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Suggestion on PROT, NPOV and edit/revert war articles

In most cases, disputed articles are resolved by means of the Talk page. But often they arent. In some cases the article is locked, and development stalls, in other cases there is a valid NPOV point but no progress is made until one or other contributor gives up and goes away, which is fair but not the best version of neutrality (see stale NPOV discussion above).


Ideally the handling of disputed articles should:

  • Where possible not freeze development of the article as a whole (edit wars imply an individual in breach wiki policy, and hence represent a problem with some individual(s), not the article)
  • Not encourage articles to become locked (except in cases of actual vandalism)
  • Not encourage articles to become described as disputed overall if the actual issue is in reality small scale (eg section or word use)
  • Minimise the time that articles are in dispute

A way that might work is to refine the use of tags so that heavy handed measures (NPOV or PROT on a whole article is quite heavy) are much less needed and mostly reserved for dealing with pollicy breach not article disagreement. Compare two articles:

  • In September 11, 2001 attacks the entire article was NPOV'd at one point with the main reason being a debate basically whether "terrorism" was right or not. But that tag arose not because the article as a whole was in dispute, just one term used in it.
  • In the Pursuit_of_Nazi_collaborators article an NPOV tag was added because the title was possibly NPOV, and there was debate what the scope of the article should be. But that labelled the entirety of the article and all facts as disputed, where they actually weren't.
  • In Paraphilia there was an argument that the entire article's approach was not neutral. In such a case a NPOV tag is more appropriate.

In fact, on Paraphilia, I chose {{POVCheck}} and not {{NPOV}}, meaning "This article may need to be reworded to conform to a neutral point of view; however, the neutrality of this article is not necessarily disputed", which was more accurate, so as not to mislead readers of the present article that there was more doubt than was the case. Because I didnt want visitors to be faced with an article that was 70% right and yet be told at the top, "this is all disputed".


What comes across clearly to me is,

  • There need to be some more appropriate tags which are more applicable to smaller scale dispute
  • In case of dispute, use of minimal tags where reasonable are so preferable this should be wiki policy
    • (A minimal tag can be left longer as it doesn't lock or cast doubt on the whole article)
  • The tags applicable to disputed words/sections/articles need to be made much easier to find (maybe a link on the edit page?)
  • Once a disputed aspect of an article is tagged, revert and edit wars on that point are not permitted. Sysops may select what they feel is a fairly balanced wording for the time being, and provided it's tagged as "disputed", the rest is kept to the talk page until agreed.
  • Major tags such as NPOV which affect entire articles should by policy only be appropriate if the entire article or major parts of it are disputed
  • Tages such as PROT should only be needed to prevent vandalism and/or revert/edits against wiki policy, by users who do not respect sysop decision.
    • (But any article content dispute can be resolved as above so PROT shouldn't be as necessary)
  • PROT especially should be used slightly differently. If an article needs protecting from one user, then that user is the person who must be blocked or asked to stick to the talk page, not the article. Only if the article is subject to anarchic major editing from multiple sources should PROT be needed.


Examples of new small scale tags I'd suggest (ok they arent perfect but its an idea someone else could develop upon):

  • "This section is being developed or reviewed. Some statements may not be neutral or may be disputed at present. Please see Talk page before editing"
  • "There is dispute over the usage of the following words, which may not be neutral or may be disputed. Please see the talk page. This article retains the existing words until consensus is reached"
  • "This is a fast changing article and many areas are being developed at a time. Lesser disputes such as posisble individual NPOV words have been left to a side while the article as a whole is developed. These should be discused on the Talk page rather than allowed to override the development of the article as a whole."
  • "This article is subject to regular edit and revert wars, and the administrators of Wikipedia have agreed a wording which they feel comfortable is not unreasonable for the time being. The article is left open for development, but these aspects should not be changed until a better consensus is reached and the matters on the Talk page are resolved."
  • "The following words are not considered neutral by some, and are actively being discussed on the Talk page"


In summary, the changes would be:

  • Specifying that users should wherever possible use the most appropriate tag (not just "NPOV")
  • Encouraging lesser levers of dispute,
  • Requiring proper tagging, not just NPOV for everything, possibly by a "tags help" next to the "editing help" on the edit page
  • Allowing sysops to specify a relatively neutral wording until a better consensus is reached

wiki can keep more articles open and reduce the number where the whole article is marked as disputed, without in any way reducing people's power to contribute individually.

Its a raw suggestion with many holes in right now, but the heart of it - better use of tags disputing a word or section without casting the whole article into doubt, ways to say "yes we disagree on X but lets come back to it" and ways for a sysop to say "use that wording until you get a better consensus", could help free up many locked and stalled articles, allow faster ways to resolve edit wars, and that would benefit everybody.

FT2 21:21, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

I think the above proposal has considerable merit. Paul August 20:55, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)


Upcoming Arbitration Committee election

Based on some preliminary discussions, a proposal has been formulated for the next Arbitration Committee election, to be held in December. --Michael Snow 04:46, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Contributions from the associate director of ACSH on the ACSH article

For several years now there's been a very low-intensity edit war over on the DDT article over how much funding the American Council on Science and Health gets from industry sources and whether that has an impact on their impartiality. An anonymous user - it seems to have been the same one throughout, the wording he's used is consistent - has kept trying to play down industry connections, and other users have found sources showing they're more significant than he lets on. I finally split out that material into the article American Council on Science and Health so that DDT could remain more stable from now on and the anonymous user came in and made his changes again over there, but this time he announced that he was Jeff Stier (the Associate Director of ACSH, in charge of external affairs among other things). Assuming this is true, how do we handle contributions from "involved" people like this? On the one hand he's got access to a great deal of information, but on the other hand it just gives weight to my perception that he's been rather partisan. Bryan 16:45, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC) (small update: I emailed Jeff Stier to confirm that it is him, and he responded that it was.)

He should be encouraged to provide any and all information that he is willing to(maybe on the Talk page), but should be gently reminded that it is Wikipedia policy for involved people not to directly edit articles on subjects they are involved in. Basically, he should post on the Talk page, not the article. JesseW 01:05, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I dosn't really matter who an editor is. What matters is whether the facts are verifiable, that is published in some reliable source. Paul August 21:10, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)


Keeping In The News neutral and relevant

I've proposed a new criterion for the Template:In the news guidelines with the aim of keeping ITN focused on widely reported stories covered by multiple major news outlets, and ensuring that NPOV is maintained. Please take a look at the proposal and add feedback at Wikipedia talk:In the news section on the Main Page. -- ChrisO 18:59, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Moveable Feasts on the Main Page

I have just found out that today is Eid ul-Fitr and have added it to today's current events. Like Easter and many other days - some non-religious - it's a moveable feast. What is the policy about puting these moveable feasts on the main page?

I know they don't really fit into the In the news or Today's Featured article boxes, but I am of the opinion that the main page should relect that we are aware that certain days are observed. I'm suggesting a box that would say (for example) Today is Diwali/Easter/Martin Luther King Day/Eid ul-Fitr/Mardi Gras etc. -- Martin TB 20:26, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

also astronomical events, solstice, equinox, eclipses, etc.; mabe even a permanent little box giveng the moon phase (although that may be a bit too much clutter) dab 20:40, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

On a sidenote, I have no idea that the word "movable" contained two Es. ;-) Agree that they should be mentioned somewhere on the day. Chris 07:32, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See American and British English differences#Common_suffixes. In fact, even most American dictionaries consider "moveable" an acceptable variant of "movable" [1]. And, of course, movable feast is a redirect. Deco 07:51, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think the current solution of having these days under "Selected Anniversaries" is ideal, even though it's technically not an anniversary in some sense (well, it's an anniversary according to a different calendar...) Mpolo 08:50, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

I removed the item from the Current Events page because I didn't feel that it was a 'Current Event'. To me the page is where news items are posted. If something had happened because of Eid ul-Fitr then yes it would go there along with the reference to the news site it was found on. Also the person who posted it had put it on the wrong day anyway.--enceladus 00:07, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)
Actually I hadn't posted it on th wrong day. It was celebrated in the UK on Saturday, in the US and the Middle east on Sunday and in Morocco and some other territories today. It's a moveable feast! Martin TB 07:45, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I assume what is happening is that each group of Muslims require an actual sighting of the cresent moon by their group. --enceladus 21:41, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Two articles on the same man - what's the policy?

Is there a policy on when it's ok to have two articles on the same man (but under different names)? Some people seem to say are ok to be merged, others stay for ages. jguk 20:47, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Almost always should be merged (assuming that one person is actually the subject of both articles: for example, we could have both a biographical article about an author and any number of articles about his or her books). -- Jmabel | Talk 20:56, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

I've just seen Jesus and Isa. Should these be merged then? jguk 21:09, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Probably not. Isa specifically discusses the concept of Jesus when used by that name and differences from other Jesuses. There isn't significant duplication of content. As long as the articles don't cover or aim to cover about the same material, merging isn't usually warranted. Deco 21:20, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Don't forget Yeshu... but no, probably these articles should not be merged. Gady 22:49, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Those do all interlink, and Isa is even explicitly in the "Jesus" template, while Yeshu is linked several times. They're not merged because Jesus is far too long as it is! Mpolo 08:47, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

Well that's a different point Mpolo. The Jesus article needs shortening, but that doesn't mean the others shouldn't be merged with it. I'm still puzzled as to why we want 3 biographies of the same man. Wouldn't one merged one be better? jguk 15:20, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To be honest I don't think it would, it is better to treat the three articles as different entities. If the three are merged religously important details could be accidentlily cut, and precedent will almost certainly be given to a particular image of Jesus/Yeshu/Isa. I think merging them just isn't worth the inevitable arguaments. Rje 06:47, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Arbitration policy amendment vote

I proposed a streamlining of the Arbitration Committee's policy in August, and, given that it is now 3 months on, I have just opened a ratification vote about it. James F. (talk) 03:28, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Proposal to enforce the Three Revert Rule

There is a vote and discussion on whether and how to enforce the Wikipedia:Three revert rule on Wikipedia:Three revert rule enforcement and Wikipedia talk:Three revert rule enforcement. Please come and contribute your comments/votes. jguk 14:16, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Stub sorting

I think the evaluation of stub sorting needs some kind of restriction or review... There are some creation of categories and stub templates which are completely useless... --[[User:AllyUnion|AllyUnion (talk)]] 09:29, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Right Floating TOC

I have been advised to post here to draw peoples attention to a discussion about WP:MOS and the TOC. I am suggesting that it is more aesthetically appealing to have the TOC floating on the right. My suggestion can be found at Wikipedia talk:TOC#Right floating TOC Please comment -- Martin TB 19:39, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

the cost of vandalism

I blocked an annoying vandal, last night, for the duration of 24h. (User:24.71.223.141). I shouldn't have done so, as it's a proxy, and a few minutes later, a legitimate user complained about the block. Technically, wouldn't it be easy to allow unblocked, logged-in users (with an account creation predating the block) to edit even when on a blocked IP? This would solve the annoying problem of 'unblockable' proxy IPs (we would just have to kindly ask editors on vandal-prone IPs to get an account).

