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Notability of politicians - how far down do we go?
Just came across Robert Parkyn, a City of Calgary, Alberta alderman from 1926 to 1944. Someone is putting in the entire historical list of Calgary aldermen. Is this is a good thing or a bad thing? --John Nagle05:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see why it is inherently a bad thing to have knowledge about people being put into Wikipedia. Of course, if we only rely on web references for checking purposes people may be a little surprised about how much just isn't there. These people are likely to have a lot of written information about them.
Also, in what sense are you using the word "notability". Ansell 05:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not paper. Notability is just there to make sure we can meet verifiability and NPOV without original research. An alderman likely has enough written about him to ensure that. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is also not a junkyard. It's not just there for verifiability/NPOV - we don't want articles that are written about not-notable topics, even if they're verifiable and NPOV. Blocks of sidewalk in New York City, or for that matter, Bismarck North Dakota are not notable enough for an article. --Improv13:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I completely disagree with User:Improv; one man's junkyard is another man's treasure trove. I think that the very nature of Wikipedia is to allow for the inclusion of those articles which may not appeal to a specific class of users. I think that folks living in Bismarck night vociferously disagree with your claim that they are not notable enough for an entry. Elitism is hardly appropriate here in WP.Pete00:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)arcayne[reply]
Like, for example, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, outside Mann's Chinese Theater. I am pretty much guessing that folks in Europe or China aren't the least bit interested in that particular block(s) of sidewalk. However, we kinda are. ;) Arcayne04:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
John Nagle has not told you the whole story. Robert was a City of Calgary Alderman for 17 years on and off, he was also a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for 4 years while still serving as an Alderman, he was chairman of the Calgary Public Library and helped found a Federal Canadian political party. If that is not noteable then what is. --Cloveious16:12, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
i should note that in my statement above, I wasn't meaning to comment in particular on Robert Parkyn -- i was talking in the abstract. --Improv17:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In general I'm uncomfortable with the idea that we should document every occupant of every relatively minor public office. There is verifiable information about many of these people but I think we should establish WP:NOT [www.lexisnexis.com Lexis Nexis]. In specific, I'd probably say delete him: he has done a number of relatively unimportant things. The Land19:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In this case, is Lexis Nexis going to find info about a guy who was alderman and MLA in the 1920s? One problem I have with Wikipedia at times is that every little tiny infinitisimal thing that has anything to do with United States popular culture seems to get a 10K page, while important individuals from before World War II, especially those that aren't American but sometimes even Americans, aren't in the Wikipedia. I added a US Congressman just a few days ago who wasn't in Wikipedia (Michael J. Kennedy of New York (1939-1943)). Yet we have dozens of articles on Neopets. --Charlene04:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
An alderman isn't minor if you live in his city; he influenced the lives of thousands of people in significant ways. Why does it bother you if someone else writes an article about him? It's not like we're running low on disk space. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't go so far as to support "the idea that we should document every occupant of every relatively minor public office", if "should" in that context means that it's a problem if some aldermen remain undocumented. (When I started editing Wikipedia, there were some U.S. Congressmembers lacking articles. Now, that was a problem that had to be addressed.) On the other hand, I don't see the problem with retaining such an article if someone is willing to research and write it. JamesMLanetc15:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is a shame that others do not take your attitude about articles that people will bother to research and build up. Wikipedia should not bite any editors, not just newcomers. By trashing an articles subject as unimportant in ones personal view, one may not be putting the entire picture in. It is not sensible to be making up classifications on top of the original policies just to get ones personal viewpoints accepted about having neat little categories of things instead of thing that someone has actually considered to be their contribution to the sum of human knowledge. Ansell 03:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Any user may only make x edits to an article* per 24 hours.
*in the article/template namespace and any others prone to dispute, but not talk pages
My first proposal for x would be 10. See, this does not harm normal people in any way, since 10 edits is quite a lot, and there is always a preview button. But, this would really slow down disputes, where two or more people keep editing against each other. -- infinity023:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And I don't mean "If they make x+1 edits they get blocked", I mean "it is technically impossible to make more than x edits to the same article in one day." -- infinity023:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this idea does have its flaws, and thanks for pointing them out. However, the aim is to improve the idea and remove these flaws. Fanatical POV-pushers is certainly a problem on wikipedia. You may not have come across any, but for the people who have, it is hell. A few further thoughts:
For reverting vandalism, edits made directly after an IP edit don't make the counter go up. If someone happens to edit the article just before you revert (and this happens enough times in one day to make your counter run out), well, get someone else to do it.
