reproduce with each other and have fertile offspring, suggesting they do belong to the same species. --Allen 00:24, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

If "human race" is a common term, wouldn't it follow that someone might use "Klingon race" as well? You bring up some good points, but I'm undecided. Just a quick thought, Luna Santin 05:05, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

"Race" is commonly used in fictional genres with alien elements, including fantasy and role-playing games. None of the races exist in reality, and the story lines may not clearly establish any of them as species that can reproduce with others of the same species, under the modern biological definition. Klingons can produce offspring with humans and in one of the episodes all of the Alpha Quadrant races were descendents of the same species; half-orcs are a partial race of orcs with different properties. What race always means in this context is a distinct class of characters with different properties. Klingons are violent and brave; elves have +1 Magic or something.

Ultimately, even aside from this meaning in the genre, in English, race still means "A tribe, nation, or people, regarded as of common stock." The zoological meaning of "species" is not what is meant here and is irrelevant. It is only a specialized application to humans that the human species is divided into three races. I don't know how exactly this applies in Mortal Kombat, but in other applications it is standard and appropriate to refer to the elements as races, and there is nothing wrong with that in English. —Centrx→talk • 10:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Two creatures of different species can mate. Wolves and Dogs anyone? If two things can mate, it just means that they are genetically compatible enough for it to work. It doesn't mean that they are nessessarily within the same species. One of the reasons I brought this up is because calling different species, different races is slang. It's based on the whole "human race" slang term. I think that it screwed alot of people up, when it comes to the definitions of those two words. The second (and probably less) reason is because it may be offensive to alot of people. Think of all of the racial groups who read that different species are just different races, and the human species is one race. It just takes away their identity, and can become very offensive, even though it's not real. SilentRage 03:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The grey wolf, the red wolf, the coyote, and the dog are of the same biological species, though not the same phylogenetic species. See Species: "A species is a reproductively isolated population that shares a common gene pool and a common niche." This is the dominant, if not predominant, biological definition. —Centrx→talk • 06:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the distinction, whether intentional or not, seems to be that "animal-like" creatures: wargs, dewbacks, etc. are referred to as species, while reasonably intelligent bipedal "human-like" creatures: Klingons, Ithorians, orcs are referred to as a race. --Canley 03:39, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that too, but it has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. We are discussing whether this huge mistake should be allowoed or not. SilentRage 05:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, if that's how you insist on putting it, the answers so far seem to be: yes. Luna Santin 05:53, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

That huge mistake is in the literature, and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and thus a secondary source, so it is not for us to disallow it. Perhaps someone could write an article on Race (fantasy term) and it could be linked to whenever race is used in this sense rather than the usual English-language meaning. -- SCZenz 06:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no mistake. Race is the correct word. —Centrx→talk • 06:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Use of "race" in the sense of a three, four or fivefold division of mankind is a 19th-century invention and not the core meaning. Use of the term in SF/Fantasy literature is a perfectly reasonable evolution of an ancient word, and even if it were not, it is the term used. For Wikipedia to pretend otherwise, as SilentRage seems to wish, would be to mislead readers. Robert A.West (Talk) 06:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The Concise Oxford Dictionary gives, as one meaning of race, "a genus, species, breed, or variety of animals, plants, or micro-organisms". A genus is of course a whole group of species.--Runcorn 22:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Missing the point completely, the point isn't what's "right" - it's what's you can verify, from WP:VERIFY:

Verifiability, not truth

One of the keys to writing good encyclopedia articles is to understand that they must refer only to facts, assertions, theories, ideas, claims, opinions, and arguments that have already been published by reputable publishers. The goal of Wikipedia is to become a complete and reliable encyclopedia. Editors should cite reliable sources so that their edits may be verified by readers and other editors.

"Verifiability" in this context does not mean that editors are expected to verify whether, for example, the contents of a New York Times article are true. In fact, editors are strongly discouraged from conducting this kind of research, because original research may not be published in Wikipedia. Articles should contain only material that has been published by reliable sources, regardless of whether individual editors view that material as true or false. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is thus verifiability, not truth.

Thanks/wangi 09:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Isn't a quotation from a standard dictionary a citation from a reliable source?--Runcorn 07:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Let's take one example -- suppose you're playing Dungeons and Dragons, and the Player's Handbook glossary and the Concise Oxford Dictionary offer differing definitions of a gameplay term. Which one would a smart player use? COD is reliable, sure, but in this context I'd say it is both less relevant and less authoritative. Per WP:NOR and WP:V, it is not our place to question the use of "race" by the creators of sci-fi or fantasy novels; what other sources could possibly have more authority in the matter? Also, your argument sounds like a synthesis of data, and as mentioned in this WP:NOR section, "that precise argument, or combination of material, must have been published by a reliable source in the context of the topic the article is about." Hope that clears things up a bit. I can respect your diligence and dedication to accuracy, but I have to disagree with your proposal/stance. Regards, Luna Santin 09:54, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

But COD agrees with the sci-fi usage: both say that a race can mean a species. And how does it violate WP:NOR?--Runcorn 10:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Oy, I miss the stupidest details, sometimes. Sorry. This should teach me to talk on the phone while editing. Luna Santin 11:23, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

"List of fictional..."

Type in "List of fictional" in the search function. You will get a bewildering number of inane lists such as List of fictional chimpanzees, List of Fictional Nurses, List of fictional cigarettes, etc. Three questions:

• Are these lists maintainable? Are we saddling future generations of Wikipedians with the burden of keeping these lists updated everytime a new movie, book, sitcom, cartoon, or comic is released?
• Are these lists relevant? Will people need to research "Fictional chimpanzees", for example?
• Are these lists essentially encyclopedic?

I've just AfD'd one such list, List of fictional military organizations, only to discover the true extent of these... Your thoughts? Thanks- --Cheese Sandwich 04:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Is there some reason these can't just be categories? Luna Santin 05:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps that it would require having an actual article on every fictional thing that is mentioned in one of these lists. Tupsharru 06:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Ooh. With a closer look, I realize my previous question was... well, obviously uninformed (read: stupid). My thoughts on the articles are actually significantly more favorable, now that I've had a few closer looks. I'll admit I'm not sure if they're encyclopedic or sourced, but they made for an interesting read and I don't see any other way to get the content out there effectively; in that, they have some value. Luna Santin 11:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Often when I use Wikipedia as a reader, and not a contributor, I find such lists to be very useful navigational aids in the searching. A category is unable to sort in any other way the the alphabetical, and cannot contain annotations. The lists on the other hand often have the clues needed to guide me to the article which I'm searching for. Since WP:FICT calls for a lot of topics on fiction to be covered in Wikipedia, I don't see a problem with giving the readers the tools to find what they're looking for. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this discussion. To address your points: 1. Regarding maintainability, these lists are very easy to update and edit, no great writing/editing skills are required to add an item, so it's hardly a burden. As I said in the AfD for "...fictional military organizations" I don't understand the criteria often cited by listcruft deletionists that the list must be "complete", "completable" or "maintainable", as if missing out a fictional pig from List of fictional pigs somehow invalidates the whole list as it currently stands and makes it useless. 2. Are they relevant? The example you cite, List of fictional chimpanzees, is actually List of fictional apes which has a much broader scope and does not really illustrate that it is useless minutae. I certainly don't think you can rule out someone needing to research such a list, even if it's just for a quiz question and not academic research. If I was asked the name of Cartman's pet pig (in South Park), typing "Cartman's pet pot-bellied pig" into Google brings up the list in second place (the episode article on Wikipedia is first). 3. Are the lists encyclopedic? This could be debated all day depending on your definition of "encyclopedic". I've seen some ridiculous lists on Wikipedia of course, and am happy to vote Delete or Keep based on the merits and notability of each, but I don't think they should be deleted as a general principle. --Canley 03:29, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It's always good to come to a debate and already see my opinion brushed off as that of a "listcruft deletionist".

The problem with many of these lists is that they illustrate no topic; instead, they're merely a list of things that share an attribute. In the case of List of fictional military organizations, there's nothing you can really say about these things other than that they're fictional military organizations. The list is so broad as to include warrior castes and defense forces and police forces and terrorist groups and individual army companies and espionage cells and...well, you get the idea.

Likewise the list of pigs; that list has such inane criteria that it includes Porky Pig, a character anthropomorphized to the point where his porcine nature is almost never referred to in the context of the fictional works (and this is in something like 60 or 70 years of fiction from many disparate sources!), to Cartman's pot-bellied pig, who is clearly a mundane pet whose only attribute of note is completely unrelated to being a pig to characters who are greedy or fat or have other typically piggish attributes.

What possible trend are these articles illustrating? What can you say about them other than "These are things that are foo"? How are they not idiosyncratic non-topics, per the deletion policy? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Suppose I wanted to research the use of cigarettes in film; that seems like a perfectly reasonable search, to me. And where else would I find such content, if not at List of fictional cigarettes? Anything like Category:List of films with cigarettes will be deleted the moment it sets foot on Wikipedia, and it would make even less sense to create a few dozen articles just to mention each use of a cigarette. I'm not the biggest fan of lists, in general, but to me some of this content seems useful, and I really see no other way to effectively get it out there. Luna Santin 06:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't the place to do research, though. It's a reference, but not a source, and Wikipedia cannot and indeed should not include every single thing that might be useful in research.

Additionally, just because something is useful or interesting doesn't necessarily mean it belongs in an encyclopedia. "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics" are specifically called out in WP:NOT.

Have you considered why that category would be deleted on sight? Why should a list be treated any differently? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Becuase the list takes up only one article, instead of clogging up several dozen articles? As I mentioned, I'm unsure on the content but think the method is good. If it is done, this is quite probably the way to do it... whether it should be done or not becomes the question. And I think we already know where the posters here stand. You do bring up some very good points, but to be honest I'm not passionate enough to think out a rebuttal (in no small part because I can't think of anything much better than "But I don't think so," or "NUH-UH"). The main standard I'm looking at is, "Is Wikipedia better or worse, for having this content?" but I don't think we'll agree on that count. Thanks for your time, seriously. Luna Santin 10:29, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

MIB, my apologies if I pre-emptively offended you with the term "listcruft deletionist" - I certainly did not mean you specifically, or to brush off your opinion. I think your opinion and arguments are very valid and convincing, you make some really good points. The military AfD is exactly 50/50 at the moment so I think this one's gonna go down as "no consensus". I've seen this happen with quite a few list AfDs, and there seems to be a pretty even split each time unless the list is REALLY crufty, so there's some level of support for both sides out there. I also think that WP:NOT, WP:LIST and WP:INTEREST can be interpreted to support both sides, so this is a tricky one and comes down to personal opinion. Excellent point, Luna Santin, if a list is NPOV, verifiable and Not Original Research in addition to being useful, interesting or helpful, then is it really doing any harm to Wikipedia? --Canley 11:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I look at it this way: is Wikipedia better for expending a portion of its finite editorial resources (disk space and server resources aren't infinite, but they won't run out before interest runs out) maintaining these lists? Is it worth cluttering otherwise useful categories (and similar tools, such as Whatlinkshere and Recentchanges and such)? When you're talking about a list with no topic (something called out in deletion policy, as an "idiosyncratic non-topic" and in What Wikipedia Is Not as an "indiscriminate collection of information"), I don't think the answer can be anything but no.

That isn't to say every "List of fictional foo" is necessarily topicless, but when a list is so broad that you can't say anything about everything (or even most things) other than what's in the title, it's probably less "List of Communist-themed antagonists from Silver-Age superhero comics" and more "List of things that are blue." - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:32, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. My view is that if the subject is encyclopaedic then the list is probably defensible, but if there is no conceivable encyclopaedic utility to the topic itself (which in my view would certianly fit fictional tobacco products) then the list seems pointless. Wikinfo could probably tolerate these things, but Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopaedia. There is a vast gulf between a list of US Presidents (which you'd find in an encyclopaedia) and a list of fictional pigs. Just zis Guy you know? 15:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I still see shared attributes vs. actual topics as being a problem; after all, Blue is certainly encyclopedic. Does that make List of things that are blue encyclopedic? (Clearly not, but it's a simplistic example of the evaluation.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:15, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

In answer to your three questions:

1) As to maintainability, "Lists of fictional X," are no more or less maintainable than any "List of real X." Just as fictional lists have to be updated as new fiction appears, list of real things have to be updated as thing happen in the real world. THus "Lists of fictional X" require new more effort than any other article, list or not. Further, Wikipedia editors come in all stripes - including those that prefer to edit articles on fictional topics; no special effort by uninterested Wikipedians should be required.

2) This, I think, would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis. I can see many lists of fictional things having useful research applications, not just for traditional academic writing (which can at times focus on esoteric topics of popular culture), but also for people interested in writing original fiction (especially Wold Newton style hybrids) or simply casual browsers interested in some book, show, game or movie they like. Some lists of fictional things, however, are too broad, limited, obscure, or otherwise flawed to support.

3) This one is the sticky one. On the one hand, Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. On the other, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. In many cases, the fate of an individual "List of fictional X" is going to come down to which of these principals various editors feel is more important.

Further, it should be noted that lists are not interchangable with categories. Lists offer the possibility of arranging information in ways other than strictly alphabetical, and allow for annotation and commentary not possible in tha category.

My recommendation is that each "List of fictional X" be carefully examined and only AfDed if there is a critical flaw, essentially maintaining the current system, rather that taking any kind of blanket action. - CNichols 02:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

IP address user and discussion pages blocked

I know that some people don't bother signing up for an account and edit via their IP address. I feel that their user and discussion pages should be blocked as it is not necessary that they are able to be edited due to the fact that IP addresses change all the time. It would be better if they actually signed up for an account. Thoughts?

If this is in the wrong spot then please move it. Mr. C.C. (talk <-> contribs) (review me) 04:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Seems like as good a place as any; if not here, then perhaps in WP:VPT, but it's all the same to me. So. It's a thought? Keeping their talk pages open can be useful for counter-vandalism; often they do change IPs, but they don't always do so with every pageload, they sometimes never do so at all, and relevant ranges are almost always available somewhere. Ditto for the "this IP address is registered to X-school" and similar announcement templates. But, I'm not sure how useful an anon user's talk page is, for issues of communication, collaboration, general conversation, dispute resolution, or any of the other things we use them for. Anon user pages... those, I don't think I've ever seen an effective use for, but I'm undecided on whether or not they're important. Think of them as a minor sandbox, if you will. Maybe, anwyay. Just food for thought, thanks for your time, Luna Santin 05:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Link Policing..?

A condition exists that has the potential to degrade the value of links in an article. Many links exist that have no relevancy to the article or specific part of an article that contains the link.

I don't have a solution. I know that an author should not be held to check the relevancy of every link placed in his article "automatically", however. On the other hand I have yet to encounter an irrelevant link in my Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 Ult Ref Suite. Some may feel that what EB does is irrelevant but there is a need for some policing of links for relevancy. As the percentage of relevant links declines people will not want to be following wild geese, reading linked articles that may not be relevant.