A more general thought I had recently was that, the larger WP will grow, the greater the percentage of time spent reverting worthless edits will become. The singularly low threshold to contributing is a major feature of WP, and clearly a big advantage on an encyclopedia that consists mainly of stubs. The more accomplished an article, however, the less likely an anonymous edit is to be useful. I would therefore propose:

  • the introduction of a 'protected from anon edits' status as a measure less drastic than 'protection' for frequently vandalised articles
  • automatic 'protection from anon edits' for featured articles
  • at some point in the future maybe even a 'good faith' tag for users known to have made good faith edits, and protection of featured articles from edits by all but these

such a course would provide the more vulnerable articles some protection from the main brunt of casual vandals (while of course the determined ones will not be deterred), while it would not raise the threshold for quick creation of new articles, and edits to stubs. dab 12:58, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"...would not raise the threshold much", I'd say. It does raise the threshold somewhat. It's not completely hassle-free, or something. (If it were, there obviously wouldn't be any point.)
  • the introduction of a 'protected from anon edits' status as a measure less drastic than 'protection' for frequently vandalised articles
    Sounds good in theory, but I'm pretty sure there will be a heap of vandals who have no qualms about registering bogus accounts when it comes to frequently vandalised articles, just to have the opportunity for ranting on controversial ones. It might indeed keep "undetermined" vandals out, but those are easy to revert.
  • automatic 'protection from anon edits' for featured articles
    That sounds topsy-turvy. "We consider this article to be the best example of what collaboration in zero-threshold editing can achieve. Now, buzz off or get an account. This article is ours".
  • at some point in the future maybe even a 'good faith' tag for users known to have made good faith edits, and protection of featured articles from edits by all but these
    Whereas I consider your other ideas just a bit extreme, but possibly justified for the future, this one would make me get up and leave. If that's an open encyclopedia, then kindly fork the whole Wiki to where the edits still roam free, and I'll gladly serve the RC patrol there. Are you then going to trade in vandal patrolling for good faith stamping? Any reason to assume branding someone a non-vandal is easier than identifying a vandal? Any reason to assume this won't just be an enormous incentive for trolls to try their hand at "coming in under the radar"?
    That's not to say your idea is bad! Maybe an encyclopedia (maybe a future Wikipedia) under that regime might do even better than vanilla Wikipedia. Maybe. Just not my cup of tea.
Summarized: the price of Wikipedia is eternal vigilance. A community that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither. Give me anonymous edits, or give me death! Ask not what Wikipedia can do for you... OK, I'll stop now. I'm starting to sound ranty. :-) Just my $0.02, no bad feelings or mere semblance of knowledgeable authority intended. JRM 15:54, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)
I thought the reply might sound something like this. And you are right, I think. Of course, at some point one could fork "WP 1.0" into a more sheltered environment, but this will not be feasible for quite a few years. Eternal vigilance it is, then :) but, any comments on the "logged-in users may edit from blocked IPs" proposal? dab 16:15, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • The "logged-in users may edit from blocked IPs" proposal sounds right to me. I guess the question is one of "practicality," is it not? How easy would be the system implementation? Is it not true that the only reason the "logged-in users" get blocked is because the TCP/IP module is "ignorant" of logged-in users? So it is a "cost of development" question, yes? ---Rednblu | Talk 16:34, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This has come up on the Pump on multiple occasions in the past. We all believe that the current privilege levels are too rough-grained, and as Wikipedia evolves they might need to change, but I think they do alright in most cases, for now. Don't forget that complexity is also itself a barrier to participation. Deco 00:24, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)


This has probably been proposed before, but since I've been spending some time on Recent Changes lately, it's become overwhelmingly apparent to me that the vast majority of vandalism is done by unregistered users. I suggest that we allow a maximum of 5 article edits (but unlimited talk page edits would be ok) for unregistered accounts, after which users must register for a user name before they can edit further. It's far easier to track changes and vandalism by accounts with unique user names than for accounts that are strings of numbers. Exploding Boy 21:52, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Don't forget about the push-pull effect though. Anons can create and throw away accounts even more quickly than IPs — they don't do so because they can edit without doing so. Vandals will do just as much as they need to in order to vandalize, no matter what technical hurdles we place for them, and Nupedia demonstrated that pushing too far in the direction of content control is bad. Not that I necessarily disagree. Deco 00:48, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Edit flag for large changes?

Would it be possible to have an edit flag for large changes (i.e. more than 10% of article size changed, or more than 10% of text altered) for Recent Changes and the Watchlist? Perhaps just a ! which would let us easily know that vandalism has most likely taken place? And perhaps a filter mode for Recent Changes to only show articles that have been massively changed? --Golbez 17:23, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

See: Proposal to extend Recent Changes flags Paul August 04:46, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Sandbox threat

Do we really need a threat as ... threatening as

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES EDIT THIS LINE or ABOVE. YOU COULD BE BLOCKED

in the sandbox, where people are encouraged to experiment, and likely make their first edit on WP? Wouldn't it be just as easy to have a script that replaces the {{sandbox}} template every 10 minutes or so, if it is removed? Just a consideration of not barking at the wrong people. dab 17:35, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Totally agreed. This isn't just biting the newbies, it's chomping their heads off. No one will miss the template too much if it's missing for a few hours. I for one wouldn't ban an anon even for repeated removal of the template.Deco 00:19, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Is it possible to create some sort of daemon that will just check the sandbox periodically and restore the notice? If I were programming wiki*, I might allow for registering certain pages as permanently having certain headers (or perhaps allow for a certain number of inviolate lines.) --jpgordon{gab} 01:36, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Another way to do it that would prevent them from editing the header altogether is to protect the main sandbox page and place nothing but two templates on it, {{sandboxheader}} and {{sandbox}}. The first would contain the header message and a link (an external link I guess) to the edit URL for the sandbox template. The idea is similar to the process of the Main Page. Again, though, I think the sandbox header message probably isn't important enough to justify this. Deco 21:58, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
reactions to the notice [2]. :-D — Of course, anyone can replace the notice, so it is almost impossible to tell if the notice is 'official' or has been placed there by a random visitor. At the moment, there is an official-looking notice that the sandbox is colsed, but it was placed there by an anon editor. I am replacing the note with a simple 'please do not edit', since the threat, if it has any effect at all, only dares people to mess with the notice. I like the {{sandboxheader}} proposal, though. this could be the solution. dab 09:07, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have filed a Bugzilla report asking for a sandbox-cleaning enhancement. -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 04:34, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

breaking news articles with unsafe information

(Motivation: Since Yasser Arafat's death, many things have been said or written in the media, blogs, etc. about the causes of his death. On Death of Yasser Arafat, there was some kind of policy (somewhat controversial) that probable speculations were not to be detailed in length: that is, the article would not give in detail what some presumably rather uninformed media would comment about the possible causes of his death. On the other hand, we have to draw a line somewhere; since we will very probably never get some authoritative source for his medical case, and the question attracts considerable attention, then I suggested we may add some bits from some investigative magazine who very probably had insider sources.)

I think we have a policy problem here. When we have authoritative, safe sources, we can probably just report them and ignore the non-authoritative ones. But what should we do in cases where the real information is hidden? Can we report somewhat detailed news from reputable newspapers who claim they got it from "insider sources"? David.Monniaux 08:40, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think it would be a mistake to try to push WP toward providing "Breaking News". I would say reporting what other news orgs decide to publish is borderline okay, but we should not do this just for the sake of being "up-to-date" or "satisfy the curious." Quality over quantity is the rule WP should follow. Just my two cents... Awolf002 14:34, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
we have very many articles where the truth is unknown. In these, we simply list the competing opinions of experts. Who is an expert in a given matter is of course a question of individual judgement, but a line between serious opinions and crackpot conspiracies needs to be drawn in all these cases. Let others do the research, and report what the major news sources came up with. If there is ever a PhD-thesis on the subject, draw on that ;) dab 15:03, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
In cases where the source is in doubt, follow this handy 3-step process:
  1. Talk about what the source says, but attributed to that source, and not as fact.
  2. Cite the source specifically.
  3. Briefly say that the source is in doubt and mention why.
In short, if you don't think you can definitively choose what is true, give the reader the information they need to make the decision for themselves. Deco 18:46, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Still, if the reporting about the unverified source is widespread, we should discuss that reporting, even if the information itself can't be verified. RickK 07:07, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

Standard GFDL licensing form for Non-Wikipedians

I proposed this idea over at Wikipedia:Boilerplate request for permission, which provides form letters to send to non-Wikipedians who have images, text, or data collections that might be useful for Wikipedia, and might potentially be willing to license them under the GFDL. Although I get many polite "no thank you" responses to this request, I've been somewhat at a loss when people say "sure, how do I do that?"

Most of these people do not edit Wikipedia themselves, nor are likely to jump through the hoops to upload and tag their own contributions.

Would it make sense to provide a simple licensing form/template at the bottom of requests for permission, for people to use to respond -- something that could then be pasted into the Talk page or Image Description page as evidence that the creator wishes to license their work? Something along the lines of this (please edit mercilessly): 

IMAGES
As the creator and copyright holder of the image currently named <TITLE.EXT>
(found at <URL> as of this date), I hereby licence said image under the GFDL,
as a contribution to Wikimedia and its downstream users."
<NAME>, <DATE>
 
TEXT
As the creator and copyright holder of the text found at <URL> as of this date,
I hereby licence said text under the GFDL, as a contribution to Wikimedia and
its downstream users."
<NAME>, <DATE>
 
As the creator and copyright holder of the text found at <URL> as of this date,
I hereby licence that portion of the text included in this email (below) under the
 GFDL, as a contribution to Wikimedia and its downstream users."
<NAME>, <DATE>, <TEXT>

Most of my requests have been aimed at webmasters, not dead-tree authors, so these samples are geared toward that end -- other variants welcome. I don't know much about the Creative Commons licensing process either, so if there's a simple way to describe those options to potential contributors as well, I'm all ears.

Please comment -- this ought to be legal and bulletproof, and I'm no copyright expert. [[User:CatherineMunro|Catherine\talk]] 08:26, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I am no copyright expert, but let me try.. I do similar things for Japanese Wikipedia. My comments are mainly based on that, not necessarily based on ongoing understanding/practice of these issues on english wikipedia.
  • I think it is better to offer links to Wikipedia:Copyright, warranty disclaimer, terms of use, etc. along with the license clearly, so that there is a better chance of the author clearly understands what GFDL is, and how Wikipedia interprets it.
  • In case of images, it is safer to show examples of how an image is shown/used in wikipedia. From the text of the GFDL, a photographer may expect "so my name will clearly be shown in any work which contain my photo," which is not really the case. English Wikipedia follows the spirit of the GFDL, but not necessarily the letters. And showing typical exampes would prevent some unfortunate misunderstandings and potential troubles. Examples I think of are: how commons images are used in articles, how images in english wikipedia is used in articles, how the image information page looks like. An example of how you would record/report the authors name when you upload a picture is also good.
  • If you are not confident, ask if all rights are cleared, or if the author knows any rightholder involved in the image or text.
Tomos 14:14, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly, and most of your points are already addressed in the Boilerplate request for permission letters themselves. What I am asking is "Legally, how should a contributor who understands and accepts the GFDL respond positively to a request?" I am referring specifically to people who are NOT interested in making an account and uploading their own material, but agree to let a Wikipedian do so. I am asking how they can affirm the licensing of their work, in a format that can be copied and pasted into a talk page or image description page, for later editors/copyright checkers to reference. I'd really appreciate some help on this..... [[User:CatherineMunro|Catherine\talk]] 02:44, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's right... I was a bit too late to get the question.. My suggestion a bit different. How about this?