For "Current Event" articles, an admin could have the option to mark the article as "open" so that these counters don't apply.
Yeah, yeah. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. ;) I assure you, fanatical POV-pushers are a far worse problem than vandals. Vandalism is obvious. Fanatical-POV pushing isn't. -- infinity023:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What happens when someone just starts editing anon then? after the 10 edits. Ban them for sockpupptery? even if their edits are sensible? What about anon users? You can limit registered users to x edits per account, but an anon user who's ip keeps changing (as in they're not doing it, their internet connection is just that way) will be able to edit the article 20, 30...100 times? How can we enforce this rule? What if it's a relatively unknown article, but for some reason...on one day, a bunch of people start vandalising it. Every revert is one edit. And if the article is a relatively unknown/small article, not many regulars will have it on their watchlist. So when the 11th vandal attack happens, would we need a specific place for people to post revert-requests because they've already done their 10 edits per day? What about ip addresses that are shared (i.e. by a school)? So does that mean the whole school can only edit an article 10 times a day? Now you can say people at the school can just create their own accounts, so their 10 edits a day does not overlap with the school IP's 10 edits per day. But then how do you know when an account is a genuine new account, and when it's just someone needing more edits per day? Regardless of whether this proposal is good in philosophy, it's impossible in practice. Which makes it almost useless. --`/aksha00:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To expand a bit on the current articles issue. Even if we allow admins to mark an article as open (which is going to add unnecessary work and delay articles) what about new articles which aren't current events? Some users write the whole article somewhere e.g. in a subpage on their usepager (or in a text editor) but others prefer to slowly work on an article on wikipedia. With this proposal we will basically force users to use their userpage. Also, even non-new articles, a editor might find a stub or some other article in bad need of work. Again while some will use the subpage, many will edit the article directly. While editors should use the preview (and a subpage might be better), many forget and in many cases an editor may keep finding their is stuff they need to correct or improve. I'm sure you can come up with numerous proposals to try and work around this like more admin tagging, excluding new articles, excluding stubs, even making special editors who are excluded from the limit but all this is just creates more work and in the end some editors are going to be discouraged by all the complexity. The key problem with the proposal is that just because an editor is majorly changing an article doesn't mean their a POV-pusher. In many cases major edits should get consensus but in other cases an editor can majorly change an article well and it's not necessary to ask first (e.g. because it's a stub or is so bad anything is better then what's there). Therefore any attempt to limit edits to try and stop POV pushers is also going to stop legitimate editors who are drastically improving an article and removing POV! Nil Einne09:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also consider large articles with many sections. It is very possible to want to make 10 or even 20 reformats, spelling corrections, additions of citations, etc., to an article, just one at a time as you have time, and as you see the need. Not all of Wikipedia is a war zone, you know, there is also real work going on. AnonEMouse(squeak)14:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Blanking of article talk pages
Someone just added a "history" of the city of Scappoose, Oregon on its talk page. I was about to commend the editor for his or her addition and point out that we would need better citation, etc., before the material was added to the main article. Then I read the whole thing and noticed this fine piece of creative writing moved from history to POV to patent nonsense. I am tempted to blank it, but I'd like some opinions first. Thanks! Katr6716:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Blanking someones comments on talk generally only leads to escalation of conflict. Merely post a response saying that the above is nonsense, etc. Why deliberately provoke someone ? Wjhonson16:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Nothing peeves a person like being ignored or discounted without explanation, which is what blanking amounts to. Of course, blanking of material designed to be inflammatory (calling someone a poopie-head, spouting pro-skinhead material, etc.) deserves to be blanked.Pete01:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)arcayne[reply]
I just read it, and while some parts in the middle have a definate anti-environmental point of view, and some parts near the end desend into the relms of questionable notability, I don't think any of it is patent nonsense. I would not blank it. I would, if I were you, leave a comment about the first part being good and needing better citation, and then point out any specific concerns you have about the rest. Let them know that if good citation is provided and all the concerns are addressed this bit of history will be in the article. Try to work with them. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If it's a temporary content fork just to work on it a bit, it might be more productive for everyone if it was worked on in userspace, or at least not on the talk page (though a link to it could be left on the talk page so people are aware of it). If it's a permanent content fork (eg. they don't intend to follow our core policies and don't intend to ever integrate it back in), then that's discouraged, and speedy archiving might be appropriate. --Interiot16:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Believe me, the bit about albino nutria saving the town of Scappose is nonsense. :) BTW, when searching on "albino nutria" I got a google hit on this talk page, so apparently this has come up before... Katr6716:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thought that was the part you were refering to as nonsense ;). I did a quick search for nutria and came up with this redirect Nutria, so it apparently is a real animal which, while native to South America, has been introduced into Oregon and is considered a pest there, so there is at least a tid-bit of truth to that part of it. As for it saving the town from flooding... some people get some strange ideas into their heads. The person doing the writing may actually believe this. Insisting on a proper source should keep it out of the article as I doubt one can be found. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, nutria are indeed real. Albino nutria are indeed real, but sentient albino nutria that worked to save a small town in Oregon...that's a bit of a stretch. :D I don't think the editor in question acutally believes this. I think this is in the fine tradition of an Oregon tall tale and s/he is pulling our legs. Katr6716:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For those playing along at home, the material on the talk page was added by an anon. (Which isn't to say anons can't make valid contributions, just something to consider.) I chose to archive the silly thing. Thanks for the input and for being so trusting. :) Someone else put {{Talkheader}} on the page so that should take care of that. Katr6720:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
User deleting inoffensive comments from own talk page
I know removing warnings and block templates from your own talk page is not allowed, but what should one do when a user blanks out their own talk page (including an archive link which had warnings on)? Should they still be warned about it? Should the talk page be reverted? Would be interesting to know what to do in this case... - |||antiuser (talk) (contribs) 01:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on why they blanked their talk page. Is there a specific incident you are referring to? (Of course there is, or you wouldn't have posted this.) Some people archive their talk page, others don't. Some delete old comments thinking that the page history acts as an archive. I think it really comes down to intent. Why did they blank their talk page?~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 01:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm referring specifically to User_talk:Snowbound. I'm just used to hitting history any time I see a blank talk page, since usually people do that without archiving to get rid of warnings, but this user didn't seem to have anything particularly bad on there. I didn't know whether to warn them about it, revert it or just leave it alone. |||antiuser (talk) (contribs) 02:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's their talk page and it's not disruptive. I'd say leave it to him. Oh and by the way, your statement that "removing warnings and block templates from your own talk page is not allowed" is incorrect (specifically, there is ongoing debate about this and consensus has not been reached to make it policy). However, removing a message means you've read it, so subsequent behavior may warrant sanctions. >Radiant<09:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you want Wikipedia to attract users I suggest letting people do what they want with their talk page. On the other hand if you want to chase people away, then hassling people by interfering with their talk pages is a great idea. Wimstead13:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Wimstead; as long as they aren't getting rid of something important like warnings then why care? It's their talk page. I myself have removed stuff from my talk page (just the welcoming info, I believe) just to clean it up and make it easier for me to navigate. I don't see why this shouldn't be acceptable. --The Way06:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A user's talk page is a tool they use to communicate with. We all create differently, let us not attempt constrainment unless really necessary. Terryeo07:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is a stupid idea, and is an example of how petty certain members of Wikipedia are getting lately - what users have or don't have on their talk page is completely irrellivent to the success of the project. Certainly I'll be damned if I'm forced to keep a warning on my talk page where everyone can see it - why should a warning be a badge of shame? What positive good will ever come of that? I second Wimstead; stop dedicating your energy to scaring people off and limiting freedom to edit our own user area. It's *his* talk page, he can do what he likes to it. Leave him alone, and stop being such a petty minded freak.--▫Bad▫harlick♠17:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to get into a debate about the topic here, but just would like to point out a good reason to prohibit removing warnings. If there is a problem with a user and an admin goes to the person's talk page, they should be able to see the history in order to help them decide what level of warning/block is appropriate. Matchups03:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Images of living children