I recently posted this example --Dogfish 18:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a work in progress. If there is no relevant material on the other side of a link we would welcome you adding some. --Gmaxwell 21:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Gmaxwell... I may find some time to help later but I'm afraid that currently I am deeply involved in other research. Hence my search for the obscure parents of an obscure 3rd wife of an obscure individual... I take it that you have faith that the community itself will find time and motivation to keep the links relevant. I know that Wikipedia is a work in progress, and it is my understanding that by nature it always will be. My feeling is (though I have no facts to support this) that the number of irrelevant links is increasing, and is probably due to the "automatic" key word linking. The community may police this itself in time, but it will fast become a herculean task... as the number of articles increase there will be more auto linking. I was hoping to see the situation improve in my lifetime. I'm afraid that for that to happen will require some investigation with a policy change as the expected outcome. Again, I don't have a solution... but I have been giving it some serious thought, though. One question that I have is regarding auto linking in existing articles. If an article mentions "Reginald Smythe, King's Horse Polisher" will a link be added when someone does an article on Reginald Smythe..? Will one be added for Smythe..? Would it be linked to Horse and Polisher as well..? Even if an article's author was held to task to check the relevancy of links in their own article it would only be fair that they are tasked with that only once. If more links are added after that they should be the responsibilty of the individual that added them. If that individual (person or automaton) continuously adds links that are irrelevant then steps should be taken to assist the individual.--Dogfish 04:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You might be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation (which tries to ensure that all links to Reginald Smythe are properly directed to either the Horse Polisher or the Chief Widgetmaking Officer) and in the guidelines at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context. Of course there are articles (and authors) that do not follow these guidelines well, but the articles do generally get cleaned up over time, and authors either become educated or they wander away from the project. There are also projects like the Link Suggester that help people find missing links.

As you said, the task will never be finished, as there's always an incoming avalanche of unformatted, unreferenced, badly linked articles, but the core group of articles which have been refined and polished in our guideline-tumbler is also always growing, and by definition, the articles which get the most attention are those which are most popular and which the most people are looking at. It'll never be perfect, but I think that it will always be useful. — Catherine\^talk 19:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Catherine... I visited your home page and was enlightened. I need to find more time to allocate to Wikipedia, or it will be years before I get on track. --Dogfish 06:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Hundreds of news articles

Someone has asserted that, in principle, once an incident has been referenced in hundreds of news articles, it must go into an article and that any scrutiny of the content is improper.

I counter that the Wikipedia is different from a newspaper which reports all the rumors, speculation, etc. before the dust has a chance to settle. Since the content is intended to be permanent, there's always a filter around how transient or insignificant a story is — even if the threshold of hundreds of references in news articles is met. I think that the "hundreds of references in news articles" is only a starting point and neither necessary nor sufficient. patsw 00:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

In what context? Was this one wire-service article printed in a hundred small papers? I would call that one article. Or was it hundreds of distinct articles about a dress that J.Lo wore? I would call that a topic of no encyclopedic interest -- who will care a year from now? Or, was it hundreds of individual articles about a band? Then, I would say it is evidence of notability, and certainly makes a verifiable NPOV article easier to write. Robert A.West (Talk) 01:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

patsw is mis-stating my position. The context is of the Rush Limbaugh page, and specifically his recent detention at the Palm Beach Airport for having a bottle of Viagra prescribed in his psychologist's name. Two reasons I think it's worthy of inclusion are 1) the event's relation to Limbaugh's drug arrest and plea deal; and 2) Limbaugh's detention and exoneration were covered by (yes) "hundreds of news sources" as newsworthy items. No doubt there are other valid reasons as well.

patsw's claim that I have asserted "in principle" that "once an incident has been referenced in hundreds of news articles, it must go into an article and that any scrutiny of the content is improper" is flat-out wrong. I'm all for scrutiny, and not every incident reported in the world is encyclopedic. But in the specific case of Limbaugh, I think the incident merits a brief, blurb-like mention. Eleemosynary 01:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

To Robert West: It was a sequence of three wire-service stories (carried by 100's of outlets):

• Limbaugh was detained at the airport by U.S Customs with Viagra in a container labeled not with his name but the name of his doctor for three hours. This was anonymously leaked to the media.
• The Palm Beach County Sherrif's Office announced that the incident would be investigated to determine if Limbaugh had violated a plea agreement or other laws.
• The Palm Beach County Sheffif's Office announced it would not file charges against Limbaugh.

As Eleemosynary concedes above, he is for scrutiny, but no reason other than the brief flurry of news coverage of this incident is given for its inclusion. There were no legal consequences to Limbaugh and no bearing on the plea agreement, so who will care a year from now? patsw 02:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

To Robert West (and whoever else wants to come see): The Rush Limbaugh Talk page now seems to be a War of Attrition over this incident. Full context of this issue in on that page. (Oh, and I don't concede I'm for scrutiny. I happily insist upon scrutiny. Let's avoid weasel words.) Eleemosynary 03:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Would the Reichstag climbing patrol please place themselves on high alert. Just zis Guy you know? 16:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Refining Article RfCs...

I've proposed a few guidelines on responding to RfCs. Please comment on the talk page. SB Johnny 10:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

A person's memoirs as a reference

Hello all,

I'm confronted to a policy problem that follows:

I would like to write an article about a personality. Up to a certain point of his life (until he became famous), there are not much sources about him except his own memoirs. It is an OK reference for writing a (preferably good :) article?

Thanks! -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 11:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Seems to me that it isn't a violation of WP:AUTO as long as he hasn't edited Wikipedia himself. However, you should make it quite clear where you are relying on his memoirs.--Brownlee 12:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm using inline citations for each thing (as I always want to use inline citations) :) But I mean, wouldn't it be "weird" or something to have a quarter of the article (dedicated to early life and stuff) referenced only by his memoirs? I'm thinking about possible FAC objects too... :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 12:19, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

If there are no other sources, and you cite the additions based on the person's memoirs, then you're probably in good shape. For uncontroversial stuff ("Joe Schmoe had a younger brother named Jim") memoirs are probably pretty reliable unless there are contradictory claims out there. For more unusual claims ("Joe's younger brother Jim was raised by wolves until the age of sixteen, when Jim was found by Gypsies who taught him calculus and got him a job at CERN") you're best to edit judiciously, and explicitly set off those claims with specific reference to source ("In his memoirs, Joe Schmoe describes..."). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Are these published or unpublished memoirs? If they're unpublished, aren't they effectively an unverifiable source? -- Rick Block (talk) 16:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't they simply be a primary source? We wouldn't hesitate quoting someone otherwise. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I did most of Angela Davis based on an early autobiography she wrote. The only consequence was a somewhat sympathetic article. Most facts were not that controversial, her father ran a filling station, etc. Fred Bauder 18:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Primary sources are not allowed, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources. So, again, if these are not published memoirs then I think you can't use them (and you certainly can't use direct quotes from an interview you conduct). -- Rick Block (talk) 18:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not a flat prohibition on primary sources, just on unpublished ones. Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Some definitions says, Wikipedia articles may use primary sources only if they have been published by a reliable publisher e.g. trial transcripts published by a court stenographer, or historic documents that appear in edited collections. We may not use primary sources whose information has not been made available by a reliable publisher. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 19:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I will be more precise. The person in question is a Soviet military commander during WWII. Obviously, until he became quite important several years before WWII, the only source of information about him (his childhood and his participation in First WW) are his memoires, who were published several times by various Soviet (now Russian) editors. Can those be considered as a reliable source regarding this part of his life?

And thanks for replies you already made, they're really important to me! :) --Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 20:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, they're published. Now, what were they published in? Major newspapers and magazines generally are accepted as reliable sources, although government controlled publications should be used with caution on subjects the government might want to slant. In any case, cite the sources so that others can evaluate them for themselves. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 21:13, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

In addition to problems with verifiability, primary sources often require interpretation, which would be original research: any interpretation must be provided by published, reliable researchers. For example, if his memoirs say that he became an officer out of communist idealism, a competent researcher writing a secondary source might consider whether this can be trusted -- what else would he say? On the other hand, Wikipedia is not the place for that discussion. I find myself surprised that any important commander from that war still lacks a biographer, who would provide interpretation. Still, the purpose of all the rules is to write a quality encyclopedia, so I see no objection to a good-faith effort using the best sources available, with citations. Someone else can always improve it later if better sources or more commentary turns up. Robert A.West (Talk) 21:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It would be helpful here if there were some secondary sources that discussed the extent to which the memoirs are reliable; some authors tend to be more sympathetic to themselves than others. But, in the absence of any concrete reason to believe otherwise (which may very well arise from other primary sources—another commander's memoirs making a different claim about him, for example), I think such published works can be considered more-or-less reliable (enough) for use in an article. Kirill Lokshin 21:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I do have some secondary sourced, such as bio dictionaries and stuff... -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, who is this commander, and why is he worth an article in Wikipedia, yet so little is written on him? Robert A.West (Talk) 22:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Vasilevsky. He does have an article of sorts (it's quite useless). I have no idea why there's so little about him; probably because there are others in his immediate circle who have aroused more interest. Kirill Lokshin 22:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Because Zhukov got more interest, probably... --Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Being bold, added template {{Suspected impostor}}

I've added a new template, {{Suspected impostor}}, for reporting suspected impostor accounts which have not been blocked. I did this because:

• {{impostor}} is only for blocked imposters
• {{sockpuppet}} doesn't display the name of the imposter account in typewriter font, necessary sometimes to distinguish between a real user's name and an imposters; furthermore, sockpuppets and imposter accounts are very different things. (The latter is a more serious matter).

--EngineerScotty 02:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Wanna find spam articles quickly & easily?

You are all probably aware of this, but by typing a few select keywords into the search function, you can find many deletion-worthy spam articles.

Today I typed in "company leverage solution" & got a torrent of IT company articles (some of which apparently were already deleted). I AfD'd five of them before I ran out of energy.

Some other good keywords (use several together) to find spam, and spammishness:

enterprise optimize website news information scaleable deliver touchpoint integration manage

If you want to find neologisms, type in:

term coined

--Cheese Sandwich 03:32, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Talk page blanking

This will likely be an obvious question that I should already know the answer to, but please bear with me. An IP user, formerly blocked for an hour for straw poll rallying, has stated he is "not coming back" and has blanked his talk page. His IP is in an address pool. Am I justified in reverting the blanking? I have searched for official policy on this, but the closest I found was at Wikipedia:Vandalism#Types_of_vandalism, which doesn't clearly define whether comments surrounding a dispute (mainly statements clarifying the block, the user begging for unblocking, and other users responding to the rallying) qualify as warnings; there were no {{test}} templates used. -- Omicronpersei8 (talk) 04:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

While editors have more leeway on their Talkpages than elsewhere, it's really not considered acceptable to blank a Talkpage (rather than archiving it), especially if it's done to hide warnings and blocks. Also, there is no rule to stop you from reverting the page to its previous version if you want to, as long as you observe WP:3RR. And hey, if the user comes back and reverts it agian, at least you'll kow he's back :) --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 05:25, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

It might be against policy, but I don't think it is very harmful to keep it blank in this case. From your description, he or she does not seem like a long-term or dangerous vandal and didn't even have any of the test templates. Also, if the person comes back and vandalizes, they'll quickly accumulate more warnings. Finally, blanking or deleting a talk page sometimes gets people to stop vandalizing. If it is a shared IP, then I would be in favor of it being blanked for now so that messages on it are not thought to apply to other people. There is (or was) a policy that allows for the periodic deletion of IP talk pages for this reason. It may be/have been just an informal practice, though. -- Kjkolb 05:28, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

You might be right about that policy, but wasn't it strictly applied to dynamic IPs? I believe a static IP is treated like a regular Talkpage? Not positive either way...maybe I should shut up and get some sleep :) --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 05:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

In case someone else should be assigned this IP address, I think it would be wise to leave the page blank. If this user returns (and continues to vandalize or be a problem), then revert it and report him. Michael 05:40, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I actually decided, probably without a proper amount of deliberation, to do a mass revert on the user's talk page, and had a little learning experience as a result. This was, of course, not Doc Tropic's fault in any way, as he just laid out policy which appears to be quite accurate to me. Thanks for the tips, everyone, I'll take them all into consideration next time. -- Omicronpersei8 (talk) 07:31, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Frustrations with editing

Hello,

I would like to open this issue for discussion.

I’ve been working in the field of Clinical Psychology for 40+ years. In Wikipedia, I was working on a technical Article concerning the psychological & physical components of chemical dependency. Almost from my first edit, I was reverted by a User whose only entry on their User Page was “OK, so I finally got a User Page. Satisfied?” This is moronic!! Because I refused to engage in what surely would have deteriorated into a mindless edit war, I finally gave up on editing the Article all together.

Surely there is something that can be done here.

I would propose this: If a User is going to make edits to an Article, particularly a technical or scientific one, that the person be willing to state their expertise in the given field on their User Page, or at least something more than a glib remark.

Wikipedia is losing good, highly motivated, professionals as editors because they have experienced what I described happened with me.

If something is not done, I’m afraid Wikipedia will soon need to carry a disclaimer at the top of its Main Page: “This encyclopedia is strictly for amusement, and should not be regarded as factual.”

Frustrated, Michael David 12:34, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• Your frustration is understandable; however, it seems that there is an undercurrent of Anti-elitism within the project. This stance is probably an attempt to prevent the perception of some users being "more equal than others."

At any rate all hope is not lost; there are ways for resolving such issues:

1. Present your case to WP:3RR; this perhaps will be the most apropos option, as it is meant to resolve edit wars.
2. Depending on the quality of the edits from the miscreant (which, as you have described it, appears to be vandalism) another option may be WP:AIV.
3. If you are unsatisfied with the responses produced from the aformentioned channels, perhaps WP:MEDCOM may be in order.
4. Worst case, if all other options fail, there is always WP:ARB. This is option is not one to be taken lightly; however, it perhaps may be the last opportunity to resolve the matter amicably, without departing from the project in disgust.

With any luck, one of these options will provide a satisfactory resolution to the matter.

Cheers, Folajimi (leave a note) 07:00, Friday, July 12, 2024 (UTC)

• Thank you for your comments. In future I will try the options you've suggested. Michael David 00:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

(after edit conflict)

I'm not sute that this will help you, but recognition of expertise in Wikipedia is a complicated issue. Most editors do not reveal their real identity, so it is impossible to verify any claims of expertise they may make. While I have been open about my real identity, it has its drawbacks. I've had another editor threaten to sue me, and other editors have withdrawn from Wikipedia after unknown persons complained to their employers about their Wikipedia activities (I'm retired, so I'm not worried about that).