  • I hereby grand <Wikipedian A> to post the following text to a page <Page name>, provided that the Wikipedian A writes in the edit summary box "original author:<The author's name>, with permission," when uploading the text. The content is placed under GFDL by the posting, and handled according to GFDL and Wikipedia's relevant policies. <Date>, <The author's name>.
  • <text>

This idea is not getting a work or a portion of a work on GFDL. If you do that, what you must do is defined by the license, eh, cumbersome. So instead of first getting the work under GFDL and then bring it to Wikipedia in a GFDL-compliant way, I think it would be easier just to get a permission for you to post the author's work and thereby place it under GFDL and subject to other Wikipedia policies as just like other contents. You offer to announce the original author in the comment summary, which is one of the most important requirement of GFDL, though it is not that much compliant with it in other technicalities. If the author prefers the URL be explained together, you can offer to place it on a note page, for example, or describe the source and its URL in the "external links" part of the article, if that is appropriate. How does that sound? Tomos 05:12, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

GFDL Thoughts

The more I read about the GFDL license the more I think that Wikipedia should be duel licensed with a creative commons license.

After deciding which Creative Commons license to use (probably CC by atribution ) all the new materials added would be CC/GFDL but the old materials would still be GFDL unless people authorized their work to also be CC.

Overtime most of the GFDL only stuff would be replaced by CC/GFDL material. Mozilla Firefox is doing a similiar procedure converting their code from MPL to MPL/GPL/LGPL code 'trilicense'.

Update: I got some interesting information on a couple of project pages that have this same idea. Guide_to_the_CC_dual-license and Wikipedia:Multi-licensing are projects in which users can duel license their own content themselves.

Please sign your posts. We have no idea who you are. The problem is, that there have been thousands of editors who have released their material to the GFDL, who may object to re-releasing them to any other license. It is also impossible to recontact all of those editors to even see IF they agree to that release. That means the dual licensing would have to refer only to items released AFTER a particular point in time, and meaning dual versions of articles and of Wikipedia itself. RickK 07:04, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, this is a problem, but over time a large proportion of the GFDL only material could be relicensed or replaced, having, say, half of the 'pedia under a sensible license is better than none! Mark Richards 15:55, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You're not the first person to bring this up. The next problem is that the cvs system that MediaWiki uses isn't accurate enough to tell who contributed what parts of an article when. The historical diff is only a best guess and isn't accurate enough for this use. However, I'm not a coder - maybe we could get a more accurate cvs system? I've been down this same road before - but who knows, perhaps the horse will learn to sing this time.

Also, I believe that attribution-sharealike might be closer to the licensing scheme most Wikipedians would want. The straight attirbution variant does not require that derivative works be released back to the community. An even better system would have one or more required license(s) that submitted work would have to be released under, and then allow the user to specify what additional licenses they wish to release their work under. This would include public domain and granting non-exclusive copyright to the WikiMedia foundation. Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom says that the easiest way to do this would be to fork the Wikipedia community and start over with an empty database.

But perhaps the conventional wisdom might be proven wrong even at this late date. Coders? Could we upgrade to a better cvs system? crazyeddie 07:05, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Here's a previous discussion on the subject: Wikipedia_talk:Creative_commons_migration crazyeddie 22:52, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

For people who are reading this exchange and are bumping up against the copyleft incompatibility problem for the first time, you might want to show your support by dual or multi- licensing your work. To dual-license your work under the CC-by-sa, put this at the top of your userpage: {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA}} crazyeddie 07:49, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Article about the problems of the GFDL released by Nathanael Nerode into the public domain

This article is a link in the GFDL article, and a lot of its ideas were incorporated into the GFDL article. Here is the article:

Why You Shouldn't Use the GNU FDL

[copy of the above article removed - please see the external link if you want to read it]

Why did you vote against Preliminary Deletion?

Preliminary Deletion has been rewritten, and now includes a section at the end answering some common questions/objections. I urge those who voted against this policy or had their doubts to please read the section in question and voice their concerns on the proposal's talk page. Thanks in advance. Johnleemk | Talk 11:36, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Plagiarism by any other name

A question and a comment:

Question: do we have a concise Wikipedia essay on what plagiarism is and isn't and is there a way to provide an internal link to it? If I deleted a plagiarized passage or entry and wanted to place a helpful note at a User's Talkpage like "please see Wikipedia policy here" or "for a definition of plagiarism, please click here" or some such. Can someone please advise?

Comment: plagiarism is rife in articles about entertainers; for some reason people think it's fine to copy from e.g. the IMDB. I think this is aided by well-meaning responses on the HelpDesk that say things like, "if you retype in your own words, it's fine". Well, no, I don't think it is; we were taught that paraphrasing is still plagiarism.

Quill 23:42, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Paraphrasing sometimes violates copyright, but if a court could reasonably rule that the facts and ideas were duplicated but the selection and arrangement of those facts was not, then it's not plagiarism. The rule should not be to paraphrase but to summarize: talk about what they said in less words and give the source. The line between a copyright workaround and a new work is admittedly fuzzy sometimes, but I think as long as a source is given the two can be compared and our version updated if necessary. As for a project page on plagiarism, that's a great idea; I'm not aware of any such page, but there is plagiarism and Wikipedia: Cite your sources. Deco 00:02, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Ah, yes, but I mean to speak to an ethical rather than a legal issue. Copyvio (legal) and plagiarism (ethical) are not always the same thing. Often go hand in hand, but not always the same.
I would volunteer to help with a plagiarism page.
Quill 00:19, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Ethics are quite a matter of debate, though; I would argue any properly credited statements are ethical, as well as any widely-known ones. Keep in mind that the role of an encyclopedia is quite different from that of a typical paper — there is no implication that any of our text is our own original idea. Also, to establish ethical standards for Wikipedia articles in general would be setting a very flammable sort of policy that I'd be surprised to see adopted, never mind maintained. All that said, I do frown on copying large bodies of text from public domain (or not-so-public domain) sources without any credit, especially since the result is often an obvious contast with other articles. I've only seen this done once, though. Deco 00:41, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
We snag stuff from the 1911 Britannica all the time. And while there is no legal requirement to credit it, there is certainly an ethical requirement, IMO. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:50, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)
At some point, hopefully when enough of the article has been rewritten, perhaps every single paragraph, and maybe the layout changed, we can remove such notices from the article itself (which can remain in the history, or perhaps the talk page. Actually, maybe they should always be just on the talk page). --Improv 04:38, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I agree, and we do with the {{1911}} template. I should do a hunt sometime for EB pages without it (they're surprisingly easy to find with a few searches for archaic language). Re Improv, I think we should definitely keep the 1911 EB listed eternally as a reference, even if the tag is removed. Deco 06:36, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Absolutely. No matter how far we have evolved the article, it remains a reference we used. Also, when people are using the {{1911}} tag, it should always be in the "References" section of the article, not just hanging there in the body of the text. -- Jmabel | Talk

Thanks for the responses, folks. Okay, that sorts things through WRT the 1911 EB, but how about the other stuff? Deco, I see it all the time because I spend a lot of time on actors and singers and the like. Pages lifted from IMDB, liner notes, websites--sometimes this is listed as a 'reference', sometimes not.

I'll have to do some more thinking about it; can't quite reconcile this "Keep in mind that the role of an encyclopedia is quite different from that of a typical paper — there is no implication that any of our text is our own original idea." with this "By submitting your work you promise you wrote it yourself, or copied it from public domain resources — this does not include most web pages."

I like your idea about a guideline page. Can something be done about this?

Quill 20:09, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

All this reminds me of the cliché - to copy two peoples work is plagiarism, to copy 4 peoples work is research!

Maxx 15:21, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Internet trolls

Hi all,
I am an administrator from he_Wiki. In a recent months we have been attacked by 2 internet trolls. The last one started to vandilise he_wiki during this week. I want to ask if you have any policy regarding internet trolls in en_wiki. If you do have, what are your suggestions dealing with this phenomena. Gilgamesh he 09:29, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's not something which we deal with well. If the person is actually vandalising, that's easier to deal with and they will usually be blocked eventually. However, you need to be clear whether they are a vandal or a troll (see What is a troll). Various people have tried to set up policies about trolling, but they have never reached consensus. See Wikipedia:Dealing with trolls and Wikipedia:Dealing with disruptive or antisocial editors. We have a formal dispute resolution process that can be used for trolls or other problem users, which basically starts with asking the community to comment on the problem, and ends with the Arbitration Committee making a decision, but I don't know if he: is yet large enough to go for something so complicated. If you know any other languages, asking at one of the smaller Wikipedias might get you more useful advice. Angela. 10:01, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I agree with Angela - it depends on what behavior you are talking about - a lot of people use the word troll to mean vandalism, if that is the case, then its easy to deal with. Personal attacks are likewise easy. If you mean someone editing from a point of view that you don't agree with, then that is more difficult - you will have to find some way to choose which point of view you will accept. Mark Richards 15:58, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
we have about 12,000 articles, so I thinw we are big enough. the person I am talking about is a troll becouse he restored the deleted articles about 200 times. Gilgamesh he 10:00, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, in that case he is in clear violation of community rules - you might need some kind of sanction process for people who continue to do this. Mark Richards 17:42, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

this is my question - what do you suggest we do' in order to prevent such events in the future. Gilgamesh he 08:34, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Is the person an administrator? "Restoring a deleted page" is something an administrator can do. If so,

  • Remove his administrator status. For this, you need a help from m:Steward.
  • Block him if neecssary.

If he is not an administrator, but a user who post the same content again and again, after deletions, then simply blocking him may be the answer. Blocking a user is something an administrator can do. (That means you can do it).

Sometimes, the user does not stop even after being blocked. That is because the user may use multiple IP addresses, for example. You can block a range of IP addresses as a solution. If the problem user is using open proxies, you may need some special tool to block proxies. Also, your community may decide to report the vandalism to the ISP of that user.

Also, if the user is posting only to one specific page, and the page is not that important, then an administrator can protect the page.

For the future, here are what you can do.

  • Select very trustable people and make them administrators. (I figured there are many administrators at your wikipedia, though. If many of them are active, that is not a problem, perhaps).
  • Decide the rules regarding when a user can be blocked, for how long.

Please feel free to ask for details. Hope this helps.

Tomos 19:14, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Personal details

I've put up Wikipedia:Divulging personal details for discussion on when it is appropriate to include personal details in articles. In my particular case, I've identified a person who has been working under a pseudonym even though the legal name was not widely known (though verifiable). I've posted this at WP:RFC, but as this is urgent (possibly the harm has already been done, if mirrors have scraped us since) I also want to bring it up on the pump. — David Remahl 13:13, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Pages that are deprecated in favor of MediaWiki pages at Meta

There are some pages in the Wikipedia namespace that have notices saying that they are depreciated in favor of copies available at meta. Is there a reason why we don't just change them into redirects? If I don't see any objection either here or on their Talk pages, I'm going to change them into redirects, and remove them from the Topical Index. I'm doing this as part of the WikiProject Wikipedia Namespace.