Today, I found an image of a young boy that had been uploaded and referenced on an article page. The identity of the boy was not relevant to the article, and the quality of the image was such that he would have been clearly identifiable to any family member or anyone else who knows him. Do we have an official policy on this kind of thing, because in my view, it amounts to child abuse and could land Wikipedia in hot legal water. In a way, it's similar to the issues around biographies of living people. --Portnadler17:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We don't, no. I do not see how a recognizable image amounts to abuse; is the child's address mentioned anywhere? If not, nobody not already familiar with him could locate him anyway. >Radiant<14:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If a clearly identifiable image of your son or daughter was uploaded and used in a Wikipedia article without your consent, would you not object? --Portnadler14:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thought you were talking about child abuse or legal prohibitions; personal objection is a completely separate matter—the difference between concrete harm that may be prosecutable, and simply being considerate of others' feelings. Could you elaborate, and lay out your points a little more clearly, maybe point out the article and image for context? Postdlf14:59, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, a photo taken in a public place is not considered to be a concern (no expectation of privacy), as long as the context is positive or neutral (as opposed to the bedwetting example). Unless it was accompanied by personal details, such an image is unlikely to pose a hazard to the child anyway. Dragons flight15:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What about articles like child or infant? Isn't it important to have appropriate illustrations in those? What if it's the child's parents doing the uploading (I imagine some of the images in child were uploaded by the parents of the children in question)? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If it is the child's parents doing the uploading, I don't see what the problem is, given the fact that they have the legal clearance to do such a thing (parents sign contracts for their children, can dictate certain decisions for them, etc.). EVula15:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The UK Information Commissioner considers a photograph of a person, unless (eg) a crowd scene, to be Personal Data, capable of uniquely identifying a living individual (assuming they are alive). This is all rather formal and under the (UK) Data Protection Act 1998. Now, this does not legally affect Wikipedia since it is not a UK organisation and has no offices in the UK, but it should be considered to be a useful guideline. Wikipedia would, if subject to this law, be a "Data Controller", and, as such, would have the duty to inform the person in the picture that they were "processing" this picture, and would have the duty to remove it (under section 10 of that act) if the individual objected.
This means that any photograph, not a child's photograph, is a debatable asset if of a living individual.
Even by this guideline, it would still be fair if the parents uploaded the pics, since, as the legal guardians, they would be the ones to be contacted about "processing" the picture. EVula16:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Technically, yes. However, if the child is old enough to understand the implications of giving or witholding consent (there is no statutory age in the UK for this) the child may require the picture to be removed, and the child may release the picture for publication.
The challenge faced is the GFDL licence - "once uploaded the world owns it" (I know it has different implications). I think this means a formal policy for pictures of living people is essential, and stated on the upload page. Fiddle Faddle16:22, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We don't need to predict every possible usage under every possible law. GFDL allows for-profit uses, yet for example, photographs of living people used on commercial products may violate rights of publicity, or give rise to a cause of action for false endorsement. What other people do with it outside of Wikipedia pursuant to the GFDL license is their own concern. Postdlf16:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let's take a possible example. Wicked Uncle Ernie takes a picture of his pretty 12-year old niece wearing high-heeled shoes. Unbeknown to said niece and her parents, Ernie then uploads the picture to Wikipedia and uses it in an encyclopedic article about shoe fetishism. There is no copyright issue: Ernie took the picture himself. But how would you react if you were the girl's parents? --Portnadler16:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I can't imagine that we'd keep an image of a child in an article about a sexual topic, even though the image in itself did not qualify as child porn; it just wouldn't be a relevant or appropriate illustration. But I thought you had an actual example, not just a hypothetical. Postdlf16:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's like saying we have no way of verifying the provenance of any picture that the uploader claims as his/her own (unless the real photographer makes a complaint). --Portnadler16:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's because applicable U.S. laws require us to observe copyright, but not to get permission for taking/using someone's picture, child or not. Postdlf16:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The issues need to be focused, instead of shifting every time someone asks a question (this is unfortunately typical for every time an issue with possible moral implications is discussed here). There are three separate issues, all assuming there are no copyright issues and they are taken in a location at which the photographer had a right to be present:
What are the legal consequences, if any, under relevant U.S. and Florida law for posting photographs of minors that were taken without the permission of the parents or minor?
Is there any potential concrete harm to minors from the use of their photographs on Wikipedia without permission that we should adopt policy to prevent?