In another vein, I have a PhD in Linguistics and 25 years experience working with computers, but I don't edit articles in either field. Both fields have a lot active Wikipedians, and it's not as much fun as working on history, biology and local topics. Experience in a field helps you sort through the chaff, but everything in Wikipedia is supposed to be from reliable published sources, and non-experts can contribute to articles as long as they do their research and cite their sources.

As for dealing with disputes in an article you're working on, please see the section #Resolving content disputes above on this page. Wikipedia works best when several editors contribute to an article, and can reach consensus on content and style.

-- Donald Albury^(Talk) 13:21, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you for your comments. Perhaps I should take your lead and stay away from Articles in my field. It actually could be refreshing to break from work sometimes. Sincerely. Michael David 00:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Because no one owns articles, regardless of claimed or real expertise in the field, I personally don't think experts should get automatic veto power or whatever over non-experts. This stance is also partially about keeping "experts" from being able to push their POVs (which may be financially tied to their careers) and no one being able to stop them. At any rate, Wikipedia is not a scholarly journal or anything, we are (at least, we're supposed to be) just summarizing published sources on topics, and non-experts can do that just as well as experts, ultimately. Experts are great at doing original research, but obviously that's not what we do on Wikipedia.

My suggestion is to just learn to deal with people who disagree with you... after all by submitting anything you're agreeing to let other people edit it. If someone reverts a claim that's correct, re-add it with a source. If they revert that, discuss it with them on the talk page. If they're pushing a POV or otherwise being unreasonable, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. --W.marsh 13:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

with all due respect, the replies above are useless bordering on the impertinent. "I personally don't think experts should get automatic veto power or whatever over non-experts"? Good for you, but how is this supposed to help Michael David? Did he inquire for "automatic veto power"? give us a break. "My suggestion is to just learn to deal with people who disagree with you"? Is this seriously the advice you have to offer to someone who has been into psychology for 40 years? (Have you even been into being alive that long?) Even bored gestures towards dispute resolution are not helpful here. The case described by the original poster is typical. A user having “OK, so I finally got a User Page. Satisfied?” has the only content on his user page is almost infallibly a sock puppet or a troll. Which means that smart assed remarks about how Wikipedia gives power to the people are entirely beside the point. My answer to this inquiry would be, 'drop me a line, and I'll look into the case and help you revert any trolling, thank you for helping improve Wikipedia'. You can save your generic wisdom for people who come here complaining about genuine editing dispute. Just being reverted by a stubborn sock is not an editing dispute, and any expert of any field experiencing this deserves some help from the community. thanks, dab (ᛏ) 17:40, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you! Michael David 00:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Look, if he (or any expert or good faith editor) came to me and said the same thing, I'd investigate and block the sockpuppet, if that was the case. We all need to play by the same rules... that's all I'm saying. Resolve disputes, report trolls, whatever as they come up, if you need help doing that, ask an admin or experienced editor for that help... I don't see how requiring people to disclose their credentials is going to help any of this. A lot of people would prefer to stay anonymous, for reasons that have been touched on above. And not having a meaningful userpage doesn't mean you're "almost infallibly a sock puppet or a troll" - that statement describes me and lots of other good faith edtiors. --W.marsh 18:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you for your input. Michael David 00:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Taking a look at the edits of Michael David (talk · contribs) is worthwhile. Most of the edits are to biographical articles of dead people. Many of those edits involve noting that someone died by suicide. See

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albert_Ayler&diff=prev&oldid=62576685
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Ault&diff=prev&oldid=62574808
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Diane_Arbus&diff=prev&oldid=62459663
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ernst_Schr%C3%B6der_%28actor%29&diff=prev&oldid=62420101
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Adams%2C_Jr._%28Pennsylvania%29&diff=prev&oldid=62372056
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Washington_Adams&diff=prev&oldid=62364770

That's just the past two days. Several hundred other edits by this editor show a fascination, if not obsession, with suicidal depression. There's no major technical article by this editor that I can find. --John Nagle 18:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• Your comments say much more about you than they do about me. Michael David 00:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Heeey, Michael. First and foremost, I'd like to thank you for your valuable contributions; Wikipedia simply wouldn't be the website it is today without all the help it's received from diligent volunteers. We need people who are dedicated to the project, so please don't let random content disputes get you down; at the end of the day, good editors are very much appreciated by the community. That said, however, I need to ask that you bear with me in understanding a thing or two: first, of course, expertise is very difficult to really establish in an anonymous, online community, and second, while a user's page (or lack thereof) may be an indication of a few things, I wouldn't say the general editorial consensus is that it's the primary factor in decision-making regarding any user. Now, though, you seemed to be referring to a particular article; could you provide us with a link to the article(s), or to the diffs in question, so that we can develop a better feel for the situation and take a more direct role in helping you out if necessary? Luna Santin 18:11, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you for you input; I'm not going anywhere. Michael David 00:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

On a general point about expert v non-expert editors, it's too facile to say that because of WP:V any editor is as good as another in technical areas. If we want a good, trustworthy article, letting someone who knows little of the subject quote a newspaper article or a popular book is no substitute for someone who really knows the sources, is probably more up-to-date than the popular items and can sort the wheat from the chaff.--Brownlee 12:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• I can feel the frustration. I have been reverted quite a few times on articles in my field of expertise, and have sometimes received vandalism warnings from other editors even when my changes are WP:CITE'd (I'd pull out the diffs, most of them are utterly ludicrous). Just last week, I spent an hour convincing a patient of mine with metastatic breast cancer to allow her CT head to be placed "on the internet", only to have the caption reverted by another administrator who didn't know what the word metastasis meant, and who thought my addition was vandalism because it had the word "breast" in it. I can absolutely see how this would keep specialist editors away. It's not about veto power; it's about having too many policemen on this project, and about many of them having no clue about the articles that they are policing. Michael David, we appreciate your expertise and your specialist contributions -- Samir धर्म 21:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Yet Another Unenforceable Policy (YAUP)

JA: Like any WP:Policy or Guideline whose fair and equal enforcement would depend on knowing the real-world identity and affiliations of each editor in question, the aspects of WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:VER, and WP:SPAM that deal with advancing particular purposes are simply null and void. Just f'r'instance, nobody has any way of knowing for sure whether that editor or that cabal of evatars who are so insistent about imposing the POV of their favorite secondary source on an article is in fact the author or publisher of the work in question. What will be the result of attempting to enforce a WikiProvision of this type — and I use the word "vision" blindly? The editors who are honest enough to use their real names will be at the disadvantage of the editors, their agents, and their evatars who are not. WikiPar for the course, of course. Jon Awbrey 18:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Some intentions are pretty transparent regardless.Geni 18:22, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

JA: That's a little like saying that some speeders/thieves/etc. are easier to catch than others. Which is just another way of restating my point. Jon Awbrey 18:32, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Not really. Sometimes people think they can dodge policy. For some reason they seem strangely upset when they find they are wrong.Geni 20:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

No policies are going to be 100% effective, but throwing in the towel is the worst way we can react to that reality. Pronouncing long-standing, widely-accepted policy as "null and void" has no effect unless grandstanding is how you get your kicks. --Improv 21:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand the objection. Why do we have to know real-world identities in order to enforce NOR, NPOV or SPAM? that's nonsense. Sure, if I started to add random link to medication selling sites on a whim without being associated with them, I would not technically be advancing my own interests. so what? It's still linkspam and will be justly reverted as such within the minute. NOR is even more of a no-brainer. Sure, I can add my own papers and monographies to literature sections. That's perfectly fair, since even if it is my own research, I am not publishing it on Wikipedia, I am citing things published elsewhere. If I am citing myself rather too much, people will remove my stuff on grounds of insufficient notability. It simply doesn't matter. It is true, and self-evident, that Wikipedia reflects the interests of its editors, if you are concerned about that, you should look into WP:BIAS. dab (ᛏ) 21:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

JA: If people are failing to recognize the problem then that is par for the course in WP. Just for instance, let us say that an editor with the WikiPseudonym of GodsOwnTruth has a curious insistence on citing a particular book as the main authority on every subtopic of a given article. Let's say that 2 or 3 other editors concur in this opinion and are thus able to declare a "consensus" that trumps any attempt to balance the account. I myself know of several cases just like this. Please don't tell me how it's s'posed to work. I already know how it's s'posed to work. I also know how it actually works out in practice. And there is a real problem here, whether you recognize it or choose to deny it. Jon Awbrey 03:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Note that you can ask for outside parties to comment by Wikipedia:Requests for comment, and if it is well-seen, the result will generally follow Wikipedia policies. Religious texts are not dominant under Wikipedia:Reliable sources. —Centrx→talk • 03:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It's still unclear to me what this has to do with usernames or user identities, though. POV-pushing is a problem, yes, but you're saying pseudonymous usernames grant an advantage, and I'm not seeing the connection. Do you know any other editors, or are other editors interested in the article? If the dispute involves just you and another editor, consider WP:3O; if not, consider WP:RFC, WP:MEDCAB, or WP:MEDCOM. Or, give us a link to the article(s) and/or diff(s) in question so that we can give you more specific advice and/or take direct action. You're talking about the ineffectiveness of policy and community, but I'm not convinced just yet that you've really given the dispute resolution system a chance to work -- if you don't try it, of course it won't work. Luna Santin 03:47, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

JA: Well, thanks for explaining why there's a block-hole icon at the top of the page. It's pretty clear that no policy changes ever come out of water-cooler chit-chat, but I'm sure it provides a useful distraction for those who need the distraction. Yes, I've seen how your WQAs, RFCs, CP3Os, and R2D2s work. They are about as useful as crying in your beer, except for the part about the beer. If you can't see that there's a differential advantage to someone who writes a book in the real world under his or her real name and uses a WikiPseudonym (or several) to promote the POV of that book in WP articles, and someone who uses his or her real name in both the real world and in this, er, unreal world, then "I fear that your judgment is beyond repair", to quote Mel Gibson. Jon Awbrey 04:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, the less we know about your situation, the less helpful our advice will be. If you want specific answers, you need to have specific problems. Luna Santin 11:43, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Unblock abuse

The Template:Unblockabuse deletion debate moved to WP:DRV. -- Omniplex 00:00, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Main Page Did You Know

The policy of only including facts form new articles has lead DYK to be comprised of uninteresting, obscure and very locale-specific facts. I think it is important to keep in mind that the general knowledge of the average administrator is on completely different level to that of the average main page reader.

I would suggest that we change DYK to have the first bullet be on "middle school level", the next two on high school level and leave the fourth and fifth to come from new articles.

The following is an example of what the first three bullets could look like:

• ...The jaws of crocodiles are powerful enough in closing to crush the bones of small animals, but so weak in opening that they can be held together by hand? (This is Encarta's current DYK.)
• ...The Diet of Worms was a general assembly (a Diet) of the estates of the Holy Roman Empire that took place in Worms, a small town on the Rhine river?
• ...Djibouti is the smallest country on the African continent and is located in the Horn of Africa?

- sYndicate ^talk

I like that idea a lot. The DYK feature is one of my favorite Wikipedia entry methods, so expanding it a bit sure sounds good to me. Spalding 11:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The purpose of DYK isn't to rehash widely-known facts from old articles. It gives exposure to the best new articles so that they are edited and refined. Sure, sometimes there's an entry or two I'm not interested in, but that's life. --Oldak Quill 08:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I know the purpose of "DYK isn't ro rehash widely-known facts". I am saying the purpose should be to provide information that will be interesting to the largest possible audience and this layered approach which include a portion of what Wikipedia veterans will call widely-known facts is one way of doing that. -  sYndicate ^talk  23:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Note that, even with changing the articles every day, DYK gets more acceptable articles than it can show. Increasing the space available to DYK would mean taking it away from some other part of the Main Page, which I doubt will happen. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 23:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not saying the size should be increased. I'm saying the level of obscurity of the first three points should be toned down so that more people (especially younger people) will find them interesting. -  sYndicate ^talk  12:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I seem to have replied to the wrong sub-thread. My apologies. However, more on point on your comment, while we should avoid obscurity and too much technicality in articles, we are not writing an encyclopedia for children. I would be opposed to writing any part of the encyclopedia at a less than adult level. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 12:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I am not saying we should change the articles to a "less than adult level". I am saying we should include some facts in DYK that some people would actually be able to respond 'yes' to. The average main page reader will not know '..that there is a pattern to the names of the class of medications called "monoclonal antibodies"', but more importantly, (s)he will not care. By having different tiers in DYK, the section can appeal to both the average reader and people who will find the above mentioned example interesting. -  sYndicate ^talk  13:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Integration

WP:ʃ

For the last month, myself and 1-2 other individuals have been jumpstarting a massive cleanup project as an attempt to bring order to Wikipedia. I think I have the methodology sorted out: now we need participants. There are more details on the project page. Thank you. Cwolfsheep 12:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

What is the copyright status of images published in scientific journals?

I've looked all over trying to figure this out but I can't seem to find it. Can I upload images which were published in a peer-reviewed journal like Physical Review? One example that I would like to upload is this plot from [12] for the Standard Solar Model page. There are several other instances in which the scientific results from an experiment are nicely summed up in a plot that has been published, and it would help the article considerably to include it. Are such images ok if you cite the source? (By the source I mean the peer-reviewed article itself, not the website mentioned above.) If so, what copyright status tag should one use? Flying fish 18:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I should mention that I had intended to get the images from the arxiv, rather than from the journals themselves (for which you need a subscription, maybe that should tell me something...)Flying fish 19:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

One would assume copyrighted unless you have specific reason to assume otherwise... but creating your own version of the image from the data should be okay. Shimgray | talk | 18:47, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The short answer is that journals do (almost always) claim copyright over the figures they publish, but for many materials a fair use claim is often reasonable. The long answer is that some poorly defined fraction of all such images are likely to be {{pd-ineligible}} because you can not copyright scienific data in the US. The question becomes whether the non-factual elements (layout, style, font, coloring, etc.) are sufficiently creative to qualify for copyright protection. For something as routine as an x-y plot, the answer may be no, but there is very little case law dealing with how much creativity is enough in this kind of work. However, I am quite confident that the publisher is never likely to concede that a figure is ineligible for copyright. As Shimgray says one solution is to take the data (ineligible for copyright) and make a new version of the figure. Absent that, I'd encourage you to exercise a fair use argument. Dragons flight 19:06, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Creating these images is NOT easy! In any case, wouldn't that violate the "no original work" doctrine? Maybe different rules apply, but it is standard (and necessary) for physicists to use other peoples images when they give talks, generally with the citation (or link to the arxiv) on the plot. It would seem very weird to me if scientific results published in peer-reviewed journals are not simply in the public domain, but the wikipedia page on public domain doesn't state that explicitly. Thanks for the advice, I will try to find an apropriate fair use tag. Flying fish 19:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Very few scientific figures are in the public domain. Depending on the policies of the journal, copyright for text and figures is vested with either the paper's author or the journal itself. (In a very few instances, published peer-reviewed papers are released under some sort of free license – see PLoS for an example – but it's never reasonable to assume this will be the case.)