Here are the pages:

JesseW 10:46, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

And Wikipedia:Donations and Wikipedia:Donation addresses, as they are both superceeded by pages at Wikimediafoundation. Donation addresses would need to be redirected by a sysop, as it's protected. JesseW 11:50, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Am I correct in my interpretation that material in Wikipedia cannot be copied into derivative work that is distributed as copyright? I keep finding articles copied straight out of Wikipedia which are on websites purporting to claim copyright over, for example, things that, for example, I have written. It isn't that I really care, but I was wondering about what the policy is about lifting material verbatim off this site and passing it off as material owned by the derivative website. It violates the GNU License (and the Wikipedia:Copyrights agreement) since it neither acknowledges Wikipedia nor does it allow that the material in the site in public domain. Guettarda 15:17, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The GFDL is not the same as the Public Domain. GFDL relies on copyrights. GFDLed work can be published by commercial and non-commercial interests alike, as long as the license is respected. However, it is necessary to credit the authors and republish the GFDL and follow any other provisions in the license. There are some sites that do not follow the GFDL. Sites that fail to comply with most of GFDL's requirements are listed at Wikipedia:Copies of Wikipedia content (low degree of compliance). — David Remahl 15:37, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
What about copying from Wikipedia to another GFDL work like Wikibooks? (Or copying from another GFDL work to Wikipedia?)
e.g. From b:Wikibooks:Staff_lounge#Copying_content_from_Wikipedia:
b:User:Panic2k4 seems to have copied some material from the Wikipedia to b:Programming:C plus plus (probably not entire articles). For doing this should one use Transwiki to keep track of the GNU FDL requirements even for small parts of articles, even if it is a copy and not a move?
BTW b:Programming:C plus plus has since been *shudder* "forked" to b:Programming: C -/- -/- so look for the copied material there.
PS: What a coincidence! I was wondering where to ask this thing [as wikibooks staff lounge (equivalent of the 'pump) doesn't get enough traffic & no one responded to my comment there], and here's a related thread already in the pump, which is also the most recent, so adding a comment here won't go that much unnoticed! -- Paddu 20:28, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The dicussion at the VfD Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/List of "Shit happens" jokes, see also Copyright status raised an issue common to numerous lists of jokes in wikipedia. Most of jokes in these lists were published in usenet/internet/... wherever. Therefore many of them by default are under the copyright. The "fair use" clause IMO is hardly applicable here, since the se lists are not "quotaitons", but complete texts. It is known that many catch phrases from T-shirts are patented. IMO this issue deserves attention.

(Another issue is whether these lists belong to article space or Wikibooks or Wikisource.) Mikkalai 22:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There are also some jokes in WP:BJAODN which may be copyrighted. -- Paddu 10:38, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Most important: normal policies should apply;

If you copy something from somewhere you should either:

  • know the source and have permission

or

  • have evidence that it's in the public domain

or

  • have a fair use claim to the material and be contributing to Wikipedia from a location where fair use applies.

In each case you point out which one you are claiming and either cite your sources / show your evidence / state your claim.

As a general principle, in order to claim fair use, you should probably write something noticable about the history / meaning and or cultural associations of the joke rather than just listing the joke.

The key point is that we can mostly assume that jokes are either original (so shouldn't be in Wikipedia) or copied (so shouldn't be in Wikipedia without one of the above). This contrasts with encyclopedic contributions which are normally original works of the contributor.

BJAODN should be seen as an area of ongoing work / stupidity and not an area for inclusion in mirrors or paper copies of Wikipedia. As such, whilst the wikipedia project will make good faith efforts to avoid copyright infringement, it is more difficult to be sure of the proper source of all materials in this area.

In all cases, materials on Wikipedia which infringe copyright will be deleted on request from the copyright holder according to the normal policies.

Mozzerati 21:02, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC) (aka Mr Killjoy)

Clones,Erroneous Statements & Disputes

So is it that Wikipedia has no control over clones whatever. Once they suck out the info that's it... or couldnt you embed some sort of encyption which would automatically refer back to the upgraded Wikipedia editing ? I'm new to this but have immediately found myself the start of a dispute(well, I found objectionable historical revisionism peddled under supposedly pukka guise ).... Within Wikipedia ,so far as you can protect an article under dispute and close it, I am happy - at least until that particular battle might go the wrong way . But the damage has already been done out there in all the clones , and what I see in the way of contributions seems to be the tip of a very nasty Iceberg straight out of the scariest conspiracy theory bucket. OK so repairs can be effected -presumably when the clones update their links they suck in the editing changes ,don't they ? And maybe you can use the banning to weed out dangerous liars but there does seem to be a factual issue as well as a search issue . I don't want to believe that wikipedia itself is a front for revisionist conspiracy but do I have to cross-check every last edit history and cross reference through all other edits by that user and then submit you a regiment of names all linked to their proveable lies  ? Please note this is not an idle ,in-the-future hypothetical issue but one of real dispute to do with presentations within and outside Wikipedia even in the coming days ( I refer to academic lecture in one of the top 5 Universities of the world )and I wouldn't waste time here if I didn't know I can prove the error in a statement ( involving Appeasement and the British Government just prior to WW2 ). It might require a bit of neck-sticking into verbatim use of copyrights . Question : how can you prove anything if you can't quote from Books ; and would Dispute warrant a fair-use if I gotta answer to a judge as well after you guys ?Flamekeeper 00:44, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)PS Seems to me the Disputes list page is a bit too hard to discover.

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to ask or say here. You found some erroneous statements and now you're worried that there's a revisionist conspiracy going on? -- Cyrius|✎ 03:06, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I am quite sure that you are correct about the conspiracy, having taken control of this website, the World Government will have no trouble in subduing the rest of the planet. As to your question of proof without reference to Books, and your concern about fair use were your actions to place in front of a judge? IANAL, but most of the interesting questions about copyright law depend on the juristiction where you are and have not, in most places, been settled with any degree of certainty. What I can tell you is the judge will most likely be in the pay of the revisionist conspiricy. Yours, Mark Richards 12:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It is indeed appalling that the clones abuse this "free" encyclopedia by copying the information. Encryption could certainly be used to restrict Wikipedia clones — while I can't see a way for it to to be used to enforce automatic referral back to Wikipedia for updates (as you've suggested), encrypting the articles with a military-grade cipher like AES would, at the very least, deny the clones the ability to provide coherent content to downstream users. — Matt 15:32, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Excellent idea. We should encrypt everything! Nobody would be able to read about Admiral Akbar, or Slashdot, and our secrets would be safe! Mark Richards 16:55, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Great, so I'll have friends to send food-parcels and to feed my dog Pavlov. Auto-update is what I refer to ,so change nasty E word to the software question at hand. Any takers? As to Revisionism -I'm just reporting what I see, but Pavlov is very sociable . If R can run riot in one branch doesn't it worry the roots or leaves ?Flamekeeper 18:52, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

While I don't really understand what you're saying, I'd be interested to know how you suppose that we dictate what other people do with their websites? Moreover, why would we be interested in controlling them? — Matt 19:03, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fixedreference.org take snapshots of the wiki and this supplies some cloning. They took one (English ) in July and before in April . How big is a Snapshot ?Flamekeeper 19:37, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry Matt,um first I'm saying there are revisers, who've always been at it ,just that now it is that much easier. I don't mean heavy obvious-neo-anything but more like drifting re-education . The kind of thing which can save and preserve eg. certain Churches from their scandals, affect voting long term by eradicating the past(Japan?). Goldwarriors mention their politics without mincing .Or stop us uncovering anything dirty and conspiratorial . The point I make is that wiki becomes the sort of global info "gold-standard" , fair enough,positive etc . But if you find diametric variation from fact repeated under this reputation and left up for long periods it turns the positive (editable) into a form of mental pollution . How to safeguard the positive? That's what I'm asking . Say, it'd be OK if the snapshot also took built in edit "command" continuance....Because the trouble is down-web they lock it up . Can the wiki control who takes a snapshot to the extent of requiring acceptance of a continuous feed say delayed a week , because the disputes take awhile to boil to flaggingFlamekeeper 20:00, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thinking I had already been banned for Pavlov's copyright by the all seeing eyes and that technical was another factor ,I ran up a proposal about clones and snapshots.Maybe, Mark Richards , you're more right than you think. I've been expecting a green dictatorship awhile now and well , I've never seen so many rules never. Is this a place you can be human this page ? OK I see there have to be standards but to think pavlov would be a copyright issue , like- roll on the after-life as reality wouldn't be worth it .Flamekeeper 00:27, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

External Linking to Forums

I had just added an external link to a forum, however I was then told not to. I'd just like to know what the policy is for that. Can I link to a forum with a general topic or should I link to the specific section? (for example, should I link to a programming forum of the C++ part of it?) And also, just how general in the links should I be? Should I put them in related topics (for example, computers, if I'm linking to a programming forum) or should I only put it in a very specific related section?
Thank you. Cap'n Refsmmat 23:35, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

I've been discussing this with Cap'n Refsmmat at User talk:Cap'n Refsmmat#ComputerGeek_links, and suggested we bring the discussion here to get wider input. -gadfium 23:59, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Just note I wasn't trying to spam or anything, it's just I guess I was putting it in the wrong places... Cap'n Refsmmat 00:09, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

The policy is not hard and fast; there is a general tendency not to link to forums (they are easily enough to find with a search engine and they are not particularly encyclopedic) but certainly there is an argument for linking to a prominent forum that corresponds more or less exactly to the topic of the particular article. I would not link the same forum from lots of articles: that becomes the equivalent of spam, however well-intentioned. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:34, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