Should Wikipedia adopt policy to address the personal objections of parents to the use of photographs of their children?
That's a helpful analysis. I am not qualified to answer the first question, but my responses to 2 and 3 are both "yes". We have to obey the laws of the relevant jurisdiction, but we can go beyond them when establishing Wikipedia policy. It is possible to argue a case for using something based on the UK Data Protection laws for pictures of any living person, as has been mentioned above. However, I started this discussion primarily because I think there is an issue of protection of minors from having identifiable pictures of them posted without permission and possibly in inappropriate places. --Portnadler17:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so now that you're focusing on issue #2, could you explain what harm you believe minors need to be protected from that results from the photographs, and what should we do about it? Once again, please use your actual example you referred to when you started this topic with—identify the article and image so we have some context. Postdlf17:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To answer your questions:
None that I know of.
No. A picture is just a picture. If there is personal information (an extreme example: an eight-year-old girl holding up a sign with her address on it), it should be speedily deleted, no questions asked.
If there is a way to verify the parental status, yes (similar to how celebrities have to submit a picture of themselves to verify with Wikipedia who they are, same thing with the parents, perhaps).
there's a long-running debate regarding the inclusion of notable fansite links on the LOST article; it specifically concerns the inclusion of a link to lostpedia (a wiki concerning the television series LOST), but it broadly impacts fansites in general.
it is this editors belief that a clique of editors are resisting the inclusion of a link to (an)other notable fansite(s) (for what reason, i do not know) in the article - the main reason cited being the theories section present in many articles on lostpedia, which in a way constitutes original research - the nature of the show essentially encourages theories.
the purpose of this addition to the discussion on policy is not to garner votes in a straw poll, or anything like that; it is to suggest that a greater degree of clarity is desirable in the policies that determine whether or not fansites deserve inclusion in an article. comments on this are most welcome.
As a general rule, fansites are inappropriate. See WP:EL. Also, WP:RS though that really just provides a bit of background, nothing directly relevant. However, WP:EL is a guideline, not an official policy, and even if it were official policy, it is sometimes appropriate to add a single particularly notable fansite. I am concerned that generally (though not necessarily in this case) people seem to use the fact that other articles violate policies or guidelines as an excuse to violate the policies or guidelines on another article. Yes, these should be applied consistently, but that's grounds for enforcing the policies or guidelines, not ignoring them in yet another place. When it comes to external links in general, we need far fewer of them on the Wikipedia. And when we allow one fansite, it is much harder to say no to the second. Or the third. Or the tenth, and plenty of articles have links to ten fansites (well, until I find them anyway). We are fast becoming a link farm. That said, I have not looked at this particular site specifically and I strongly suspect a compelling case could be made for its inclusion. If it is in fact an official site (this is not at all clear to me), the case is made right there. --Yamla04:15, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
lostpedia is not an official site - and i completely agree with you on the issue of one external link being equivalent to 'the boy who took his finger out of the dam'; however, the site has notability (see the more detailed discussion linked above for this), and is also widely used by many forums (which, granted, are certainly not notable sources in themselves) as reference material - as an aside, on past evidence the regular editors of the article in question are vigilant enough to remove any spam added very quickly. what troubles me the most, however, are the facts that;
"lostpedia is a wiki" seems to me to be an integral part of many of the arguments against its inclusion; surely the fact that lostpedia is a resource that anyone can edit should not be an obstruction to the addition to one line in one article on the encyclopaedia anyone can edit?
the fact many other comparable articles include similar, external links - granted, you have addressed this above, but the point still stands. --Kaini04:28, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
First off, let me state that I hate Lost. Secondly, let me state that I believe linking to Lostpedia would be warranted, as the site seems to meet the criteria for being a notable fansite, and that its being a wiki should promote its inclusion, not discourage it. --tjstrf05:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If the Lost wiki is accurate enough that the only mistakes are minor at best, there is no reason not to include it. Furthermore, I don't see any problem with linking one (and I stress that) fansite so long as it's a well-designed site with some sort of resource beyond what this wiki could provide without violating any major copyright. For example, sites that distribute the episodes would readily fail. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 05:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think fansites are fine as long as they fit the categories of "Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article" and "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article.". Fansites for fictional works sometimes include detailed information that would be considered fancruft on wikipedia, so linking to a fansite which does provide accurate information on the topic which is not in the wikipedia article should be fine.