For scientific talks, reproducing a copyrighted figure (with appropriate citation) is generally considered permissible under 'fair use'. Such arguments may also be appropriate and acceptable here, but (as with all fair use claims) each case would have to be examined individually. As noted above, it is always okay to discuss facts and data from a published paper—straight facts are uncopyrightable. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:28, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure what Flying Fish means by "No original work." All our writing is original phraseology, unless marked as a quotation. The prohibition is on Original Research not "original writing". It is the facts and theories (not capable of copyright) that must be someone else's work: the wording and manner of presentation must be sufficiently original not to violate anyone's copyright. This is necessary to avoid copyright violation and to make the text eligible for inclusion under the GFDL. Now, on rare occasions a graphic is so powerfully done that it provides an interpretation: the famous Minard graphic [13] of Napoleon's retreat comes to mind. Such a graphic might constitute original research if created by a Wikipedian in support of an interpretation not in the text cited. We'll deal with one when we see one. Robert A.West (Talk) 19:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Robert. The images that I am talking about are not schematic diagrams like the ones in Proton-proton chain reaction, I'm talking about plots like this one[14], which would require a hell of a lot of orignal research to duplicate. In a certain sense, the images that I'm talking about are "facts" - it would be impossible to get this sort of information across in words, but it IS the experimental result. Please take a look at what I've done for Standard Solar Model and let me know if it's ok. Preceding unsigned comment by Flying Fish (talk · contribs)

I see your point. If the data are available in tabular or file form, then they could be used to generate a new graphic fairly easily (the formats look pretty standard), and the validity of the whole could be verified simply by comparing the result to the graph in the cited, published source. On the other hand, that seems a bit silly. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that you are on reasonable ground. I am not sure if those types of graph are even copyrightable as graphics in isolation from the article, any more than the words, "Joe had raisin bran for breakfast," can be copyrighted in isolation from some story. Robert A.West (Talk) 23:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe the graphs are in the same status as images, and fair use applies. (Under the fair use criteria there would be no damage to the owner since the owner does not sell graphs, only journals or complete article. Rjensen 00:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The question would be whether the graphs are the essential "heart" of the article - that is, what value the remainder of the article adds. Normally this is a lot, but there might be papers out there that revolve around a single diagram. Deco 00:07, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to all of you for your comments! I've noticed that someone asked something similar directly on the Talk:ArXiv page. If someone with a good understanding of fair use weighs in and says it's ok it would be great if we could add a fair use template for images published on the ArXiv, or perhaps more generally for images demonstrating scientific results (if that is indeed ok). Flying fish 01:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Links to embedded YouTube videos

Curious as to policy about linking to sites with embedded YouTube-hosted videos. My hunch is that it would be better to simply link directly to the video at YouTube.com rather than the intermediate site (assuming the embedded page itself provides no additional/immediate relevant content). This policy would alleviate any concerns about endorsing the site, advertising, etc per WP:EL. For example, if a blog happens to have a video of the Napolean Dynamite dance embedded in it, should the Napolean Dynamite aricle link to that blog page, or directly to the YouTube-hosted video? (A possible hitch might be if the site-owner is also the creator on the content, who just is using YouTube as the hosting service). Thoughts? --mtz206 (talk) 01:40, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, what if a site is refered to as covering a event, and they are covering the event using a YouTube-hosted video? The entire point of the reference (to show that the page is coveing a event) would be lost the reference woul be redirected to the YouTube original.--Striver 02:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Striver's question is specific to a discussion we're having here: Talk:9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda Symposium. I've provided my opinion to his specific scenario there. With my question above, I'm looking for more general policy guidance. Thx. --mtz206 (talk) 11:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Problems with the "Al-Quds" (Jerusalem) entry in Arabic Wikipedia

Dear administrator,

Lately I have noticed an error in the Arabic entry for Jerusalem (القدس). It was said that (free translation:) "Jerusalem is one of the greatest cities of Palestine, and its capital". This is, of course, not true: Palestine has no capital, for it is not even a state yet; Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. I think correction is nessecary.

Thanks.

See: http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%AF%D8%B3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.143.165.209 (talk • contribs) 2006-07-10 10:23:08 (UTC)

This is the English language Wikipedia, you need to take up your concerns on the Arabic Wikipedia... Or better yet just be bold and edit the article. Thanks/wangi 10:07, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, I did just that; I changed it in proper Arabic from "Palestine" to "Israel". But they changed it back to the way it was. I ask myself whether higher interference is requirred or not. Although it is indeed a problematic and disputed issue, one should remember that the Israeli Knesset and gouvernment are located in Jerusalem, while no official capital-worthy Palestinian institution dwells within the city (the village of Abu-Dis is not a part of Jerusalem, and the "Orient House" has been shut down years ago). Palestine isn't a state for now, and it has no capital - its institutions are spread throughout the territories. So with all due to political disputes, I think Arabic Wikipedia must face the reality. Defacto, Jerusalem isn't the capital of Palestine.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.143.165.209 (talk • contribs) .

But again, that is a the Arab Wikipedia. The different language editions are essentially independent, and few here on the English encyclopedia have the ability or inclination to edit an Arab language website. You must take this problem up there. And this is by no means a trivial topic - as far as I know the status of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is not internationally recognized (and, as you rightly point out, neither is the status as capital of Palestine (whatever status that has)). --Stephan Schulz 07:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The question is how to define a capital. Defacto, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Although many countries does not accept this, and keep their embassies outside, the city still functions as the Israeli capital - in aspects of government, judicial system (the High Court) etc. This status of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital defacto, is confirmed, by the way, in the English Wikipedia entry for "Israel" (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel ). So, if you examine the state as it is now, Jerusalem functions as the Israeli capital, and definatly not as the Palestinian one.

I know Arabic, and I can edit Arab Wikipedia entries. I did that. But the problem is, that they changed it back. This is where I wonder: Doesn't Wikipedia has basic standarts? How come the International English Version regard Jerusalem as the Israeli capital (like man other version of Wikipedia), while the Arabic version doesn't?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.143.165.209 (talk • contribs) .

That's the Wiki way. Everybody can edit articles. The way to reach a stable article is via discussion and consensus building. But that has to happen on the Arab Wikipedia. We here have no influence over there. There is no global truth verification task force. Bring your arguments up on the proper talk page, cite verifyable sources, and be prepared to live with the fact that you still may end up with a minority position. The English Wikipedia also qualifies the status of Jerusalem via a footnote, you might try that. And please sign your discussion contributions using 4 tildes (--~~~~). --Stephan Schulz 11:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Speedy deletions

Does anyone know what this page is actually for? I'm not criticising the speedy-delete policy, just this specific page. The problem is that speedy deletions are done via {{db-whatever}} and CAT:CSD, and disputed via {{hangon}} and the article's talk page, so Wikipedia:Speedy deletions doesn't really get a look-in. The main policy description page for speedy-deletion seems to be WP:CSD. --ais523 16:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree - you don't vote on speedy deletions, that defeats the whole point of speedy deletion. If the nomination is debatable, you should send it to AFD, not SD, so why have an SD page? Deco 19:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No Moral Code

The community seems to be quite divided over the matter of ethics and morality in wikipedia, as evidenced by the rejection of Wikipedia:Wikiethics, Wikipedia:NOT evil, WP:EVIL, and Wikipedia:Beyond Good and Evil. i have tried to create a policy that incorporates all viewpoints and concerns, based on [15] and some of User:Herostratus's reasons for WP:NE. This policy does not endorse objective morality, or impose an ideology on wikipedia, which some believed would lead to censorship, and it asks editors to set aside their personal morality and philosophy in the interest of neutrality and information when on wikipedia, but it also states that wikipedia should not cause unessecary harm. please tell me what you think on the talk page. --Samael775 19:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Turning WIkipedia into a Political Debate - Multiple articles on one Political POV

Could someone help me understand if there is any policy about using Wikipedia as a vehicle for political POV? Multiiple articles have been created for the sole purpose of pushing a tort reform POV. There is already a long article on tort reform, and it just links to a multitude of other 'articles' (rants is more like it) on tort reform, under the guise of separate topics. I don't care what the personal POV is, a political debate has no place on Wikipedia, does it? It certainly is inconsistent with a *regular* encyclopedia. I have changed one article to turn it into a legimate article, which warrants an entry. However, the trend just propagates. I checked Encyclopedia Britannica online, and there is no article on 'tort reform' for good reason. The only references that are cited - both pro and against - almost all violate the guidelines of Reliable Resources. They are almost all political sites, either for or against tort reform. One 'reference' frequently cited on these articles is Tillinghast/Towers Perrin which is an interested party in the politics of tort reform with its operations as a major consultant to the insurance industry and as an insurance company itself with its reinsurance business. There are also lobbying groups (for and against) tort reform that are used as 'references'. This is not encyclopedic. THe nature of an article on a political agenda precludes neutral point of view references and invites polemic sources.

I am asking about this here, because this is not an isolated example, but a consistent pattern. Here is one example of an article that was originally created for the clear purpose of advancing a tort reform agenda, and not to discuss the actual topic itself:

Medical Malpractice -- The article previously had a very short 'explanation' of the elements of the claim (which were misstatements of law), with the rest of the paper a tirade about tort reform. I made corrections to the misstatements of law, and added a discussion on the incidents and types of medical malpractice -- citing both a medical journal and the Institute of Medicine. I also suggested that 'tort reform' not be included here. Below is a quote of what one editor added just today. However, he is not alone among a small group of political activists pushing this agenda. This is under the heading "Malpractice Settlement Alternatives" (which makes no sense in itself since this proposal is not this at all) --

The group, Common Good has proposed creating specialized medical courts to improve the American system where almost 60% of all plaintif judgments are now consumed by attorney fees & court costs. These specialty "Health Courts" (similar to existing administrative tax or workmen's comp court proceedings)whose hallmark would be medically-trained, full-time judges making precedent-setting decisions about proper standards of care, would remedy the unreliability of our current system.

Proponents believe that giving up jury trials and scheduling noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering would lead to more people being compensated, and to their receiving their money sooner. Support for this alternative comes from sources ranging from The National Law Journal [1],the USA Today editorial page [2], The Wall Street Journal [3], Forbes magazine, the AMA, and the American College of Surgeons. The Harvard School of Public Health has been working with the Common Good initiative[4]in conducting research to answer unresolved health court policy questions by analyzing individual state constitutional impediments to health courts, doing projected cost analyses, developing a tiered schedule for noneconomic damages-which would have upper limits-and working out the standards for compensation.

Opponents of tort reform object to the idea.[5]

The entire paragraph is pro 'tort reform' with one sentence that "Opponents of tort reform object to the idea." Can ANYONE explain how this is NPOV? Also, the 60% reference is from an uncited report and the 60% is incorrectly reported and out of context. The actual report concluded that there was no effect on the cost of health care.

This is what these multiple tirades on tort reform end up looking like:

"Proponents of tort refom argue (fill in the blank)". -- then a long tirade

"Critics of tort reform argue (fill in the blank)" -- and inevitably a rebuttal tirade

Then there is a vicious edit war, with no real resolution because the article by nature is a political debate.

First none of these anonymous groups of 'critics and proponents' are sourced, but broad agendas are nonetheless attributed to them. Then the argument devolves into the tirade (on either side) with polemic references. The articles become so unreadable and so argumentative that any iota of encyclopedic content is lost. Is there any policy at all on this kind of thing? Why is WIkipedia even including entries on purely political debates? jgwlaw 02:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that since I started editing this article I've only included one citation, as follows...

Tort reform supporters argue that lawsuits over socially beneficial practices increase the costs of those practices, and thus improperly deter innovation and other economically desirable activity. An example often cited is the medical insurance industry, where some governmental studies have shown a link between the rising costs of medical malpractice premiums and reduced access to health care[16].

The citation is a link to a 2002 study conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It was deleted in the course of a collaborative re-structuring of the article by jglaw and I, and no explanation was ever given as to why. Maybe the problem is that valid secondary-sourcing is being lost in edit wars, while leaving a lot of partisan detrius on board.

Certainly, "tort reform" is a political movement with social aims and contending factions, but so was the abolition movement, the prohibition / temperance movement, the civil rights movement, the affirmative action movement, the Whiskey Rebellion, etc. All were (and some still are) contentious political issues, but that does not make them "unencyclopedic." It just means we have to work harder.--HelloDali 17:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

It is covered at WP:NPOV, specifically the issue of undue weight. If an article is biased (and stacks of 'em are, Wikipedia, she ain't finished) then take action on it - if there are problems, there are plenty of places to find help about, such as request for comment if you need that as well. Most wikipedia editors are helpful people, but POV pushers are about. You'll find that most are well meaning, and that if you keep the faith, you can make the article work. WilyD 13:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

As another editor of the Tort Reform article, I'd like to pose a few examples of the items in question. These were originally posted under the heading "The Tort Reform Agenda" (which I take to mean "list of stated purposes")

Caps on non-economic damages (e.g., monetary compensation for pain and suffering), punitive damages;

Limiting or eliminating the collateral source doctrine

Use of court-appointed expert witnesses and elimination of elections for judges (In other words, mandatory appointment for both judges and expert witnesses) ;

Limiting the applicability of joint and several liability in favor of proportional liability;

Reducing appeal bond requirements for defendants who file appeals when faced with potentially bankrupting judgments;

Adopting the English rule of "loser pays";

Limits on contingency fees;

Requirement that class actions that have a nationwide class of plaintiffs be tried in federal courts.

This list was deleted for the reasons jglaw describes above. However, when you click on each of the links in the above list, you'll notice that only two of the linked articles even make a passing reference to tort reform, and none contain NPOV tags. The list was intended to extend the primary definition to include a description of the most commonly proposed tort reforms, which I thought - and still believe - it did.

Clearly, it was not intended to "propagandize" anyone. Unless we can agree that most readers instinctively know what "collateral source doctrine" means, than we must try to inform readers about the meaning of the term. Anything less seems like censorship, in its most odious form. My suggestion would be (if jglaw still believes these linked articles to be polemical) to edit the articles in question, as the notion that tort reform advocates support the listed changes doesn't appear to be in question by either of us.--HelloDali 17:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Derogatory terms for people as encyclopedic?

And while I am at this, there is an article called "ambulance chaser". Is it WIkipedia style to have a derogatory term for a group of professionals as an entry? Should we also include 'greedy insurance companies' or 'medical hacks' or 'bean-counters' (for accountants)? Is this what we want for Wikipedia? I heard (but do not know for sure) that the "ambulance chaser" article was initially created by creating the name and placing an image of John Edwards as the sole content of the article. Now the article at least has some attempt to create a NPOV article, but you really can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. And why would we want to try?