So could I link to the specific section of the forum from an article? There are several sections such as C++, java, etc. so could I link to that section from the specific article? If also, if I know of a better forum for that, should I link to that as well? I'd like to add them, because forums can actually answer your questions rather than just have a fixed content. Cap'n Refsmmat 20:50, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)
It's borderline. I'd probably be for it, but I suggest that you try to get a consensus on the article's talk page. My suggestion would be: add the forums you think are useful, add a note that you have done so in each case on the relevant talk page, welcome comment, add the articles to your watchlist so you'll see if anyone responds. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:39, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)
I can do that... *scurries off* Cap'n Refsmmat 22:12, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)
Well, it seems someone else had arguments against it. I referred him to here so he could see the discussion on it. I wish someone could come up with a policy on it! Cap'n Refsmmat 00:46, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)
In this case there is no need for an explicit policy. I've objected to your external link on grounds of quality, as stated in the C++ talk page: I considered your edit to be of low quality. The forum you linked to has two C++ discussion threads, none of wich provide any insightful C++ knowledge.
Apart from that: As external pages are not part of Wikipedia, none of Wikipedia's Q/A mechanisms work there, e.g. there is no easy way for page watchers to notice when an externally linked page changes. Also, the threat of Wikipedia turning into a publicity machine and search engine page rank booster is great. All in all, it's important that external links be carefully selected.
If there were to be a specific policy for linking to external forums, I suggest that it at least include:
* The forum must be relevant to the topic.
* The signal-to-noise ratio in the forum should be high. (Your C++ forum is an example of the opposite: Of the seven messages, around 50% are chat-like or about forum policy).
* The forum should be active, i.e. there should be a reasonable chance of getting a useful response.
* The forum users should include people with lots of knowledge on the topic.
* The forum should have existed for at least a year or so, proving itself valuable.
Candidates for inclusion would be relevant Usenet newsgroups. (In the C++ case, there is actually an unusually high quality newsgroup called comp.lang.c++.moderated which conforms to all the above proposed criteria.)
TroelsArvin 08:57, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You missed the entire point of a forum. They're not for databases of information, they're for asking questions. I already have one resident C++ expert and I'm getting more along the way. In time I'm sure I'll have plenty more members of all types. But if you don't like it, then fine. Cap'n Refsmmat 16:25, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)
I was just about to consider this subject closed when you revealed yourself as 68.40.121.146. And guess what: Links to forums of yours (www.scienceforums.net and s8.invisionfree.com) have also been added by 68.40.121.146 in various places (although most of them don't seem to live long on the pages). I had to silence my spam-alarm when I subsequently noticed your google ad-syndications. I suggest you clean up. TroelsArvin 20:25, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Scienceforums.net is not my forum, and nowhere near it. It is an extremely active forum that I could have no hope of matching. The google ads there are not my doing. Besides, it's a very active good science forum and really I think it's a suitable link. If you have an objection to linking to a good site then so be it. Perhaps you're taking these the wrong way. I never wanted to spam. It's just that with no policy I can't "follow rules" to any extent.Cap'n Refsmmat 01:10, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
Sorry about the scienceforums.net accusation: It seems you are not involved with them—except for forum usage, including their referral promotion program.
About policies: If there is no explicit policy about something, then that doesn't mean that "anything goes". Wikipedia cannot have policies on everything. In part, Wikipedia has to rely on common sense of its editors. Part of common sense is to think twice about adding links to sites created by oneself: In such a situation, the editor is obviously somewhat biased, and should be extra cautious. And when someone else removes such a link, it should generally not be re-inserted by the site-owner.
An example of not to act, is on the TI-BASIC (calculators) page: You add your own site to the page. Someone removes it with a clear message about low quality. And then you re-insert it... As long as links like that exist on Wikipedia, I'm having a hard time with your "I'm not a spammer!!" statements.
TroelsArvin 09:55, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
If you'll see above you'd notice that he said "go for it." I'm assuming that meant I could try narrowing it down to the TI-BASIC section.
However, rather than nitpicking over who did what, why don't we come up with a policy for it? I simply did not no what goes or what doesn't go, so you can't blame me for going a tad too far. But anyways, what "goes?" I liked your description a while ago, except for the bit about it having to be around for a year. It can have many useful members without being around long (in a few cases). My TI-BASIC forum has 3 people who constantly check it, and all are "experts" if you'd like to call them that. It just looks like there aren't many people there. I understand what you were saying about how they are unsuitable in ways. So let's go with that as future policy, perhaps. (edit:oops, forgot my signature. heh) Cap'n Refsmmat 22:51, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)
A "tad too far"? - You have posted your forum links all over the place but not shown willingness to remove a single link instance (others have cleaned up most of them).
Anyways—first, a quick question: Why should such a policy only apply as a future policy?
Next: I think that the one-year-of-activity rule is important for two reasons: As Dbachmann states, Wikipedia links should generally have a good change of being long-lived. The other reason is that the rule could guard against Wikipedia being used as a spam engine by enthusiastic newbies which have just set up an oh-so-great discussion forum which will be !!!great!!! as soon as people discover it!!!. TroelsArvin 23:08, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The number of colons required here is ridiculous.
Anyways, it can be applied to links that already exist. However, you cannot punish people for doing something wrong before a rule is made. I know why you don't want the links now, so I'll let them be and move on to more important things. The policy you came up with sounds nice to me, except for the bit about having to be around for a year. It should be something like "Must be around for a year, or have upwards of 200 active members" or something like that. The number can change, it's just a guess. It's just that the forum may be on a popular topic and thus get many members quickly.
I promise you I will not try to make those links again. I will be careful what I link to and where. Just please tell me what you think the policy should be. In fact, I removed the remaining link just now.Cap'n Refsmmat 21:12, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)

I think my suggestion for a policy would be: do not link to fora, unless there is a very good reason (e.g. the article is about the forum itself). google is far more useful for finding a forum that will answer your question. Links on WP should have a good chance of being long-lived. dab 20:44, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Keeping articles that are being worked on from going through deletion

Looking through VfD, I noticed a case in which a substub, properly marked as a speedie, was actually under continuing work, and this somehow did not become clear before a painful controversy got started. It seems like this could be helped by making the option of working on a user subpage more well known, and changing policy such that stubs, if made by logged in users, are not deleted but moved to user subpages as a first response. Thoughts? JesseW 07:28, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like the situation you describe would normally be averted because VfD voters look at the article and would see that it is being built. Maurreen 17:14, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Isn't there a template that editors can put on articles they're working on that says basically "Under construction"? If this were used more often, articles that really are undergoing edits would be less likely to be tagged for deletion. Joyous 21:03, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
IMHO this is a real problem which causes unnecessary biting of newbies and unnecessary friction between the inclusionist/deletionist factions. But I'm not quite sure what the solution is.
Adding further instructions probably won't help. Templates? Will newbies use a template? I remember having my work cut out just trying to figure out basic Wiki syntax; I don't think I used a template until I'd been editing for weeks. Besides, unless the template has some built-in countdown clock or expiration date, you would end up with situations where people would be reluctant to delete royally-speedy-deletable substubs that hadn't been worked on in weeks, that had an "under construction tag," because you could never be sure that the editor wasn't about to add something fabulous in the next five minutes.
Maybe all new articles could automatically go into a user subpage? That is, the only way to create an article would be via a move from a user subpage or some kind of holding area. Unless it's really obvious how to do that, though, it interferes with the traditional Wikipedian ideal of "zero-threshold editing."
A cruder solution might be to prevent creation of new articles that are less than (say) 250 characters long. I wonder what effect that would actually have? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:47, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Most likely: nitwits inserting 249 bogus characters to bump their new article over the limit. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 12:09, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)
If I was working on an article, and I noticed that it had the speedy deletion tag added to it, I would simply remove it. Speedy deletion is for uncontentious deletions, such as obvious trolling and mis-named duplicates, and if I disagree with it, then it is not uncontentious. PhilHibbs 11:29, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

External URLs

Having searched around I've not been able to find any policy, only a general guide lines, on the use of external URLs and yet in the articles I've been reading they have been used very sparingly. Is there a policy to avoid going outside? In one particular article, for example, members of the Board of the BBC are listed and although Wiki articles have been produced for the main members the rest have broken internal links. Yet on the BBC's own web site there are articles on all their Board members. Wouldn't it be better to provide a good external link rather than an internal broken link?

Maxx 09:05, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think the custom is to be discriminating with external links. What you suggest sounds sensible. Maurreen 13:49, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia policy is to retain an internal link anytime a valid article could be created. If less well known members of the BBC board deserve to have articles then the links should remain internal ones. Only if they are not deemed encyclopedic should an external link replace the broken link. If the minor board members are deserving of articles then a link to the BBC site can be provided as a note after the red link, or ideally an article containing a link to the BBC bio in the "external links" section can be created on each of them. - SimonP 16:33, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
Following on for this for clarity it is Wikipedia procedure to at least create a stub article, and from the stub add the external link to the person. This maximises the chance of creating an article on the person/thing :ChrisG 16:42, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Yes, assuming the person merits an eventual article, it is best to start (and link to) a bio-stub article saying "John Doe is a member of the Board of the BBC", with an appropriate "External link(s)" section. If the person didn't merit an article (e.g. board member of something less important) it would be appropriate to put the external link right after the (unlinked) name in the article on the organization, where it can function as a reference to validate the claim that this person is a board member of this group, e.g.
John Doe [http://something.co.uk/whatever.html], Mary Roe [http://something.co.uk/whateverelse.html]
which displays as
John Doe [3], Mary Roe [4]
In general, in the main narrative body of the article don't put the external link on the name itself -- treat it like an endnote or footnote rather than linking from the text -- but in an "External links" section do link the text: e.g.
[http://something.co.uk/whateverelse.html Mary Roe official page]
which displays as
Mary Roe official page
Hope that helps. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:53, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

The main objection to external link is that wikipedia has no control over their validity (in many senses: survival, contents, POV). Haven't you ever trip over a list of very useful links only to discover that half of them are dead? Another thing (minor but annoying) is the issue of importance and encyclopedicity of ext links. Whe you run google, you always have several hudred or even thou links. Which ones do you think must be in the article? And which ones do you think other will think must be there as well? Without strictest control every article on a popular topic may turn into a link farm. Mikkalai 01:32, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Thanks for the opinions. For the example I quoted, as they meet the professor test for fame (three are actually professors!), I've created stubs, as suggested, and placed external links there.

Maxx 15:59, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Stealers" google-score best than us

Look at all those Wikipedia content stealers which score better than us in Google searches: searching for Embree Trefethen I got several of them :-((( But what can be done ? Nothing. GFDL was the wrong choice, IMO.

At first sight (I haven't checked the links because I don't want them to earn any cent of money from this):

Granted, some add some value by providing additional useful links (last I checked — of course, some of these added links are mere commercials...)

(Sorry for the rant. This is not intended as trolling, but as sharing of my feelings with respect to this.)

--FvdP 21:12, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

it is annoying. I just see them as free backup, though. Anyone with any brains will at once recognize them for what they are, and come to WP anyway. And the others, well, no harm done. Th trouble is fact checking. They blindly multiply google hits for any random fact posted on WP, and when you want to evaluate its merit, they are difficult to filter out. There was a case where I googled for a dubitable term, and some 1400 out of 1800 google hits turned out to be from these 'mirrors'... dab 22:33, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Send in the clones. — Matt 13:25, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I did a Google search on a string "Henry Percy raised a small group of retainers, likely about 200" which occures in Wikipedia on the Battle of "Battle of Shrewsbury" page. Google returns www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedia/battle_of_shrewsbury and clicking on "repeat the search with the omitted results included." returns 38 pages. Most of the clones tend to have a clear mention of Wikipedia at the bottom of their pages, but these sites:

--Philip Baird Shearer 19:44, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)


With Google it's possible to name sites that you don't wish to be included in the search with -site:<site URL>, but to exclude them all is a long string. I keep a copy of a string to exclude Wikipedia clones, amongst others, on my note pad and append it to the search, if required.
-site:encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com -site:www.factmonster.com -site:www.infoplease.com -site:www.encyclopedia.com -site:reference.allrefer.com -site:www.question.com -site:yahooligans.yahoo.com
Maxx 15:36, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maybe they are employing some form of PageRank stealing? Like an advanced version of a Google bomb? Well, somehow, "thefreedictionary.com" has managed to worm its way to the top... I've never heard of this site until recently. --[[User:AllyUnion|AllyUnion (talk)]] 22:04, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In fact... They have only been around for a year, plus it doesn't seem they mirrored the Wikipedia until recently. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://thefreedictionary.com --[[User:AllyUnion|AllyUnion (talk)]] 22:10, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"External link" or "External links"