That being said, the majority of fansites don't. But in the case of a fansite which is informative, and contains information beyond what we should include in an encyclopedia article, and is relatively notable within the fandom for that fictional work, should be appropriate.
I don't think saying a fansite contains original research theories if a decent reason not to include it. If it includes only theories, then it probably shouldn't be included because it contains no additional information not already on the article. But if it does have additional information, as long as it's not passing theories off as facts, i think it's fine. --`/aksha07:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are several problems, for example: if you allow Lostpedia then you have to allow LostWikia.. if you allow them two then you have to allow Lost-TV and so forth the ball begins rolling until the article is entirely a link farm, there is a fair solution though, have no fan links. thanks/Fenton, MatthewLexic Dark52278 Alpha 77107:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By that line or argument, it would be best and most easy for everyone if we didn't allow any External Links at all. After all, once we start allowing one type of external links, we'll start allowing another type, and the group of allowed external links will expand, and soon we'll have a link farm. Allowing one fansite doesn't nessasarily mean allowing both.
If there are many fansites which offer additional information on the topic which isn't already in the article, then people will have to consider how many external links should be on the article, and just how much additional information the fansite needs to have before it should be listed. And things like which of the two Lost Wikis are bigger, have more articles, have more content...etc.
No fanlinks at all is not a 'fair' solution. But it is a easy solution, a very good excuse to avoid the problem altoghther, and a lazy way out of actually making an attempt to differentiate between different fansites.
If you start excluding links to fansites, then you have to exclude links to any sites, and then you have to exclude the nearly-crufty facts, and then you have to exclude all the facts, and then there's nothing left to cull but the wiki software code. (joke) I agree that saying "no links" is easier than saying "only the best links", but I also agree that it's lazy. Editorial judgment applies to links as well as to prose. --Loqi T.09:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No-one's asking to cite a fan site as a source. What's being asked for is mention of the existence of a particular site. --Loqi T.10:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is nothing inappropriate about fansites in general, and they are often by far the best links on a topic, going into far more detail than an article here could ever get into. But fan sites should not be added just because they exist. If they meet "Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article" and/or "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material not already in the article" then they could be linked to. There is considerable ongoing discussion about this at Wikipedia_talk:External links, with some people thinking the negative phrase "fan sites" is not useful to talk about at all, while others go the opposite way and just want to prohibit linking to any non-commercial fan site. Several attempts to amend the external links guideline regarding fansites (particularly by emphasizing that they need to be high quality to be linked to) have all failed in the past couple months, so if you do want to be a part of a broader discussion on this topic, one is already going on at Wikipedia_talk:External links. 200510:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why do they not just take a vote, list all the fan sites and see which sites get the most votes in a poll of editors who have been editing the article for at least a month or have over X edits, leave the poll open forever and as votes change change the links. Make it a cap of two or three links to fan sites and the votes contribute, if anything it will turn the article into a better one as people who want to come from their favorite fansite to vote will need to help the article before they can have theirs counted. I am sure this idea can use tweaking like simply not allowing single purpose accoutns to vote or something. --NuclearZer012:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say that linking to some fansites is good; but Wikipedia is not a web directory, so e.g. linking to a fan forum with 50 members is not necessary except as promotion for that forum. >Radiant<14:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Linking to fansites is essential because they are nearly always the best resources on pop culture topics. They are also a lot less commercial than official sites. Wimstead13:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have a question regarding WP:NPA's scope - I was informed recently that only attacks on editors constitute a violation. But what if a demeaning reference to women as "virgins" and senior citizens as "old-age pensioners" is posted on a user talk page[1]? There are many women and old people who contribute to Wikipedia and (will) find those "general" statements quite insulting. While an administrator informed me that such statements are not violative of WP:NPA[2], I'd like to have more opinions. Rama's arrow18:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the reference to "virgins" was referring to women per say. I think it was more referring to children and people young enough that adults want to protect them from profanity and nudity (and presumably, the adults that are doing the protecting). At any rate, looking at that specific comment I don't think it was ment to be an attack on anyone or group of people so much as it was meant to convey impatience with people who don't approve of certian language and images. I think you have to take things in context, and not cry "attack" or "Racist" or "Sexist" at every possible opportunity. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 19:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at the user's block record, you'll know there is a reason to discount WP:AGF. I have never heard of the use of the term "virgin" for "children" or "young people." Rama's arrow20:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Virgin" means someone who has never had sex. It does not matter if that person is male or female, young or old. Though most of the time children have never had sex (i.e., are virgins), and it is children people seem to want to protect from any reference to sex. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 13:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My point was that it was not specifically aimed at women. Also, taken in the context of a discussion on censorship it seemed to be referring to children and those who seek to protect them by censoring sexual content. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, an administrator has advised me that its not a violation of NPA. I was looking for more feedback, but I guess this settles the point. Thanks, Rama's arrow15:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note: the relevant policy here would be WP:CIVIL. This was not intended as a personnal attack. I believe it is indeed improper but it is not targeted at anyone in particular. Pascal.Tesson15:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thought so too. The only thing that made me feel that it was a "personal attack" was the explicit sexual insinuation - that is a subject which is generally deeply personal. Rama's arrow15:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Pensioners" is not demeaning in the slightest. It was the official term used in Britain until fairly recently (and the editor whose talk page it was on is apparently from London), it is accurate (since they are indeed drawing a pension), and it is still the most common term (along with OAPs) used for elderly people in everyday speech, including by most pensioners themselves. "Senior citizens" still sounds patronising to me, both to the people themselves and to those of us who are younger (since "senior" actually means "more important than", not "older than"), and is rarely used in everyday speech in Britain. "Virgins" is quite obviously being used in a lighthearted way to mean people who are naive and innocent; why on earth it should be taken as referring specifically to women is beyond me. This was in no way a personal attack or uncivil in my opinion and I'm puzzled why anyone would take it to be. -- Necrothesp00:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you would kindly refer to the contributions and block record of this user, you'll know why I'm anxious to determine that no policy is being broken here. The point of concern is not his use of the terms "virgins" or "pensioners," but his attitude and reason for doing so. More in the avenue of WP:CIVIL than [{WP:NPA]]. Rama's arrow00:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused. Are you commenting on his use of a banner on his talk page or his wider edits? You appeared to be asking for comment on the former, not the latter. You also did seem concerned by his use of those two words (refer to your first post at the top of this section). -- Necrothesp00:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the delay in responding - my concern is on what he is posting on this talkpage banner. Even so, I consider the matter closed as an administrator and general opinion here recommend that its ok. Rama's arrow20:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
American systematic bias in Wikipedia
I realise the greater many of readers and contributors to the Wikipedia are American, and I do not wish to denigrate the efforts of so many fine editors but can it be made clear when making policy regarding style that not everybody knows all the States (and particulary the abbreviations), or will assume that a reference to a Governmental department is peculiar to the USA (most particulary when referred to as an acronym). Many contributors and readers are from outside of the US, and some may not have English as a first language, and may need reference points. It also helps Search Engines find the relevent article!
I have just edited an wikilink which was [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]] by removing the second conditional text. Since the article was specifically about a US policy think tank it made it less understandable, especially as the term United States was therefore omitted from the introductory paragraph. This may not have mattered too much but the United Kingdom also had a Secretary of War in the timeframe referred to by the article.
For the US student or reader familiarity often obscures this deficit, but nearly all geopolitical articles outside of the USA include mention of the nation. To maintain a standard in Wikipedia this should be policy for all geopolitical articles.