I admit I am only a few months into editing Wikipedia, although I have read it for awhile - but generally on topics of interest that are well written. But when I started editing, I looked up something which led me to the 'tort reform' and then I realized that there were webs of subarticles branching out all focusing on the same political agenda - favorites are tort reform and lawyer bashing, but I'm sure there are others. I was appalled at the 'ambulance chaser' article. I am an attorney, but not a personal injury lawyer. I still find this highly offensive, both personally and as a WIkipedia editor. What kind of encyclopedia is this? THere is nothing encyclopedic about these aricles, unless you want to have a separate dictionary of derogatory terms and epithets. Then we could add 'medical hacks', 'greedy corporations', and soon devolve further into 'dirty nigger', 'jewboy', 'kikes', and the like. We could make a name for ourselves for being the encyclopedia that is an equal opportunity offendor and the baddest of bad taste. I think this paints the picture?

So the question here, is please help me understand what policies address this, if any, and if there aren't any, why aren't there?jgwlaw 04:45, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

You could just go to Talk:Ambulance chaser and propose a move. Seriously, I don't think there's a larger policy issue here. Deco 05:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

And the article in question (mostly) describes the term and its use, not lawyers (or even personal injury lawyers). Just as we indeed (and rightly) have articles on nigger and kike without condoning the use of this words to denigrate people. There is no question that these terms exist and are used. We document this fact.--Stephan Schulz 07:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, after I edited it. But okay. I'll just have to keep an eye on it. It started out as a bashing of lawyers and a tort reform diatribe. (See above). jgwlaw 11:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It's important for all sides of an issue that is subject to POV to participate :), so that the related article finds a neutral equilibrium. For this particular issue, there are likely well-paid & full-time PR professionals maintaining anti-litigation POVs here & elsewhere. --Cheese Sandwich 12:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia a "How To" Guide?

As I'm very new to Wikipedia, I just wanted to check what the policy is regarding information containted in articles that seems to be a guide of the "how to" sort. When I first started using Wikipedia, there was a fierce debate on the suicide page about information that some felt was listing methods along with their pros and cons. However, of particular note to myself is the page on surveillance. There is an extremely lengthy sub-section on counter-surveillance, including lists of methods for performing it. Is this what Wikipedia is? It doesn't seem appropriate to an encyclopaedia (in my opinion), as there are ample "How To" guides available for any given subject, it would seem risky for Wikipedia to offer "advice" on such sensitive issues and it would seem highly difficult (again in my humble opinion) to maintain NPOV while telling people the right way of doing things. I would like to suggest and possibly make changes to this page, but wanted to check the relevent policies before doing so. Blaise Joshua 11:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think, but am not sure, that "how-to" guides are meant to be on our sister project, Wikibooks, rather than here. Nevertheless, you are correct in your observation that Wikipedia does have a tendency to have things that print encyclopedias don't (how-to guides just isn't one of them).

Or wikiHow (not operated by Wikimedia, but takes how-tos). Invitatious (talk) 02:35, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

In any case, I would agree with your opinion that Wikipedia should not be offering advice. The article on surveillance should not be in the second person (last time I checked, there was a guideline against the second person but these things are volatile), so feel free to rewrite the article accordingly. However, be careful to distinguish advice from information: simply stating what the methods are (big big subjective grey area here) is not necessarily a how-to, and could be just the presentation of fact. Neonumbers 12:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

No, Wikipedia is definitely not a how-to guide.--Brownlee 12:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Please consider your re-write/removal carefully, the information can be rewrote. Also source it, if that is original research it should be removed.--I'll bring the food 14:37, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I often wonder how many of these folks have ever actually seen an encyclopedia? OF COURSE AN ENCYCLOPEDIA HAS DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS.

My grandfather's encyclopedia circa 1915 had pages of details about building steam engines, radios, and making batteries for your radio using (then) common household chemicals, such as borax. It was fascinating reading as I was growing up.

--William Allen Simpson 19:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with you, William. Of course, most people could find encylopaedias to support their particular idea of what Wikipedia should and shouldn't be, including encyclopaedias that contain biased, incorrect or selective information on a given subject. Besides, it would seem way beyond the scope to have such information in every articles. Where would you stop? What about articles on surgery or dental work? The fact is, there are books and courses out there to instruct people on how to do things if they want to learn how to do something. Generally, it's not in the remit of an encyclopaedia to provide such instructions. Lastly, please don't shout by using caps. Your opinion and input is just as valuable without doing so and it just comes across a lot nicer : o ) Blaise Joshua 14:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Multiple IP addresses

Hello. Could anyone elaborate on the protocol for coping with disruptive users that utilise multiple roving IP addresses? Meaning that almost each edit is under a different IP address so warning and then blocking a user is of no use, as they simply pop up to vandalise and disrupt elsewhere with a different address.--Zleitzen 08:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

There's really nothing we can do, from what I understand, because for anonymous users, I read earlier, their IP address changes for every page they visit... MichaelZ526 08:07, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

There are some folks experimenting with contacting ISPs, please see Wikipedia:Abuse reports. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Heritage categories

I've spent some time trying to draft clear, neutral, and specific language to cover the recent debates. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#Heritage. Note that I'm deliberately using a very broad umbrella term, rather than a list of "ancestry, class, culture, ethnicity, national origin, race, religion, or previous condition of servitude".

I believe that there is general agreement on how to label them, and specific agreement on the use of hyphenation, supported by numerous debates at Categories for Discussion.

Remember, these are Wikipedia:Naming conventions, and need to be concise. The detailed guidelines for inclusion and interpretation will be at Wikipedia:Categorization of people, where we can worry about other issues.

--William Allen Simpson 15:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

A "jury duty" rule of thumb for AFD

Opened at WT:AFD, a dual proposal for:

• A volontary form of "jury duty" (once someone engages in an AFD, he should try and stay to its end).
• Documenting suggestions about "how to close an AFD" for admins (with respect to discounting early votes of people who didn't come back after evidence was provided).

-- 62.147.38.70 17:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Too much attention to vandals?

I hope this is an adequate place to post this. I'm not an expert user, so bear with me. I might be completely mistaken, but I have the impression that some vandals might get too much attention here. I realize it is easier to ban someone if their actions are known, but pages like this one almost seem to pay tribute to these users (I also realize some of their edits can be amusing, etc. but there are other places on the internet for that). I'm of the opinion that vandalism is fairly easy to spot and control and that these imbeciles will leave if they are ignored. I know the issue is much more complex, but I just wanted to share my thoughts. ChaChaFut 06:08, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Some have said that pages like that are the ultimate goal of a vandal. They can show it to their firends and say "Yep, I'm that annoying." I'm neutral on the matter. Such pages can be helpful in keeping tabs on known vandals. Frankly, it surprises me that he's even still a problem. In any case, such pages are probably a necessary evil. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry protocol

Suppose one had solid evidence of an editor's systematic use of multiple socks for the purpose of intimidation, false consensus building, 3RR aversion, etc. What is the best way to present said evidence, given the fact that doing so would likely allow the objective observer to surmise the identity of the puppeteer? Is there an "off-line" alternative to how I see it attempted so clumsily so often? Wikipalooza2006 07:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The main place right now would be Wikipedia:Requests for investigation. If you don't feel you have quite enough evidence for that and want some more technical checks, try Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser. --Aquillion 19:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Portal approval process counter to Wikipedia's aims?

It appears that editors are now selecting portals for possible deletion on the grounds that a portal has not been given prior approval: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Thinking. Concern has been raised that this portal approval process does not have the wide consensus it appears to claim, and that it runs counter to the principles of Wikipedia - the essence of which is that this is a wiki which enables users to get involved immediately without registration or prior review. Tiresome though it is to tidy up vandalism and to correct mistakes, that is the price we have to pay for having a wiki. This portal approval process appears to be an example of creeping bureaucratic authority. If people feel that editors who are unsure if their portal is a good idea need somewhere to for for advice, perhaps the page could be renamed Wikipedia:Portal/Advice, and it made explicit and clear that there is no need to wait a week for approval. SilkTork 08:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

If we don't require community approval to create Portals, we should, because something like Portal:Humor (full of empty links and with no constructive edits since January) is an embarassment! While I think the process should be explicitly stated, it is not counter to Wikipedia's aims any more than restricting edits to MediaWiki pages to admins. Articles can be of slight significance, but Portals must be broad introductions into broad topics, and the topics must demonstrate a community of interest willing to do the work of keeping the Portal fresh and up to date. bd2412 T 12:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

• Your points are valid, and apply to many aspects of Wikipedia. The current process is that something is created, be it article, category, WikiProject or Portal. It is given reasonable time to develop and show potential, then if some editors feel that it is doing more harm than good, a notice is put up and editors gather to see if a consensus of editors agree that the article/category should be deleted or renamed. The process here is that there is no notice given. Somebody applies, and those few people who are aware this process exists then decide among themselves. It is not a clear, open and democratic process. It is not policy. However, I understand the points you are making, which is why I suggest this process be named Portal/Advice. In the meantime, if you are unhappy with an existing Portal and feel that it is beyond hope, put it forward for deletion. SilkTork 15:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Above all, Wikipedia is about creating an encyclopedia, and is not a free web host. The proposal process was developed, to help deal with the creation of so many portals which then are disregarded, unmaintained, in some cases half-created. The bigger issue is shortage of portal maintenance (e.g. Portal:Fire, with news not updated since last December, Portal:Archaeology, Portal:Netherlands, Portal:Dogs, Portal:Industrial Design ...). The proposal process not only helps evaluate if the topic is broad enough, but also consider prospects for portal maintenance. -Aude (talk contribs) 14:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

• The Portal process is no different to the Category or Article or WikiProject process. The same policies regarding Wikipedia not being a free web host apply. Once we get into the area of waiting a week for a self-elected group to decide if someone can proceed with developing one area of Wikipedia, then it opens the door a little for other areas to have approval rules. The essence of Wikipedia is that it is wiki - otherwise we might rename it ApprovalBySelfAppointedGroupPedia. SilkTork 15:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree a process is needed for portal approval. If editors make lots of overlapping portals, lots of portals with little or no content, or lots of portals lacking conceptual coherence, then readers will find them discouraging and frustrating. This could lead readers to give up trying to use Wiki portals. High quality portals that overlap as little as possible will be most helpful to readers, and that requires a minimal management process (e.g., a proposal-approval process). kc62301

I also think it's a good thing that new portals go through an approval process. This way they gain visibility and more users are interested in maintaining them, since it will be their creation. Pre-approval isn't a new thing, stubs and their categories go through similar process since 2005. feydey 17:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

• If you feel unhappy with an overlapping portal, then nominate it for discussion and possible deletion. That is the procedure we have at the moment. SilkTork 15:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I somewhat agree with your arguments, that portals should just be created and then if something is problematic, to put it up for deletion. The problem with that is the sheer number of poorly maintained portals that get created. Even major topics like Portal:History are being neglected. I have tried (unsuccessfully) reaching out to Wikipedia:WikiProject History for help with Portal:History. I wouldn't suggest deleting portals covering such key topics, but some better way of dealing with this is needed. The proposal process was intended to help do that by stemming the portel creation, en masse. -Aude (talk contribs) 18:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

• Having a pre-approval process will not prevent a Portal falling into disuse. Nor will it ensure a brilliant Portal is created. If you are concerned about the state of some Portals, couldn't you put a message on the Portal suggesting it needs some TLC - perhaps, as the Portal/Advice group, making some helpful suggestions. I could see a Portal/Advice group being very useful in encouraging and developing Portals in a friendly and supportive manner. SilkTork 22:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

• I don't think this is a good idea at all; if the page is neglected or half-done, MFD it. However, forcing users to get a rubber stamp to get a portal will make active users more reluctant to create them. Titoxd^(?!?) 22:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
• I agree. Here are my thoughts on the portal approval page:

Below I've transposed the Miscellany for Deletion nomination for the Portal Approval page. To participate in that discussion, click the edit button below and to the right: --Transhumanist 03:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no need to transclude a debate from elsewhere here. A link suffices. I've removed the transclusion. Worldtraveller 16:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

• • Strong Agreement with Transhumanist on all points Tobyk777 02:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

(You may want to go to the MfD and restate that.) --Transhumanist 03:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

This discussion is continued on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Portal/Proposals, which includes my original reply to this forum.

Categories by ethnicity - what's wrong with having them for British people?

Today's Gretzky FA on the frontpage has him categorized as Belarusian Canadian and Polish Canadian among other things. Innumerable US personalities are similarly categorized by ethnicity.

I tried to categorize British people of Bengali origin similarly with the category British-Bengalis. There are, to my knowledge, 11 such people articles on WP so far, all of which I tagged - Eenasul Fateh, Iqbal Ahmed, the two girls on Harry Potter, etc etc.

But for some reason, this was put to a VfD along with several others, and then deleted after a vote that barely recorded 10 votes in total - with at least 3 for. The deletionist gave all sorts of strange reasons for not categorizing British people by their ethnicity, few of which made much sense.

I also pointed out the policy of targetting small categories (although with 11 members, British-Bengalis was larger than most). The deletionist cleverly left out British Asians which is truly a large category, and which will have many backers if anyone ever puts it to the vote.

I have therefore two questions:

1. Why one policy for American/Canadian articles and a different policy for British articles?
2. Why delete small categories, and leave out larger categories, when the argument for deletion is essentially the same?

If anyone can clarify, I will be most grateful. I would like to know what official WP policy is, before a useful category dies a needless death.

-- Peripatetic 11:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Policy for category deletion is at Wikipedia:Category deletion policy. The CFD page itself lists reasons to nominate a category, and refers to Wikipedia:Categorization of people which only says that all such categorization schemes "may be problematic". Answers to your specific questions: 1) there is no differential policy for American/Canadian vs. British categories, 2) because one CFD outcome has no binding influence on any other. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, kinda puts that position in a tight squeeze with systemic bias though. Steve block Talk 14:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Where can I review the CFD for this categorisation - on the face of it, it does seem an odd idea to delete such a category where we have "fictional armies" and the like roaming around. --Charlesknight 14:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Hard to know which CfD you're talking about. There have been at least 4 repeated debates about British bazians. Virtually all of them have been deleted for improper categorization.

For example, well-known people like Cat Stevens have been variously categorized as "Swedish-British" -- very American-style -- and the British say, We don't call people that! So, somebody tried "British Swedish", and more folks said, We don't call people that, either! And other person tried "Category:List of British people of Swedish descent", which is just excrable, and doesn't fit any category naming convention -- although that could be an article where folks could add references for verifiability.

Moreover, it turns out the he never calls himself Swedish anything, and apparently was never a Swedish citizen, although he lived in Sweden 4 years as a child ("sometime after" 8 years old). Now that's just silly!