Is there an agreed policy on the use of either "External link" or "External links" when there is one external link only? It seems natural to me to use "External link" when there is one link, and "External links" once there is two or more links. --Edcolins 09:37, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)

Yes there is: always use the plural. See here and here for guidance. It's a standard label: if you have a tin labelled "pencils" you don't scribble out the "s" every time you get down to the last one. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 09:55, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)
"External link" would imply "this is the external link", and might discourage people from adding new ones. PhilHibbs 11:22, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
While "External link" grates (personally), there's a good argument for using "External links" that isn't a question of personal preference: people would inevitably forget to update the header to reflect the plurality when adding or deleting links. Also, you'd have to make the same argument for a "Reference" section, and I think more people would find that objectionable. Whatever you do, please don't go around mass-converting "External links" to "External link" (as I found someone doing a couple of days ago...)! — Matt 17:19, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Alright, I am convinced. Thanks all for your replies. I like the tin and pencil allegory... --Edcolins 17:42, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

Missing persons "deaths" category

I just created the entry on Darwin Vest who went missing in 1999 and was presumed dead in 2004. I marked it under Category:2004 deaths, but am not sure. I guess it depends on the presumption - if the presumption is that he died soon after disappearing, then he should be in Category:1999 deaths, but if the presumption is that he was kidnapped and died at some point in the intervening time, then it's anyone's guess. (p.s. did I do the right thing in this post by putting [[:Category:..., to avoid adding this page to the category? If not, please correct it!) PhilHibbs 11:15, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think there is a category for "Disappeared people." Also, I'd suggest holding off on declaring him dead already. Maurreen 16:28, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion process not being followed

Several long time Wikipedians that are helping process Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Old are not doing so according to the current Wikipedia:Deletion process, presumably because the process has changed as VfD has changed. Some simply delete with no more documentation than the Edit summary, others put the documentation in the Talk page, instead of pointing Talk to the VfD subpage, etc. I have added an HTML comment to "old", recommending reviewing the current processing article. Is there anything else we can do to make sure everyone processes the old VfD noms the same way? Niteowlneils 17:58, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Pages in User: namespace with no corresponding user

What is the policy regarding pages named User:something where there is no user named "something"? e.g. User:Sam Raymond. -- Paddu 14:48, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think they should be speedily-deleted (there is no reason for them to be there). dab 15:25, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
That particular one has now been deleted. -- Cyrius|✎ 23:24, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Opinion survey on new requirement for editing Current Events and subsequently In The News

Hello! Please look into the new opinion survey at Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_real_time_update, about suggestions on editing the respective articles. -- Simonides 09:44, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article Renaming Standards

Hi all..

I'm considering doing a major rewrite of almost all Wikipedia articles relating to M*A*S*H (including the book, the movie, and the TV series. I'd like to try and set some sort of standard for flow and continuity in the information, particularly in the pages about the M*A*S*H characters. The current pages, having been created by a number of different users at different times with no collaboration, show a large discontinuity of standard. Some pages are titled by the character's full name and rank (Major Charles Emerson Winchester III), others by just a first and last name (Frank Burns), others still by nickname (Hawkeye Pierce), and every variation in between. What I'd like to do is choose a standard for naming convention (or, if a standard is already in place for Wikipedia articles named after a person, use the existing standard), and rename the pages that don't match that standard while I'm going through and modifying/correcting/enhancing the articles themselves.

My question is, what would be the best way to go about doing this? Should I simply create a new article under the correct title, and then list the old article in VfD/turn it into a redirect to the new article? Or is there a more efficient way to have an existing article retitled? I've never taken on a Wikipedia project this large before, so I'd appreciate some feedback from some more experienced Wikipedians if possible.

Also, if there is an existing Wikipedia standard for titling articles with people's names (should the full name be used if possible, or the most commonly used name, or nicknames?), and also about using military ranks in article titles (ie. is it preferred to write "Lieutenant Colonel John Doe", or "Lt. Col. John Doe", or leave rank out of the title itself altogether?), I'd be grateful if somebody could point me towards the information.

Thanks!

Vaelor 07:31, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Use the move function. You should never create a new article then copy-and-paste content from an existing article, as then the edit history is lost. As a bonus, when you use the move function, a redirect gets left behind from the original location. Shane King 07:35, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
Ahh, silly me, I hadn't even noticed the Move function there, presumably because until now I had no use for it and couldn't conceive of what use I could have for it. Thanks for pointing that out Shane. Now, can anybody please clarify the naming policy issues I queried above so I can start tidying these articles up? Thanks. - Vaelor 07:45, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Use the most common name which people will look for most of the time (to avoid people having to go via redirects), as explained in Wikipedia:Naming conventions.
So, Frank Burns and Hawkeye Pierce both look good to me; similarly Radar O'Reilly and Hot Lips Houlighan. Major Charles Emerson Winchester III should probably be at Charles Emerson Winchester III or Charles Winchester. Unless the title is part of the common name (Colonel Blake, perhaps) it should be left out, as for real people - for example, William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim not General Slim or Field Marshal Slim - there is an analogy with the treatment of peerage/royal titles in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles).
Where there may be confusion with someone else with the same name, adding, say, "(MASH)" to the end will help with disambiguation, as would adding a disambiguation page. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:36, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the info and pointing me towards the policies ALoan. Very much appreciated! - Vaelor 13:38, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I have a related question. Is there a proper standard with regards to using quote-signs in titles? Wikipedia:Naming conventions has a paragraph about this and doesn't mention quotes, but points to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions) and Wikipedia:Special characters restrictions) for further info. The former doesn't mention double-quotes as illegal either, but the latter (and Help:Special_characters, which it points to) has a list of safe characters where the double-quote is not included. There is a line far into the article that says: These are also generally safe to use in titles, except for a few characters like double quotes, less than and greater than, and a few others. I'm not sure whether this refers to the list or the standard double-quote in general. Help:Page_name on the other hand, explicitly mentions " as a sign that should not be used in page names. I'm a bit confused about this.
Is this a real problem? Well, most articles that I have come across, like Magic Johnson, do not use quotes. This is the way I prefer it to be, erring on the safe side. However, some do, like "Weird Al" Yankovic. And if there is a firm policy on this that I have missed, are there any technical reasons to back that up? Wålberg 19:50, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Looks to me, from the relevant articles you linked to above, that using double-quotes in page names more "shouldn't" be done than "can't" be done. The info on Help:Page_name seems to be saying that while there are still pages using illegal characters, its preferred that they aren't used because they represent a possible security glitch. Strikes me as very odd though, that if they really are a security concern, there isn't some sort of safeguard in place preventing it from being possible to use such characters in page names. For all I know though, such a safeguard may just not be possible under the constraints of the MediaWiki software. {shrugs} Personally, having read that, I think I'll take the stance that I'll avoid using them in articles I create, but won't go out of my way to go around removing them from existing articles... - Vaelor 17:03, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

New initiative on wikipedia policy about graphic and potentially disturbing images

Hello all, I've started a new policy proposal at Wikipedia:Graphic and potentially disturbing images. I'd appreciate if everyone would have a look and give their comments before voting begins. GeneralPatton 03:49, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Poll regarding endorsements in the Arbitration Committee election

A poll has been started to determine whether a page should be set aside for endorsements of election candidates. --[[User:Eequor|ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ]] 10:27, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Three revert rule added to Wikipedia:Blocking policy

Since Wikipedia:Three revert rule enforcement passed, I added a section on blocking for repeated reverts to the blocking policy. Please review and edit it as needed. —No-One Jones (m) 21:00, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Style guide

I'd like to encourage wider input at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style.

The disagreements concern:

  1. The quote at the beginning of style guide.
  2. Fowler's "good" guidelines.
  3. The expressions "period" and "full stop."
  4. The serial comma.
  5. "U.S."

Thanks. Maurreen 07:54, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Voting rules

What exactly constitutes consensus in voting on a wikipedia article? preliminary deletion got 73% of votes. I would have thought that this was more than enough to let it pass. If there is a set policy regarding this could it be linked to? Barnaby dawson 12:09, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There's a difference between building a consensus and qualified majority voting. For a true consensus, all objections need to be met so that everyone can participate in the outcome. For most decisions here, it seems like we talk about a consensus, but use qualified majorities of 70 or 80%. Filiocht 12:26, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

Ah, but what exactly constitutes a vote? Over at Wikipedia talk:Three revert rule enforcement a number of editors are taking the view that making a comment constitutes a vote. Is that really right? jguk 13:06, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The point here is that there ought to be a page clarifying these points. However I have been unable to find one. Anyone know if such a page exists? Barnaby dawson 15:23, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think there is at least one page with at least part of what you're looking for. I'm not sure of the exact name, but it has to do with "surveys" or "polls." One point is that it advises spelling out the rules for the vote beforehand. Maurreen 16:27, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
A useful guideline (to spell out in rules beforehand), is to mark your vote in boldface, as in WP:VFD's Keep or Delete, or in WP:FAC's Support or Object. The onus is then on the person commenting to add a few extra apostrophes to make sure their vote is counted. An alternative is to have different sections for Yes or No votes, with a comments in each section counting as Yes or No. This only works with questions that can be stated very clearly in a Yes/No fashion, though -- anything with more than two options, or is receptive to extended "Yes, but..." or "No, except..." answers, only complicates the issue. [[User:CatherineMunro|Catherine\talk]] 18:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Abuse of speedy deletion

A lot of people feel the current Candidates for Speedy Deletion criteria are too narrow, and they are probably right that something should be done; Just ignoring policy and deleting non-CSD articles is not a solution however. I'd like to make a strong statement here that this is not acceptable. Please sign to indicate that you agree (or give a reason why we shouldn't stick to the speedy deletion rules I suppose). (The reason I want this is to be able to link this statement when people keep CSD-marking and SDing non-candidates defending it as 'standard practice').

Some random examples from the current deletion log, names removed because I don't want to single out any specific editors:

  • 02:04, 3 Dec 2004 ******** deleted Nicholas oliver (content was: 'Captain of Birmingham Eagles Ice Hockey team. Student at the University of birmingham. Born July 5th 1984 in Teaneck, New Jersey. Moved to England ...')
  • 02:04, 3 Dec 2004 ******** deleted Vfxartist (content was: '{{deletebecause|dubious neologism}}vfxartist - short for 'visual fx' artists do special effects for film and tv. tody they use software and computers...')
  • 01:57, 3 Dec 2004 ******** deleted Paul Paquette (fulfills Speedy Deletion criterion 4) (I'd removed a CSD notice from this article earlier and it was definately not a very short article at that time. It might have been blanked but a non-CSD article would still be available in the history which should have been restored)
  • 01:44, 3 Dec 2004 ******** deleted French Absolutism (joke/vanity obviously, plus possibly copyvio)

And the list goes on and on. None of these articles had already previously been deleted, so CSD criterion 5 didn't apply. --fvw*† 02:57, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

04:51, 3 Dec 2004 Mikkalai deleted Paul Paquette (verifiable hoax by repeated hoaxer)
If the anon is in fact posting fake material, it's no abuse of speedy deletion. The article claimed he was an actor and musician, which are not supported by reputable guides to such people. The intentional posting of fraudulent material is vandalism and a candidate for speedy deletion. I defer to Mikkalai's judgment on whether this person is a repeat offender.