It all comes down to listing heritages by 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, or non-notable temporary residency. And after many such CfD debates, and additional debates here, we now have a clear and concise policy.

I'm sure folks will be cleaning up Americans, Canadians, and others, but it will take time. They'll be deleted as they are emptied of the non-notable, non-verifiable ethnicruft (to coin a phrase).

--William Allen Simpson 16:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

It may take a while, although we can try to clean up the sillier stuff. A while back the article on Lhasa de Sela, who has Mexican and Jewish ancestry, was born in the U.S., grew up there and in Mexico, and has lived in Canada and now France, had the following categories:

Category:Jewish Canadians

Category:Jewish Mexicans

Category:Mexican-French people

Category:Canadians in France

Category:Jewish-Frenches

-- Donald Albury^(Talk) 17:28, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Redux

This is the one I am talking about

Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 June 23#British "ethnic" categories again

I will also give the full list of 11 here - at least 10 of them (I'm not fully certain of Monica Ali) are 100% of Bengali parentage on both sides of the family, so no dilution there as occurs frequently in the US: Konnie Huq - Rupa Huq - Iqbal Ahmed - Afshan Azad - Shefali Chowdhury - Muhammad Abdul Bari - Pola Uddin, Baroness Uddin - Akram Khan (dancer) - Eenasul Fateh - Shami Chakrabarti - Monica Ali

I've given further reasons, such as self-identification, strong community identity and homogeneity, etc etc as valid reasons for having this category. But these reasons were all ignored. I repeat, British Bengalis are on a different order of identification compared to something like Swedish Brits.

Finally there is Category:British Asians. If British-Bengalis have no valid reason to exist, I can hardly think of a valid reason for British Asians which is a specifically British construct, and even more artificial at that! --Peripatetic 17:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

It's interesting you should mention "asians" as I read this article today (based upon the findings of a report) -

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/faisal_bodi/2006/07/whats_in_a_name.html

--Charlesknight 17:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Peripatetic, you probably should take a look again, as I was the nominator of that CfD, not against it.

I'll note that you are re-populating these (11?) with the recently deleted category. That's a speedy deletion for re-created content. Stop doing that!

I've only checked a few of these, and so far none of them fit such a category. The Baroness Uddin may have been "born in Bangladesh" (although there is no verifiable reference, and it certainly wasn't under that name, as that is her husband's surname), but "grew up in London ... educated at the University of North London" according to the article. She is not a citizen of Bangladesh. She is a British Baroness raised to life peer. There is no verifiable statement that she considers herself Bengali, nor Bangladeshi.

The Harry Potter actors were born and raised English and Welsh, respectively. Again, there are no verifiable self-identifications as any other heritage. They are not from the same community, although they may have become friends due to their professional life.

The policy seems clear and explicit:

• In addition to the requirement of verifiability, living people must have self-identified as a particular heritage, while historical persons may be identified by notable association with a single heritage.
  • Heritage categories should not be used to record people based on deduction, inference, residence, surname, nor any partial derivation from one or more ancestors.
  • The place of birth is rarely notable.

Finally, as you have come forward here and cited the log, I will quote your own words:

No African or Caribbean or Asian or Indian immigrant is referred to as "English", no matter how long they or their generations have lived here.

That racist comment was soundly rejected. We don't practice ethnic cleansing here.

--William Allen Simpson 19:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Detailed response

Once again, I am going to ignore your malicious remark. Something about personal attacks comes to mind.

I am going to refocus on the issue of Bengalis. Bengalis are an ethnic group who originate in South Asia, in the region adjoining the bay of Bengal. Their main distinguishing characteristic is the Bengali language. They may be of several religions - Hindu, Muslim, Christian, etc. They are distributed mainly across two countries - Bangladesh and India (particularly West Bengal). Again, the majority ethnic group in this region is known as "Bengalis".

For various economic reasons, people have migrated from this area for decades. There are large Bengali diaspora in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, mainland Europe and the Middle East.

Bengali people who arrive in the West do not automatically lose their Bengali ethnicity. They may have a different passport, but that is not the issue. Similarly, children of Bengali immigrants who are born and raised abroad are also referred to as Bengalis. I refer you again to the websites of British Bengali groups - BBPA [17], Bob Network [18] among others. These are all second-generation associations.

Seems to me you are mixing up ethnicity with nationality, either wilfully or for whatever reason. Baroness Uddin is Bengali in the same way that Jack Kennedy was Irish American. If British Asian is applicable, then so is British Bengali - as Bengali is no more than a subset of Asian. Unless you are planning to delete British Asian as well. We have not seen evidence of that so far.

I will try and bring up evidence of Bengali ethnicity for each of my cases. You can refer to them as English or Welsh as much as you like. That is not my remit. My remit is to prove that these people are demonstrably of Bengali ethnic identity.

1. Konnie Huq [19] - quote: Born to Bangladeshi parents and graduated from Cambridge University. Evidence of Konnie playing UP her Bengali roots when she filmed Blue Peter in Bangladesh. [20]
2. Rupa Huq is Konnie's sister. Similar.
3. Baroness Uddin [21] - quote: Baroness Manzila Pola Uddin was born in Bangladesh and brought up in London and Baroness Uddin is proud to support BritBangla. I am pleased to be associated with BritBangla and give my support; and with worthwhile charity initiatives. See Baroness Uddin identifying with fellow Bengalis at launch event - see picture [22], or do you need her to actually SAY so in that many words?
4. Afshan Azad [23] See Afshan's quote: I hope they are glad to see a Bengali girl in a Hollywood film. I want them to see my talent and see me as an individual.
5. Shefali Chowdhury [24] quote: Shefali Chowdhury, a second-generation Bangladeshi based in London, who plays Parvati Patil in the latest Harry Potter film

5 down, 6 to go. Rest assured, I shall find evidence for the others as well. Regards. -- Peripatetic 20:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC) P.S. Just out of curiosity, why the rank inconsistency wrt British Asians? Why are you sparing British Asians from the cull? How come there is no demand for SELF-IDENTIFICATION evidence for every person listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_Asians. How come you haven't gone on a cleanup drive? Is it because of the size or popularity of the category? This inconsistency needs to be discussed openly. Regards.

The main thing that leaps out at me is the vital importance of having clear definitions for each of these categories, and judging strictly by those definitions. To be encyclopedic, a category must have a definition which means it is possible to make an entirely objective determination of whether someone fits into it, based on reliable published sources. If we need to go around gathering "evidence" of someone's Bangladesh-iness, then the category is insufficiently well-defined, and we are engaging in original research.

I don't personally see a problem with a "British Bengalis" category defined as EITHER:

- "This category contains British citizens with known Bengali ancestry"; OR

- "This category contains British citizens who have identified themselves as Bengali"

(not both) and including ONLY people identified by reliable sources as fitting those criteria.

However, if we need to go around deciding whether people count or not based on what charities they support, or where they have presented reports from, then that is utterly unencyclopedic original research. TSP 21:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Further response

Something else I should have made clear at the outset. Bengali immigration to the West on a large scale - and more broadly, south Asian immigration - is a relatively new phenomenon, beginning in the 60s and increasing in the 70s, 80s and 90s. What this means is that the current generation of Western Bengalis is only the second generation, with the vast majority of them having parents who are both Bengalis, who were originally inhabitants of the home country and who were the original immigrants. This is the case with all 11 in the list.

In sum, it is relatively simple to trace Bengali ancestry for second-generation Brit Bengalis or Bengali Americans, etc etc. It is several orders of magnitude easier compared to Europeans in the US. As a rule, intermarriage with other ethnic groups gives rise to multiple ethnic identities. This has happened to most Europeans in the US, e.g. Italians or Poles or Swedes, etc. For example, not many people today can claim to have exclusively Swedish parentage all the way back to Ellis Island a century years ago.

This is not the case with the Bengali diaspora, simply because there hasn't been enough time for that to happen so far. I'm sure within a couple of decades, as a result of increasing intermarriage, ethnic identity will become more heterogeneous. That is the nature of immigration. However, for the moment, tracing Bengali ancestry remains a quite straightforward matter.

The remaining 6:

6. Iqbal Ahmed [25] - article refers to original homeland Bangladesh.

7. Akram Khan the dancer [26]. One of Akram's most popular dance performances is based on his experiences of visiting his ancestral country [27]

8. Eenasul Fateh [28] - aka the magician Aladin, whose father was a Bengali diplomat.

9. Monica Ali [29] - passim.

10. Shami Chakrabarti [30] - whose parents came from the western half of Bengal (West Bengal in India). The daughter of Bengali immigrants, she and her younger brother grew up in "semi-detached suburbia" in north-west London, etc etc.

11. Muhammad Abdul Bari [31] - the BBC profile of the new MCB head identifies him as a Bangladeshi.

I hope all this explanation suffices.

I still don't get why British Asian is kosher but British Bengali is not. There are literally dozens of references to British Asians - what standards of proof are given for members of this list? As it is, Asian happens to be a sociological construct, meaning entirely different things in the UK (south Asian) and in the US (oriental Asians)! Bengali, on the other hand, is a recognized ethnic group, and with 230 million people [32], it is one of the bigger ethnic groups in the world.

I see there is even a list of Pakistani British people [33], existing as a subset of British Asians. As mentioned before, British Bengalis are another subset of British Asians in the same way. Asian in this context is no more than a catch-all term; it is not an identifiable ethnic group in itself.

Regards. -- Peripatetic 04:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I have not had a reply on this from any concerned. I think I have sufficiently demonstrated the Bengali ancestry of the above 11. Given so, what is the policy regarding a Category called "British people of Bengali ancestry"? Such naming is both clear and accurate. I am not particularly worried about what the specific category is called, as long as it correctly identifies ethnic origins. Whether a person wants to self-identify or not is immaterial in this case.

I await responses. --Peripatetic 16:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree that, if British Asians is a valid category, so should be British Bengalis as a subcategory of "British Asians". Already there are Category:British Parsis and Category:Pakistani British people. So, I don't see any reason not to have British Bengalis as a category. Thanks. --Ragib 22:00, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Sub-pages in entertainment entries - are these relevant?

I would love to contribute to some of the stubs floating around wikipedia, but one thing bothers me:

In entertainment articles (particularly those about a particular show, anime or videogame), there are often a slew of sub-pages which seem to probe every facet of said show etc. Is this what wikipedia is actually aiming for?

One example is 'Cultural references and innuendo in Rocko's Modern Life'. It's a list of innuendos and product references from a cartoon show. I can't for the life of me see how it's relevant in an encyclopedia.

Other examples would be anime which focusses on combat - often every minor character is listed somewhere with a list of who they fought, when and where. This is often all there is to these characters anyway, since they're very minor. It seems like a boatload of fancruft.

Not only does it pad out the encyclopedia with fluff, but it distracts contributors from filling out numerous stubs because they're so busy listing the many 'Mr X's and how many times they kicked 'Character Z' in the face.

Is there a rule or assertion somewhere which discourages this kind of page? I'm aware that unsubstantiated fancruft is discouraged, but is there a rule implying that articles should remain to-the-point and not shatter into a thousand sub-pages with useless information for the info-seeker?

Any input appreciated,

QuagmireDog 13:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

For a discussion (not policy, not guideline) about this, see Wikipedia:Fancruft. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I must hold my hand up, it's there in black and white on the fancruft page *rolls eyes*, my apologies. Between that and the 'pokemon test', it seems worrying about these things is self-defeating, so I'll see about brushing up on wiki editting and add to some other pages. QuagmireDog 14:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

I have for the past hour been doing Status Quo articles. I have done most of the albums. I am going to make a Status Quo template. I make a page about Matt Letley. I add in some information, not wanting to create a worthless article. Then, some admin goes ahead and deletes it within three minutes with no reason given, just deletes it. I appreciate the right of Admin's to delete it, but give me a reason, I have feelings to you know. I had a much more strongly worded letter drafted berfore this. Hole in the wall 18:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

For more information on circumstances where articles may be speedily deleted without discussion, see Wikipedia:Speedy deletion. Stifle (talk) 09:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I just looked there and there's no sodding information on it... I am really getting annoyed now. Hole in the wall 18:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I have restored the article. It was deleted as having "no assertion of notability," per WP:CSD criterion A7, but I think that was an error. The drummer for a band we have an article on is not obviously non-notable in any way. In the future, if you have trouble with such things, you should take it up with the closing admin or bring it up at Wikipedia:Deletion Review. -- SCZenz 19:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks SCZenz! Just for future reference, where can I go to see reasons for deletion? Hole in the wall 21:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

For valid reasons for speedy deletion, see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. There are also systems of deletion without such concrete rules: Wikipedia:Proposed deletion can be used if someone suggests deletion and nobody objects, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion makes decisions about deleting articles based on community discussion. Speedy deletion is a rigid system designed to be used only for things that are entirely non-controversial, AfD is for things that some users may disagree with, and PROD is for stuff inbetween. -- SCZenz 01:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Scientific American linking

Hi everyone. A representative of Scientific American recently began posting external links to online articles from the magazine. There has been much dispute about whether this is a good thing or not. On the pro side, Sci Am is a highly-reputable popular science magazine, and the links are all relevant and may very well provide useful information on the topic for users who want to learn more than our article has. On the con side, the Sci Am online articles have ads, so they are making money off the links, and the linking is massive and systematic. The representative recently posted the following text on the subject:

Hello, I represent Scientific American and I am responsible for the insertion of the new external links on Wikipedia to SciAm. I don't believe what we are doing is wrong but we have stopped inserting links at this time. Also, I want to clarify what we're doing and why. We are not using a spambot. A person is manually entering the links to the Wikipedia articles and we are not inserting articles just for the sake of spam or search optimization. We're only adding an external link when we believe it would contribute by providing additional information on the topic. Wikipedia is a valuable resource for many people and we would like to contribute by adding our content. Yes we acknowledge that by adding the links it will probably benefit us but that is not the reason we're doing it. The articles that we link to are all completely free and the user is not required to pay or register to view them. The ad unit several people have mentioned does promote a subscription but the viewer has the option to immediately close the ad. Visitors to our web site will view ads since it is partially advertising supported and we must do this to operate and continue to provide content to our readers. This is a user experience that is similar to visiting most other content web sites and blogs on the Internet. We are not trying to mislead anyone and have been completely transparent in our actions by not masking our IP and by using the user ID - Scientific American. We believe we are providing additional content on the topic, which I believe is valuable to Wikipedia users. We are not inserting links indiscriminately. We add external links at the bottom of the list not the top. We do not modify other links. We make the copy straightforward by just placing our publication name, issue date and title. We do not reinsert other links that have been removed by others who may view it as inappropriate. Also the next phase was to to add actual content to Wikipedia in topics lacking any substantial content. But at this time, we will not do that since it may be viewed as inappropriate. I hope I have been clear in our motivations and intentions. Finally, if many Wikipedia community members views what we're doing is inappropriate we will stop. Thank you --Scientific American 18:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC) (from this edit)

I think we should discuss whether we find such linking desirable, and get back to the Scientific American representative only once we have consensus to avoid confusion (which there was some of in our earlier response). Previous discussions can be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Physics#Massive insertion of Scientific American links and WP:AN/I#Apparent SEO/Linkspam to Scientific American articles. -- SCZenz 18:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

To start of the discussion, here's my own personal opinion. While this is arguably linkspam, and certainly does make Scientific American money, I do not think either of these reasons to reject such links is compelling. On the contrary, we should encourage them to add more links if they want to, because Scientific American articles are good. Links to good, relevant external pages improve the encyclopedia, so I think Scientific American deserves an exception to our usual mode of linkspam enforcement. Ultimately, whether the encyclopedia is made better is the only thing that's important. -- SCZenz 18:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC))

Don't these links fail criterion 1 of WP:EL's "Links normally to be avoided": "In general, any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article here would have once it becomes an example of brilliant prose." In other words, aren't these the sort of links that would make fine references (if the articles were updated to include info from them) but are inappropriate as external links? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 19:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Often the articles' info is more specific than I imagine being in the article; they're really "more information," I think. Anyway, don't we usually link to our references? If nothing else, having these links will let us use the material to improve the articles more easily. -- SCZenz 19:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

If Amazon started posting links to there products, evry Wikipedian would be up in arms. How is this any differant. And why do the need a 'team' to ad links? Surely, if their articles were so relavent people would be doing it allready and SA wouldn;t need to do it. This looks super fishy to me. Hole in the wall 18:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

They are unquestionably trying to make money off of us and promote themselves. I claim, however, that their effort will be mutually beneficial. -- SCZenz 19:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

To see what kind of links they're posting, see Special:Contributions/208.241.19.100. -- SCZenz 19:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Since the person at SciAm is editting the articles, it seems to me that using the ref tag would be a better use of the time. However, we often have external links to nytimes, guardian, and other on-line articles supported by advertising. AND we all love Google, a service supported by advertising, to verify references and notability. Quite different from Amazon, where a link doesn't actually contain information.

--William Allen Simpson 19:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Amazon contains Discographies, album covers, album reviews and information on the album. Yet I see no links of Amazon. Hole in the wall 19:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this is a good thing. Most of the links are certainly good links on an individual basis, but it continues systematically, we're going to end up with every single one of our higher-profile articles on science linking to Scientific American. Remember, we try to keep the number of external links on our articles within a reasonable limit, so that means one less link devoted to someone else, too. I'm worried that this will, in effect, make Scientific American look like a sort of unofficial Wikipedia affiliate... No matter how good they are, I think we should avoid that. --Aquillion 19:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

That just means we have to deal with each link added on a case-by-case basis (which we ought to be doing for every link anyway). I think it's clear that if the editors of a given article decide against keeping a given link, Scientific American isn't going to keep on reverting the decision to remove it. We don't have to officially sanction the process en mass, we can look at each link as it comes.--ragesoss 19:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Eh. What I kind of meant to say was that even if the individual links could pass on a one-by-one bases, the effect of having the overwhelming majority of science articles on Wikipedia link to Scientific American might be something we want to consider. --Aquillion 20:24, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the comparison to Amazon.com is a red herring -- we can use product identification numbers and link through a counterpart to the ISBN-book links that are already being used if we're concerned about vendor neutrality. That would not solve what's a crucial difference between products and articles -- mp3 players, software, golf carts, and virtually everything else Amazon sells is not itself really properly encyclopedic, and we would risk looking like a sales directory if we had articles and links for all that stuff on Wikipedia. Scientific American's content is, by contrast, by nature almost always encyclopedic -- scientific discoveries are about the world around us, and they are the historical core of what encyclopedias are about. To reiterate, a lot of links to amazon makes us a product directory, but a lot of links to SciAm makes us well plugged in to science. I would be tempted to say that the SciAm articles are unqualifiedly a good thing, my only reservation being that we might want to be cautious about covering research that is too new. If those who add the links take great care to deal with this latter issue sensitively, I see no issue with this kind of linking going on. --Improv 23:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Their explanation is much appreciated. But I can't say it makes me like any better that a commercial entity is adding links to their own site. Who will be the next? Wikipedia does not let affiliate programs determine its content—and links aren't even content. It'd actually be preferable they'd skip the links and start directly adding the relevant content to the articles. Links would neither be necessary nor appropriate then—not even for reference, when the creator of the referenced content itself adds it, think about it! Why would anybody with a financial responsibility to their shareholders bother to do such a thing? It still stinks of bargaining for advertising space, in their own interest they should refrain. Femto 19:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

VERY nice point Femto! I think that defeats SA's point completely. Hole in the wall 20:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Femto, you seem to be saying that if an editor adds his own work, it doesn't have to be referenced. That doesn't work. If anyone, the author of an article in Scientific American, a staff member at the magazine, or a reader, adds material from an article, it must be cited as a reference. The issue here is not (or should not be) about using Scientific American articles as references. The issue is about external links.

I do have to say that external links to Scientific American articles will almost certainly be more relevant and useful than 95% of the external links we currently have, but that is more of an argument for agressively cleaning out poor external links than for letting Scientific American add their links. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 20:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

You mean that a company only has to be the first to include some fact from their site into an article, and Wikipedia must provide a free link to them for all eternity? That doesn't work either. References are a help to the reader and an academic courtesy to the original source. But the facts are free, especially if chosen to be added by the source itself. Femto 21:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Not for all eternity, no - it could be replaced by a different source later. But yes, every fact added to any Wikipedia article should be accompanied by a reference to a source, as per the Verifiability and Original Research policies. This applies even when they're added by someone with sufficient authority to make a statement, because we only have their word for it that they are that person or group.

As a separate issue, yes, we do undertake to credit every contributor for providing the information for all eternity, under the GFDL - that's one of the things that the History function is there for. TSP 21:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Not for all eternity perhaps, but long enough for adding linked facts to Wikipedia becoming a lucrative business model! Other sites will be less reserved than SciAm. I also agree with below that the reference argument is rather moot at this point, as all we've got is links so far. Femto 13:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The facts may be free, but they have to be sourced. If anyone, including an employee of Scientific American, adds new material to a Wikipedia article based on an article from the magazine, then they need to reference the source. Again, this is a different issue from the one which was originally raised here, which is whether we want employees of online sources adding "external links" which are not direct sources for information in an article. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 21:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, they need to reference the source. The fact remains that except for the few cases regulated by WP:OR, an editor of Wikipedia should never cite themself as source of the content which they add.

Say I wrote an essay on the history of bark beetles breeding in bohemian birches. I put it on my website. If you add the information from there to Wikipedia, you may add a cite as a courtesy to me, and as a help for the reader to determine the reliability of the information. This is the purpose of Wikipedia's references.

But I can add my knowledge to Wikipedia regardless of whether my site existed or not. Citing myself does not make me a proper source or increases my encyclopedic verifiability. Neither is it a courtesy to myself, it's a promotion. This holds true even moreso for publishers of franchised content from other writers. A link to their site, a secondary source, would neither be necessary nor appropriate, when they own the added content and have access to its primary references. Femto 12:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I find your argument very confusing. If a magazine article is used as the source for material in a Wikipedia article, then the magazine article must be cited no matter who adds the material to Wikipedia. You seem to be saying that if an employee of Scientific American should add material from an article in that magazine, he or she could not cite the article, but would have to cite the references listed in that article. That would be wrong. References in Wikipedia should only be to sources actually consulted by the editor adding or verifying the material. Citing indirect sources that the editor has not consulted would be wrong. Note that most articles in Scientific American are commissioned from experts in a particular field, and are not written by employees of the magazine. And this is all still hypothetical, anyway. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 13:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say that, so long as the links are relevant to the article, and go into more depth than the wikipedia article, they can only be benificial. Ideally, the relevant content from the SA articles would be merged into the WP article, with the SA article then used as a reference - but failing that, pointing readers to a useful article to read next is the next best thing. With luck, it will prompt people to add content from that page back into the WP article (with appropriate references). I recognise that there is a money-making and publicity side to this, but I tend to focus more on the quality of WP articles than that. Responding to the external links point above: yes, it's nice to keep them down to a reasonable number, but if the external articles/websites will be of use to the reader wanting to go into more depth, then they should be added regardless of how many are currently there. Or will WP abruptly run out of space / words if we do that? Mike Peel 22:07, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I like Femto's points. Realistically, I'm not too worried; there are not all that many sites on te net that provide science content: one is lucky to find one or two for the obscure topics, maybe half-a-dozen for the more well-known topics. My goal is to have good information that is accessible, ad can be cross checked. This seems to fulfil that purpose. linas 01:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree entirely with Femto and agree with Donald Albury. I also think that it is a red herring to think about the scale of the thing: if each individual edit is good (according to the categorical imperative) then the sum of the edits ought to be good as well. The guideline WP:EL for links normally to be avoided seems a little odd to me: if the encyclopedia reaches a point where the articles it links to are superceded, then the links ought to be removed, provided they are not being used as references. In the meantime, if you can direct readers to another source, or even another approach, then so much the better. Let the individual editors (i.e. people with the article on their watchlist) make the call. There is no need for an overarching deicision about whether the links are a good thing or a bad thing.

Finally, Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia. Scientific American is not. They take different approaches to things; Scientific American tries to write entertaining articles and we are trying to be an useful work of reference. Narrative is more important to them than to us, and it can only help to give Wikipedia readers the option of consulting their articles (provided, of course, they are relevant and the links section doesn't get too bloated). –Joke 02:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Knowing the high quality of Scientific American, I'm very happy to have external links to their articles in ours. They will only add to the value of our 'pedia. And I'm really glad that they are doing the work. Saves me from having to do it ;-). That this may also help them, is no skin off our collective noses. Paul August ☎ 03:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Allowing any organization to add self-links in articles' external links sections sets a dangerous precedent, IMO. At the very least it shows a blatent disregard for WP:SPAM, one of the few tools we have in the fight against the rising tide of spam here. What motivation does said organization have to spend time adding their links as proper citations when they can get away with simply dumping them en-masse, especially if someone is doing it "on the clock"? Ok, so Sci Am articles are often relevant and useful - but would it be so bad to request that Sci Am either add their links to the articles' talk pages (to allow other neutral editors to determine their worth), or add them as citiations? --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 05:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Full ack. Allow it just once, and I foresee thousands of articles, each with highly relevant links to dozens of magazines. If relevant external content improves Wikipedia, the more the better? Where's the limit to relevance? Why bother with internal content in the first place? The fundamental goal of Wikipedia is to create internal content, not to be a directory to that of others, even if someone might use it as a source at some indefinite future. Femto 12:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Aye, there's the rub. Scientific American is close to a best case for allowing an entity to add many external links back to itself. The problem would be in drawing the line between Scientific American and Weekly World News. So, I'm all for anyone citing any reliable, published source as a reference for material in an article. I think we need to tighten up on external links in general, however. I like your suggestion of asking SciAm to post the links to the talk pages and let the editors familiar with the page decide if they belong on the article page. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 12:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I would not discourage Scientific American. It is a good source and their links would benefit WP. Putting the links on talk pages could be a good compromise. Maurreen 17:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the fact that it is Scientific American doing the edits should not be an issue, nor should their external motives. It shouldn't matter who is doing the editing, as long as the edits are good: that seems to be one of the core principles of Wikipedia. Since the links have generally been relevant, unobtrusive, free and useful, I say let them continue adding them, but ask them to ensure that they don't reinsert links that other editors have decided to remove. –Joke 19:59, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that a link to any relevant Scientific American article would improve our encyclopedia. Can anyone point to a single inapproprate link to any article, added by Scientific American? If not, then having them add the link to the talk page is just unnecessary extra work, for no gain. If they start making inappropriate links, then we can take action. Saying that they shouldn't be allowed to add links to articles, which we all agree are useful, is just silly. Paul August ☎ 03:44, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Truth and opinions

If a certain point of view on a particular issue can be proven beyond reasonable doubt to be false (as is the case with some pseudosciences), do they require a mention? If something is proven, it holds true to all, so can a false point of view still be considered valid? --81.156.50.151 19:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

It is valid for us to report that, for example, some people believe in astrology—whether astrology is real or not. It's not our place to determine 'truth'; we just report on the major schools of thought on a given issue. It's certainly appropriate for us to note when a particular opinion is 'fringe' or 'mainstream', but we can't and shouldn't decide on the 'truth' of an issue. (We can apply some editorial judgement. If an opinion is in sufficient minority and far enough out on the fringe, it may not warrant inclusion. Obviously this has to be approached on a case-by-case basis.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Books in Wikipedia

Is there a policy or guideline about articles about books in Wikipedia? Any notability or any other criterion for inclusion of books? ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Nope. There is a proposed guideline though at Wikipedia:Notability (books). Deco 01:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:SNOW would preclude the addition of articles about self-published books and authors. They will almost assuredly be deleted. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:libel

Does the wikipedia:Libel policy apply to statements of opinion on talk pages? For example, if I say on a talk page that in my opinion, a person (not a wikipedia editor) lied when s/he made a certain claim, may that statement be deleted as libel? Anonymous44 14:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a lawyer but I know that a level of malice would need to be proven. If you think that a person lied because you have discovered some conflicting information from another source and are trying to put the most accurate information in the Wiki entry, then it would be difficult to prove there was malice in your assumption that they lied. Of course, if you then go on a tangent about how someone is this horrible person who always lies...etc... then you maybe in more troubled waters Agne27 15:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:BLP states "unsourced or poorly sourced negative material from biographies of living persons and their talk pages" should be removed. If you are merely offering your opinion, that also isn't really in keeping with the original research policy. When discussing issues you need to be able to source any claims you make, whether that is in the article or on a talk page. If you can't source your claim that a person lied, your claim should be removed. If you wish to get recognition for such a claim, I would suggest you contact the media, who can afford to employ people to decide whether to publish such a claim. Your opinion that someone may have lied has no bearing on an article's content, it is extraneous and has no place in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a message board. Steve block Talk 15:31, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, WP:NOR doesn't apply to talk pages - see WP:OR#On_talk_pages_and_project_pages. And I'm not talking about a biography either. --Anonymous44 15:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

No malice is needed if the individual is not a public figure and the libel is not on a matter of public concern (e.g., an article statement about a professor's personal life rather than his academics); a negligence standard then applies under many state laws. Our notability standards fall short of what it takes to be a "public figure," btw. Postdlf 15:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

In my case, the person has claimed to be a vampire hunter and to have staked dozens of actual vampires. If I were to mention that I consider this to be an invention, would it be subject to wikipedia:libel?