French Absolutism was an obvious joke. It was a personal letter from "Heroin Fred" trying to get himself a date. The other two deserve to go, but weren't CSDs. -- Cyrius|✎ 05:03, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The point isn't whether they should be deleted or not, the point is that they are not candidates for speedy deletion under the current policy. If you want to argue the policy needs changing, fine. But blatantly ignoring the policy isn't going to get us anywhere in the long run. --fvw*† 05:23, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)
Pure vandalism is a candidate for speedy deletion. The intentional posting of false material is a form of vandalism, and is quite frankly the single worst form of vandalism there is.
As for French Absolutism, it opened with:
You may ask why such a title has come into the Wikipedia Library. Well I say to you it because I need to promote myself.
I am single.
I am French.
And I am hot.
And with all these fine attributes I have yet to fine a woman who favors me.
That's either a newbie test or vandalism, take your pick. It's not worth wasting time over. -- Cyrius|✎ 05:43, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think abuse is far too strong a word. It's just admins interpretting the speedy deletion criteria more liberally than you do. Admins who act like this are the only thing stopping vfd collapsing under its own weight, and as such I find it a bit difficult to be too harsh on them. So long as they don't delete articles that blatantly fall outside the criteria, they're actually doing wikipedia a service, not violating policy. Shane King 05:47, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)
Agree with Shane King. Speedy deletion rules can be interpreted somewhat differently by different admins. From what I can see in the Deletion log copy above, i would have considered most of them borderline, and have no problem with them being deleted. -- Chris 73 Talk 06:19, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)


RE the article Alfa Romeo. Throughout this article it is loaded with links to outside references, some of which are no longer valid. We don't want to arbitrarily delete them before asking if this massive use of outside links is acceptable form at Wikipedia? JillandJack 17:02, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • In this case the links have been added as numbers, not as full links, which I think is a very good way to provide links within an article. It may already be Wikipractice - I'm don't know. Some articles call for a lot of links, esp (as in this case) where an illustration is a constructive part of the article. In this particular instance I feel there are too many of the same type of picture links - several of the police cars from different angles for example. Martin TB 17:20, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I despise the naked number-links. If the image is free, upload it. If you need to refer to an unfree image, create a footnote, where you describe the link (i.e. the user doesn't just have to trust you and follow an unspecified link, but rather you say eg. "see this-or-that article on bbc.co.uk from Aug 2001"). Only link to sites that are relevant and stable (not to random images you found on google that may be gone next month) dab 17:46, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

New 'news sources' resource

I've created a new resource at wikipedia:News sources as an alternative to wikipedia:News collections and sources. The rational for its existence is to provide a way of listing news sites that is organised by geographical region and that presents the available links in an unbiased manner. The page uses subpages so that the existence of many links from the same country does not drown out the links we do have from the other countries. I took the links from the existing page of sources as a starting point for this new resource. Once I had finished it became apparent that we are missing links not only to many countries but also to whole continents. All input in encouraged. Barnaby dawson 17:51, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Proposal to expand WP:CSD

I'm drafting a proposal to formally extend the cases under which an article can be speedily deleted at Wikipedia:Proposal to expand WP:CSD. I welcome all discussion. I'd like to start the vote by 7 December, so that the two-week vote will end on 21 December, just before the holidays, but that's far from a fixed date. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 21:48, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Page formatting

Hi, can you have a look at the section on Formatting that was added to Talk:CPR_summary. I have a feeling this sort of formatting is not encouraged on Wikipedia, is that correct? Tjwood 17:55, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In my opinion, that's the least of your problems. Offering medical advice on Wikipedia seems very dubious. I can't recall any policy off-hand, so I'll have a brief hunt. (Oh, and the formatting looks very non-standard, to my eyes.) [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 20:10, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)
Found this: Wikipedia:Wikipedia medicine standards. I hope the advice is useful. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 20:23, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

Proposed method of dealing with schools: name standard

Originally, I was of the mind that schools are not per se notable; that articles about schools should be included here if and only if the school met some sort of notability standard. I've changed my opinion on this for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's like pushing rope; every high school kid is going to want to (a) look up their own school, and (b) make an entry for it if it's not there. Secondly, the fact that every school kid is going to want to look up their own school (as will every alum) in some ways defines the usefulness of these entries: it's information people will naturally seek here, whether we like it or not.

With that in mind, I propose a naming standard for schools. There appear to be only a limited number of names for schools; any school named after an American president, for example, is not going to be unique. I suggest that school articles be always titled (for example) William Howard Taft High School (Woodland Hills, CA), to differentiate it from William Howard Taft High School (Dallas, TX) and so on; a disambiguation page of course would exist. We should make a point of renaming existing American school articles using this standard. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:28, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. If we only have one article on a school with a certain name, the renaming shouldn't be necessary, but a standardized way of dealing witht he shared names that do come would help matters. Factitious 05:55, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
How about schools in other countries? Is it not also true that people will want to make pages on their schools in other English-speaking countries? --Smoddy 12:07, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Personally, I'd say we could put the city, province (if applicable), and country (for example: (Winnipeg, MB, Canada) or (London, England)). This standard could even be used for American schools, in the interest of fairness (making the above example William Howard Taft High School (Woodland Hills, CA, USA)) --HBK 16:41, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

It there are two schools with the same name, then the oldest one should be able to claim seniority and keep the page with links to disambiguation pages for the others if neccessary. I do not see why "Rugby School" should be put on a new page called "Rugby School (Rugby, Warwickshire, England, UK)" even if there is one in another country called Rugby School Philip Baird Shearer 18:02, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • I would say that in that case there is no question, but do see the recent controversy over Wesleyan University: this is by no means a universally accepted approach. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:49, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
The general rule for disambiguation is to have the shortest possible name that is unambiguous. We don't need descriptive information in title. Thus William Howard Taft High School (Woodland Hills) is better (unless of course there is another Taft H.S. in another Woodland Hills.) The disambiguation page can contain the state and other information. - SimonP 18:13, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
The American standard of two letters for the state after the town/city name is, to me and many other non-Americans, rather ugly. SimonP suggests the best method. violet/riga (t) 01:02, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

PDFs

Does Wikipedia have a policy on accepting uploaded PDFs as media to be linked in articles? Rafti Institute has uploaded a quite a few, including some that are original research. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 21:23, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I imagine that it is rarely appropriate, but might occasionally be. Can you provide an example of where this user has done this? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:10, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)
For example: Image:Universal_Convective_Pulse_Theory_S.pdf and Image:Required Legal Forms And Aftercare Sheets.pdf. See those pages for wher they are linked in articles, and Rafti's contribs for more. At least one of the opriginal research, I believe, but for the rest I don't know. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 01:15, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I would hope people would not upload PDFs/SWFs/etc. Perhaps we should make an official policy to this effect? --Improv 15:26, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
PDFs are appropriate and useful for WikiReaders (especially if we get any of them "done"), and other materials could be useful as source files to our pngs (svg, pdf, photoshop, etc). I therefore think we should reactivate some formats and keep others open. ✏ Sverdrup 20:12, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Infosecpedia

OK, I've just noticed two edits which parse a [[Infosecpedia:Foo]] tag: [5], [6].

Is there any policy on when or how to use links to external Wikis? — Matt 12:30, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not really happy with those kind of edits, just because the infosecpedia: shortcut is there doesn't mean it's equal to an internal link (cf. google:). Hyperlinking the title of an article to elsewhere is rather bad form too I think, that link should be in "see also", or more realistically, "External links" (even though it has a shortcut instead of an url). --fvw* 13:49, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)
You're right, hyperlinking the title was bad form. I regretted it as I considered it later. --Chris Brown 22:11, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
In regards to "just because the infosecpedia: shortcut is there doesn't mean it's equal to an internal link (cf. google:)", there is the question of "quality" - which I hadn't questioned because of my expectations of what Infosecpedia will become and how I expect it to be governed similarly to Wikipedia. --Chris Brown 22:45, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Being that I was the one that created the edits of the form [[Infosecpedia:Foo]], I thought I might explain myself. I looked for an applicable policy but found none at the time. (I've since found the possibly applicable Wikipedia:Soft_redirect). I spent some time considering the best way to do the link for a few weeks before submitting Infosecpedia as an interwiki link and before making my two recent edits. The answer I came up with was based more on philosophy than practicality, although I made some practical considerations as well. My reasoning follows:
Philosophical considerations: The core question I asked was: Is Wikipedia more of something with defined border and sharp edges, or more of a way of accomplishing something. Certainly it is managed with defined borders, but how does it naturally fit into the web as a whole or into the web of wikis in particular? If Wikipedia is more of a place and wants to be primarily self contained with some external links, then we should consistently use external links, including for all the WikiMedia projects. However, the web derives part of its usefulness from the ability to create links from one site to another. I viewed interwiki links as an evolution of this usefulness.
Practical considerations: From a very practical standpoint the interwiki mechanism is present, was written with some use in mind, and has some advantages. The form [[Infosecpedia:Foo]] gives a name of a source and a topic, leaving the details of how to get to the source (the url) to the interwiki mechanism, and is easy to use. In contrast, the form [http://www.securitygroup.org/pedia/index.php/Foo Foo] not only encodes the source and topic, but also how to get there. It is cumbersome and, well, lacks the elegance of the interwiki form. Also, in this particular case, the project will be moving from www.securitygroup.org to www.infosecpedia.org in the next month or two. Using interwiki to create cross-linkages between Infosecpedia and Wikipedia means that there is just one adjustment to the interwiki, rather than tracking down and editing of all the Wikipedia articles that link to Infosecpedia. The interwiki form also provides protection from software changes and leaves me free of worry about the ability or inability to do apache rewrites from one hosting company to another. -- (sig won't work, but it's Chris again)
I'll sidestep the philosophical question, but I found this policy: "Don't use external links where we'll want Wikipedia links. Don't put in links like this to external URLs linking text that we will want articles on Wikipedia about. Put external links in an "External links" section at the end of the article. For example, if you're writing an article about Descartes and you know of a great article about rationalism online, don't link the word "rationalism" to that article. Simply wikify the word rationalism, and add an "External Links" section with an external link to the source (perhaps in both articles). — Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles. — Matt 10:08, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image layout/captions

  1. I think I remember seeing a guideline suggesting image captions be in italics, but now can't find it. Am I remembering incorrectly, or has the guideline changed, or am I just not finding the guideline that mentions it?
  2. Similarly, the de facto standard for the placement of the first image in an article is right-aligned, but I can't find that as a documented policy or guideline.
Can anyone help clarify this? Wikipedia:Guide to layout and Wikipedia:Image use policy refer to Wikipedia:Guide to layout, which doesn't explicitly address either issue. Ah, I did finally find Wikipedia:Image markup with HTML, which also doesn't explictly state a preference, but does use italic wikimarkup in its examples, unlike some of the others. Do guidelines exist for either of these issues? Shouldn't they? Niteowlneils 23:07, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
For example, this looks ugly to me[7], and this[8] not much better. Niteowlneils 23:19, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Isn't the caption text formatting to be left to the "new" feature?
After some discussion, the idea to right-align every first image was discarded.
-- User:Docu
Personally I hate the first image being anywhere but on the right - it messes with the TOC and doesn't seem intuitive. I've changed those two articles to (what I think is) a better layout. violet/riga (t) 18:33, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Interwiki redirects

Check out intermodal. Oh, wait, you can't. It redirects to wiktionary, which makes editing and viewing the history of the originating article difficult for casual viewers. You have to manually edit the URL.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? Wiktionary links, IMO, should be only within an article, not a redirect. yes/no? --Golbez 06:09, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

It should probably be converted to a soft redirect. —AlanBarrett 19:49, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't this page be deleted or redirected to something in wikipedia? We have no content to provide at that title, and actually there is a wiktionary link on every "This page doesn't exist" page. ✏ Sverdrup 20:17, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Multiple Currencies?