--Anonymous44 16:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

No. It wouldn't be libel under U.S. law, because you have a reasonable belief that that statement true, and the truth cannot be libel. --Aquillion 17:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree wtih Acquillion. Of note here is the standard is 'negligence' not 'malice' for a private individual, and again, the truth cannot be libel (or the truth is an absolute defense). And opinion is not, of course, defamatory. It may be tacky, but not defamatory (see libel and slander for the two types of defamation).

Legal libel is rarely an issue. More often incivil conduct is a breach of either Wikipedia:No personal attacks or Wikipedia:Civility. But it's not a problem as long as you attack the statements made by the person and not their character. Deco 17:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Ditto Deco (? !) I couldn't resist.jgwlaw 00:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Protecting one's own page

I really would like a new policy in which the non-administrator user can protect his userspace (main userpage, talk, subpages, etc) from any potential vandalism, but wouldn't be able to protect any other pages on Wikipedia. Is this feasible? --Revolución hablar ver 04:38, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I would guess you mean semi-protection, as otherwise the user could not edit their own pages. The talk page would have to be exempt from this, as anon's are entitled to communicate with a user via their talk page. Alternatively, you may mean full protection, but want the user to be able to edit even protected pages within their own user space.

I doubt it would be difficult to program, but it would require a change to the software, which makes it unlikely to be implemented as we have a shortage of developers. It also seems rather unwiki-like, as we try to keep almost all pages editable by anyone.

If you have a problem with a particular page of your being regularly vandalised, then Requests for Page Protection is the place to go.-gadfium 05:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, "your" userpages are part of the wiki, which means that in theory anyone is entitled to edit them, odd as that might sound. In practice changing someone's userpage without their permission is Very Bad Form and you're allowed to revert them. Unless the userpage is disruptive to Wikipedia's mission in some way, in which case, the fact that they are part of the wiki is indeed called into play. Anyway, many of us have gotten someone or other cross with us enough to vandalize our userpages. Usually they get tired of it pretty soon, if not there are the various procedures for bringing them to account. Herostratus 00:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Allowing a user to protect their talk page, thus blocking comments/warnings/etc., would seem particularly problematic. Dragons flight 00:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Speedying cut+paste copyvios from sites other than commercial content providers

(From WT:CSD) I am thinking that it might be best to amend A8 and remove the requirement "Material is unquestionably copied from the website of a commercial content provider (e.g. encyclopedia, news service)." Currently, pages that are copyvios of materials from non-profit organizations take too long to process. People have to check if the article is a copyvio, blank the article, insert the {{copyvio}} template, and list the page on WP:CP. Then, a week later, somebody else has to verify that it is a copyvio and then speedy it. Given that there are an astronomical amount of copyvios, this can cause a lot of wasted time. Thoughts? -- Where 15:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree 100%. Martin 15:04, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm uncertain. Nonprofit sites might be more willing to give permission for the material to be used. I also would like to see concrete evidence of the large number of such copyvios. Deco 15:39, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of willingness, we can't just copy their material. For concrete evidence see Wikipedia:Copyright problems. Martin 15:54, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Concur with Bluemoose (who really should change their signature) - I think it'd be a good thing to do as Where suggests. On Wikipedia, WRT legal issues, it's better to ask permission than forgiveness. --Improv 17:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Unless I am misinterpreting the proposal, he seems to be suggesting that we delete the content without ever seeking permission to use it. Why wouldn't we want to ask permission? Deco 18:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

If permission is granted it can be put back. The obligation of action should be on those who want to license the content, not on those who are ensuring propriety. --Improv 19:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes the editors who cut-n-paste from non-commercial sites and blogs are the copyright owners. If spooked by deletion they could not come back. Often somebody is willing to "retell" the copyrighted story. They might need a copyvioed piece to retell. abakharev 08:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe but most stuff coppied from elsewhere needs heavy modification to fit with wikipedia in any case.Geni 15:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

If I remove a cut & paste copyvio, I tend to leave a message on the original author's talk page—often something based around the {{nothanks}} template. It gives a legitimate author/owner an explanation of what happened. Even if the editor inserting the material is doing so deliberately and works for the organization in question, that person may not have the authority to release material under the GFDL or realize the consequences of that.

Per Geni, it's almost always as much work to wikify, restructure, and rewrite copy & paste stuff to fit encylopedic and house style as it is to write an article from scratch. Alex, above, overlooks the fact that most copyvios are found and verified through a Google search anyway—so we don't need to copy a local copy of the document; it's readily available as a reference on the net. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Archival policy for articles transwikied to wikibooks

I'd like to propose a change in policy for articles that are transwikied to wikibooks. Currently, articles that are transwikied from wikipedia are simply deleted, which has the unfortunate effect of also deleting the history of contributors (the history of a transwikied article on the WB side starts with the person who did the transwiking).

It seems to me that these histories should be preserved, both as a way of acknowledging the contributions, and perhaps to give WB editors a way to find source material if the article on WP lacked citations (i.e., we would at least know who to ask). I don't think this would cause much of a problem on the WP side, because very few articles are successfully transwikied to WB, though this may be in part because the contributors to the article don't realize that it has been transwikied (and articles that are transwikied and "abandoned" at wikibooks are soon deleted).

So I propose the following:

1. Transwikied articles should not be deleted, but rather "blanked", and then have a template that informs interested editors that the article has been moved to WB.
2. Transwikis to WB should alway be titled "Transwiki:ARTICLENAME", so that those of us on the WB side interested in finding a home for these articles will know what to look for.
3. If an article "finds a home" at wikibooks, the article space on WP should be blocked from any editing, preserving the message that it was transwikied, and where the tw'd article (now a chapter or book) can be found.

SB Johnny 18:22, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Disagree. There are lots of places we transwiki to which are not even Wikimedia projects. We don't allow redirects across namespaces even, why should we keep nonexistant articles just to point to somewhere outside of Wikipedia? That would make us more like a search engine than an encyclopedia. User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:28, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Why the hell is transwikiing taking place without preserving the article history? The article history should be transwikied as well! Carcharoth 23:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Template:hotu

Template:Hotu (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) - A template to link articles to Home of the Underdogs. A legitimate site, perhaps, and contains lots of information - but it also contains copyrighted material, abandonware versions of games. Now, the site is no secret - and if the companies wanted their work pulled, I'm sure it would have been already. But the question remains, should we be linking to these so people can download them? --Golbez 06:10, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

At first glance, one would immediately assume copyvio if it were linked anywhere else than on its own page. In that regard, it might be copyvio just linking to it. I'm no expert. Generally, however, I would think that Wikipedia would want to discourage editors from distributing copyrighted material. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Linking to copyright violating sites is strongly discouraged. At WP:EL we say, Knowingly and intentionally directing others to a site that violates copyright has been considered a form of contributory infringement in the United States (Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry). Also, linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on us (see Wikipedia:Copyrights and in particular Contributors' rights and obligations). . User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

"List of " suburbs" articles

I just started an AfD on List of Logan City suburbs. This is simply a list of the suburbs of Logan City, Queensland. What's policy on this? A list of suburbs seems the wrong tool for the job. And it would take tens of thousands of articles like this to cover the world.

How should atlas data like that be represented? We really need more map support ("Wikipedia Earth?") for this kind of thing. --John Nagle 06:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

AFD vs PROD

Do we need both of these systems. They do the same thing, and having two only serves to confuse. --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 09:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes we do. Wikipedia:Proposed deletion is for generally uncontroversial deletion candidates. For the rest there is AFD. Prod removes a lot of useless workload on WP:AFD. Garion96 (talk) 11:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Impressions from a new(ish) editor good and bad.

I have been editing Wikipedia for about a year (I think!), and until a fortnight ago all I ever did was add and modify articles and surf it for info. Up to that point I had nothing negative to say about Wikipedia. I still think it's a marvellous concept and an extremely useful reference tool, far superior than any other encyclopedia. Best of all, it's free at the point of use, so knowledge is not limited by budget. I have every intention of carrying on playing a part in it, as the free proliferation and preservation of knowledge is a cause I am deeply committed to.

There is however another side, one of which I was blissfully ignorant until one day I visited my Sharon Janis article and found it vanished. Since then I have been learning fast about policies, administrators, AfD's, deletion reviews, and the inner workings of Wikipedia generally. It has been a profoundly upsetting stressful and time-consuming experience. I never expected to end up fighting a crusade against a massive bureaucracy.

Whilst I've had other articles removed, I could see good reasoning behind them. With the Sharon Janis article, I found myself having to fight hard to justify the blatantly justifiable, whereas some of my other articles about far more obscure subjects have never been questioned. Whilst this is undoubtedly the encyclopedia everyone can edit, it's also the encyclopedia where at any time, anyone's prejudice can strike out information someone else gave up time and energy to contribute. I am not convinced that reality matches policy. The policy is sound, but what happens in practice is that ego, personal prejudices, feelings pride and emotions inevitably come into play. What is happening in reality is that articles that are rubbish but no one cares about could survive indefinitely, but those where someone has a personal dislike or pejudice get nominated for the chop. The victims in this are articles which whilst not perfect have merit but have the misfortune to be read by someone with a bee in their bonnet. Fortunately, those curious enough about deleted articles can often go to Google and find out about the subject that way, but I don't think they should have to.

I see from the forums I have visited that I have become just another aggrieved editor who has seen hard work removed without a full reasonable and justifiable explanation. It is a lot easier to remove an article than defend one, as I have painfully discovered, and that is not right. I have far better things to do with my precious time than spend countless hours on procedures, forums and jargon, but so deep is my passion for what I believe that I have gritted my teeth and waded headlong into this bewildering cyberworld.

To sum up, Wikipedia is a marvellous creation which I'm glad I discovered, but it is far too easy for articles to be removed. I don't mind anyone appealing for a deletion, but an editor or administrator should have to work at least as hard in removing an article as I've had to in defending one. The power to delete is too widely spread amongst God knows how many administrators and therefore too easily the cause of micarriages of justice. As for the deletion review, it is a lottery depending on who reads your article and the review. The power to delete should instead be concentrated into a panel of ten highly experienced committed users who require a minimum 8-2 verdict to remove an article with a full given reasoning from each member. Above them should be a tribunal with powers to overturn in the light of fresh evidence. Even then articles should be re-admitted anyway if suitably modified in a way dictated by the tribunal.

I will go on using, contributing and (very reluctantly) participating in discussions on Wikipedia, but after the last fortnight I will do so with a heavier heart. Headshaker 15:34, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sharon Janis for the AfD discussion on the Sharon Janis article. Apparently it failed WP:BIO and contained misinformation. --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 16:02, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

"Sigh" which I then modified and am in the process of modifying further to fully justify what is clearly justifiable anyway. My whole point is that the onus should be on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that an article is unworthy, not for the defence to prove worth as I'm having to.

Headshaker 16:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Most of your post above seems to be related primarily to the removal of content to begin with, per "it is far too easy for articles to be removed" and "an editor or administrator should have to work at least as hard in removing an article as I've had to in defending one" As such, the AfD appears to have proven that the article didn't meet WP criteria for retention at that time and was removed fairly. Deletion review can be a bit challenging, yes, but if an article is deleted fairly, there really needs to be a compelling reason to restore it --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 16:59, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Fact checking of articles (especially featured ones)

Have a look at this edit. A basic and easily checkable fact in the Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom article (the salary) was not updated. This is the sort of thing that justifiably gives Wikipedia a bad reputation. What is the point of saying that our articles can be more up-to-date than others, when no-one checks to see if they are up-to-date? This was all the worst for appearing in a featured article linked from the Main Page. Can processes please be put in place to stop this happening again? Carcharoth 23:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Well the fact checking is suppose to take part in the Wikipedia:Featured article candidates nomination and selection process as was the Peer Review. Several editors took part in both processes. It just looks like that one fact slipped by. Agne27 03:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Really? From what I see of the Peer Review and WP:FAC processes, they don't involve much fact-checking, and concentrate more on the style, layout, balance and references of an article. Maybe I passed by in an off-week. Regardless, I've now found a WikiProject devoted to fact checking, so that is good. Carcharoth 09:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

No Original Research - queries

I'm not quite clear on what the difference is between Original Research and Rephrasing or Reasoning something. My example is slightly obscure, but is the best I can come up with at the moment. If say, no-one anywhere had published something saying that the District Line had the most number of stations on the London Underground (this 'factoid' has been published, but for the sake of argument let's say that only the number of stations on each line had been published). Would it then be Original Research to look at a list of the number of stations on each line and say "The District Line has the most number of stations". To me this is similar to the "deductive reasoning" section above (which concerned deducing people's nationality), but this is a clearer case of deductive reasoning. Other cases I can think of include saying things like "team Y is the first team to have won trophy X by this scoreline since 1860". This sort of thing is verifiable, but if it hasn't been published elsewhere, the only way to verify it is for the reader to go and check various lists and see if this is true. So where is the line drawn between rephrasing and representing a set of facts and maybe adding some obvious deductive reasoning, and this process becoming Original Research? A similar process would be seen for the process of rewriting and rephrasing things from a source. Where is the line drawn between summarising several sources (which is one of the prime purposes of a tertiary source like an encyclopedia), and synthesising those sources in such a way that (maybe accidentally) new connections and insights are revealed about the topic? Carcharoth 00:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

There does seem to be a bit of gray area about how literal one interprets WP:OR. With your "direct line" example, I can see both sides one can take. A strong benchmark for me is whether or not this interpretation advances any particular position--especially one relevant to the articles NPOV. In your direct line example, a particular POV is not being advance so I would personally feel comfortable with that addition. However, I see with deducing nationality--like what happened with the Copernicus article--more room for crossing over the WP:OR line. Agne27 03:49, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I can see endless scope for arguments about whether something is an obvious and trivial deduction from published facts (when it would be silly to call it NOR) or not. To me, the District Line example is a trivial deduction, and I would accept it even if there were controversy; others would disagree. Almost certainly, it will often come down to whether it offends someone's POV.--Brownlee 11:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Tor blocks

I didn't receive a response to my ANI post about this, so I've decided to post here. I'm after community support to run a script to convert tor blocks to AnonOnly NoCreate. The source code of this script, which has worked as expected on my own wiki (see [34]), will be available on request. I would suggest that this script run on a botflagged account, as it will otherwise flood recent changes with 250-odd block and unblock combinations at a rate of approximately ten unblock/block combinations per minute. I do not currently have a sysop bit, so the account would need to be hit with a sysop bit. Issues to be resolved:

• Whether the script should work on commuting the blocks to Anon-only / No account creation, or simply update the current blocks to mark them as Tor blocks, and to block new exit nodes.
• Whether or not the script should run on a separate, botflagged account.
• Whether or not I, a non-admin, should maintain the script (I'm aware that some are uncomfortable with this).
• Whether the script should run one-off, or regularly in order to keep the blocks up to date.
• Whether a script should be used to execute the blocks, or if there are admins willing to update these blocks manually.

Input is welcome. Werdna (talk) 10:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)