I've recently been coming across entries which include a value and the 'equivalent' in other currencies (usually Pound Sterling, Euro, and US Dollar) of the form "The new waterway will cost about £150M (€220M,US$240M)... ". With the recent slide of the USD and rise of the EUR this values will increasingly get out of date, and as there is no template in use to locate or provide these alternatives then updating them manually when an editor discovers them will be the only way, which is unlikely to happen regularly. Without any accuracy they will lose all value.

I believe that we either need to scrap the alternatives, only listing in the local currency, or need to template the location or calculation of such alternatives to ease maintainence.

Comments? --[[User:VampWillow|Vamp:Willow]] 11:43, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Part of a larger problem. Even amounts in a single currency get outdated by inflation, needing an additional amount in "currentcy" to not mislead the reader (though Wikipedia arguably hasn't existed long enough yet for that to be a big problem). Would suggest keeping it down to local currency as much as possible for the short run, new syntax/autolinking of currencies/updated Manual of Style for the long run. JRM 12:21, 2004 Dec 7 (UTC)

All currency amounts should be associated with a date, for example:

  • "HMS Royal Oak was laid down in 1914 and commissioned in 1916 having cost almost £2.5 million."
  • "The Boeing 707 cost $16 million to develop between 1952 and 1954."

Gdr 15:13, 2004 Dec 7 (UTC)

  • Concur with Gdr -- always use local currency associated with a date. Let the reader make their own calculations. Perhaps we can start a wikiproject somewhere to make money calculations easier? --Improv 16:02, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • I disagree, if I mention that a person bought a piece of land in 1556 for two crowns I think it is unreasonable for our readers to be expected to track down what that amount means. - SimonP 06:45, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Local currency associated (explicitly or implicitly) with a date should pretty much always be there, but I agree with SimonP that it's not always enough. An example of a way to handle this (from the article Nicolae Ceausescu) is "Ceauşescu's official annual salary was 18000 lei (equivalent to 3,000 U.S. dollars at the official exchange rate)." Note that, in this case we need to say "at the official exchange rate" because the black market rate differed by a factor of 10 or so.

Also tricky is that the local-currency number may be totally unavailable or totally meaningless. For example,

  • Some transactions are dollar-, pound-, or euro-denominated even where those are not the local currency. It is not unusual in contemporary Romania to denominate a contract in U.S. dollars (to get around laws requiring that they use the local currency, a contract may refer to something like "the equivalent in Romanian lei of US$1000"); I'm sure that there are many other countries with similar situations.
  • It would usually be useless to give a number in a currency that was undergoing hyperinflation (where a given number would have a radically different meaning from day to day).

-- Jmabel | Talk 07:54, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

I think that explanations of the changing value of a currency need to go in the article for that currency. We absolutely should not be asking editors to do this in individual articles because (1) any numbers we give will quickly go out of date; (2) it's really hard even for specialists in the field; and (3) no one number can give an adequate impression of change of value (manufactured goods have become cheaper while labour has become more expensive). See [9] for a comparison of several methods of computing the present value of a sum of money in the past. Gdr 14:25, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)
I disagree about the value getting out of date. To take the original example, if I read about a new waterway was built in 1994, and the article says it cost US$240M, that sounds perfectly reasonable to me, and I don't expect someone to go back and update the article next year, to account for inflation. (The US Dollar is my local currency). If the waterway happend to be in Romania, would expect to see that it "...cost XXX million Romanian Lei, which was the equivalent of YYY million US Dollars". That would convey the cost in a way that I (an American) can understand, and it would not need updating over time. 16:39, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
Where it is only inflation then I am less bothered about it; many readers will note the date concerned and be aware of the approximate equivalent value. The issue is that of currency exchange rate fluctation as the actual amount in the original currency may have changed little (or by local inflation) but the equivalent in the other currency(ies) changed wildly. I had got in the habit of thinking UKP1 was roughly equal to USD1.50, currently it is USD1.90 ! --[[User:VampWillow|Vamp:Willow]] 17:08, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't quite understand your (Vamp:Willow's) point. If I report that sometime in the past someone in the UK was paid "100,000 pounds (equivalent to 150,000 dollars)" that is still true: those pounds indeed had about the same value (to the person being paid) as would have the given number of dollars. The fact that the exchange rate has changed a lot since then does not really effect the truth of the statement, any more than inflation would have. I know that it is not this simple, but in general things in the UK now cost more (in terms of my dollars) than they used to. That means (that from my point of view) that prices of things in the UK (including both this specific thing, and things in general) have gone up since then. Morris 18:12, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
To the anonymous editor who said above, "I disagree about the value getting out of date. To take the original example, if I read about a new waterway was built in 1994, and the article says it cost US$240M, that sounds perfectly reasonable to me": $1.00 in 1994 converts to $1.24 in 2003, so the original $240M would now be more than $297M (according to the Consumer Price Index method which is quite conservative; other methods generally give larger numbers; see [10]). Gdr 19:07, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)
Sorry about being anonymous. As a new editor, I confused the four tilde and five tilde notations. I am Morris 19:29, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC). On the substance: Any amount of money from ten years ago is "equivalent" to a different amount of money today. The effects of inflation are apparent even if you are only dealing with one currency. I assume that you are not suggesting that all amounts of money should be adjusted to current purchasing power (even assuming that there was an agreed upon method to do so)? A lot of articles mention how much money something cost long ago, and it is AFAIK understood that due to inflation it would cost more today. My point is really that just as I think that those articles are fine, I think that articles that mention the amount of money in two different currencies are also fine (for much the same reason). Morris 19:29, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
We seem to be agreeing violently here... Gdr 21:35, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)

Stricter Edit Policies

I am sure this must have been mentioned a million times before, but I will post it anyway. Anonymous users should not be able to edit. That would end 99% of vandalism. Moreover, to get an account, people must have a valid ISP assigned email address. This would solve the problem of blocking a range of IPs to block one user. Someone must have been opposed to these changes, because I am sure it must have been mention many times before. OneGuy 17:46, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It has been discussed extensively in the past; see m:Anonymous users should not be allowed to edit articles and related pages. —No-One Jones 00:48, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes, discussed but nothing was done about it, apparently. Probably people who can make these changes are either opposed, not interested, or don't think it's an urgent problem. But I am sure most people would agree it's a serious problem. The amount of vandalism is huge. Plus, there are many other problems. 168.209.97.34 apparently is a proxy server for the largest ISP in South Africa. If you block that for vandalism or any other reason, you block many other users too. The solution is very simple. Only users who have accounts with a valid ISP assigned emails should be able to edit. Until this change is made, many good editors would probably think this place is a waste of time and leave OneGuy 16:48, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
In any case, I posted the argument on the talk page there why registration is good m:Talk:Anonymous users should not be allowed to edit articles. I doubt anything would happen though since most people seem to be opposed to the idea OneGuy 18:54, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It has been discussed, and most people think it is a bad idea. Sure, let's have the conversation again, it might be different this time, but people value anons being able to edit, and to be honest, the most troublesome contributors have accounts. Anons are easy to spot. Intrigue 20:10, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I saw the discussion on m:Talk:Anonymous users should not be allowed to edit articles but didn't see the topic of how to deal with consistent trolls and subtle abusers/POV pushers who are not occasional random vandals (which apparently is not a problem). I would like to see a response to the arguments I posted on that talk page OneGuy 20:28, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I started this article Wikipedia:Disabling edits by unregistered users and stricter registration requirement. I was not sure if that was the right way for RfC, creating a new article? At any rate, as soon as I posted it, someone voted to "oppose" it. O well, I am not sure if he even read the whole thing before he voted. Apparently most people are going to oppose the idea. I still would like to see more comments here: Wikipedia:Disabling edits by unregistered users and stricter registration requirement.

User accounts

I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that registered user accounts were intended for the use of one individual only, not for a "group." The reason I bring it up is because of the following account: User:Asexual same-sex marriage, on whose user page is the following message:

"We are group of people who are advocates of the asexual same-sex marriage, and we want the marriage between asexual same-sex partners to be recognized by society. Please help asexual same-sex couples to get all legal rights the normal couples (the gay or the different sex ones) have. Our main problem is that our sanctioned platonic love bond is not recognized in most of the states. In the states where our marriage is recognized we are categorized as gay couples, which is not our case as long as we are against sexual relashionships in a same-sex married couple. """thank you."

Now, this smacks of advertising to me (never mind that the user(s) has been making non-NPOV edits to the Same-sex marriage article which reflect his/her/their stated mission.

Anyone?

Exploding Boy 21:26, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know that the issue has ever come up. I'm against it, personally. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:20, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
What, are we going to censor user pages? That's a pretty hopeless wish. Let's face it, people can put all sorts of bollocks on their personal pages—as long as it's not breaking any laws or violating policy like Wikipedia:no personal attacks, what are you going to do? As for advertising: it's not as if they're encouraging you to subscribe to their magazine. They don't even mention a website. It's POV and agenda-pushing for sure, but user pages are not articles—I can think of a lot of user pages that would have to be seriously edited if those were not allowed. (And let's be fair: if this is a "group" of people, I'm the emperor of China—in fact, I shall go off right now to state that on my user page... or maybe not). JRM 20:24, 2004 Dec 8 (UTC)

I think the question is more about whether user accounts can be used by more than one person--difficult to police, I know, but worth figuring out, I think. But the question of whether to allow advertising on user pages is also a valid one. And you can't be the emperor of China. The position is taken. Exploding Boy 00:07, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Addition of category: National anthems

Completely fresh at this, but with an idea:

Would it be an idea to make a category for national anthems, listing all of them in the same standard form used in many other categories, ex. Feature X of country Y, Capital X of country Y etc.? Instead of such as now, we're searching for "Ja, vi elsker" or "God save the Queen", one could have a list with "National Anthem of Norway: JVE" and "National Anthem of Great Britain: GSTQ".

Example of what I mean: List_of_capitals_and_larger_cities_by_country

Very sorry if I put things in wrong category, or if I'm just generally being dim. Hi, I'm new here. --TVPR 22:05, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Right, but the listing is very little standardized. Some have the name of the anthem, some have the nationality and some do not. A listing with country as well, as in Category:Capitals - would be a good step to improve categorization standardization. --TVPR 07:50, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Well, there is List of national anthems, if you want a list. I'm not sure why you would need to do this through the category method as well. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:36, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)
      • Sorry, I didn't come across this - even if I did look. Um, hello, I'm new here :) --TVPR 08:02, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
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