Actually, I'm not sure there is a specific guideline written about this but it's at least implicit in Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles. Keep in mind that although editors might indeed fail to be specific enough, there are very few instances where a more precise description (such as yours) will be reverted. Even if a guideline existed, you can be certain that articles will still be written without conforming to it and it is up to you and I and everyone else to make it better one article at a time. Pascal.Tesson22:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Could it at least be made very implicit? ;) I frequently edit wiki by seeing what the random article brings up, and I usually edit every other US based article just to include the nation in the intro/piece. Articles referring to other countries need editing far less frequently. "Lummee, and there are so many articles..." Ah, well, it keeps me out of mischief! Thanks. LessHeard vanU22:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of this is just about writing better articles, that's very true. We should always try to give a reasonable ammount of context when writing articles, assuming other people will know what we're talking about is an innocent way to introduce bias... unfortunately just writing a policy that says we should be careful and add plenty of context hardly means people actually will. This just takes a lot of diligence and awareness to make happen, I think. --W.marsh23:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your responses. I am aware of WP:CSB, but believe it isn't promoted as much in wiki policy as it could be. A matter of simply making an example of poor article writing owing to bias (such as abbreviating Illinois to Il) might be useful - although not everybody reads the guide and stuff - to bring it home early on to new editors. It should also be noted that the demographic for Wiki contributors indicate a high level of education and grammatical skills, so it may be that I am arguing against a cultural viewpoint rather than one of insularity.LessHeard vanU00:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think in a lot of cases, it is insularity. And thank you for fixing such cases. That's the only way a lot of us will learn. Also, I think one reason people tend not to state what country they're talking about, is that it makes their sentences long and awkward. The author in the first example you cited, could have made the link to read United States Secretary of War|US Secretary of War. -Freekee15:35, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Proposed policy regarding younger users of Wikipedia
It is written differently. It does not depend on COPPA or any other legal authority. The end result is not significantly different from WP:CHILD. But what difference does it make? If people agree with this proposed policy, why should it matter that there is another proposed policy on the same subject. Same if you disagree with it. Why not comment on this policy? As for the comment below that this is something of a fork, there is no policy against a fork of a policy page. It is not encyclopedia content. I wrote it precisely because the other one had become so bogged down. Once again, I am hoping that people will be more able to focus on the substance of this version than the other other one.
Indeed, seems to be something of a fork from WP:CHILD. On the other hand I'm happy you posted this since I was unaware of the WP:CHILD debate. And it's a pretty sad debate, with shadow straw polls, canvassing, bickering, etc. There is no evidence presented that this policy is needed and I really feel this is "think of the children" paranoia. Pascal.Tesson22:37, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See my comment above.
I'm sorry but I still don't know why you would advertise an alternate solution to a problem which has not occurred in practice, especially given that there is clearly disagreement on the talk page of WP:CHILD on whether or not we should have any policy on the subject and given that the whole issue is going to the arbitration committee. And I think the key point made during the first debate is that either we are required by law to adopt such a policy (in which case, let the office take care of it) or we are not and then why are we wasting our time trying to fix something that ain't broke. Pascal.Tesson04:10, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, obviously I do not agree with what you say regarding whether the problem exists or whether anything is "broke" or whether legal requirements have anything to do with it. I have to agree that there has been disagreement on the talk page of WP:CHILD. However, having participated in that discussion, I believe there was a great deal of confusion about whether some people were disagreeing with having any policy, or just with the way the thing was presented. Obviously some people do not think there should be any policy, but I am not convinced that they are numerous enough to prevent there from being a "consensus." That's why I started the new page, to try to clarify the situation. 6SJ704:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your concern and find your effort to be laudable, but this is a legal minefield. The legal department should handle this, in part because should an event occur, it might unlimately involve the corporation. --Badger15106:42, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Books in Wikipedia
There are ongoing disputes about what is the criteria for including a certain book in WP, and what is allowed in these articles to conform with WP:NPOV.
My view is that Wikipedia is not Amazon.com. If a reader wants to know just what a book contains, when it was published, reviews canvassed by the publisher, etc. the user is better served going to Amazon or a similar site. If a book is prominent enough to have an article in WP, we need to then provide some context, present the controversy the book raised if any, and provide counterpoints to the author's views, if held by notable authors. Otherwise these type of articles are just advertisement.
What are the policies/guidelines available for creating articles about books in WP, if any?
I understand what Wikipedia's stand on "original research" is. I understand why it is important, and what it does for Wikipedia. However, I strongly think Wikipedia should allow some level of interpretation of novels. I do not think a book discussion on Wikipedia proposes unpublished ideas or arguments.
I do not think that Wikipedia should have extremely long topics on book discussions. I also think that we should clearly state that it is speculation. The Brothers Karamazov, a featured article, has a whole section on Analysis/Themes. There is no source listed for these conclusions: just the text itself. I do not think this is harmful. I think it is productive and helps Wikipedia. -- ¢² Connor K. 16:59, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's a difference between mentioning well-known themes/analyses and conducting original research - we should be very vigilant on the later (probably requiring sources for it in the Brothers Karamazov or its removal), but permit the former. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a place to house new content. For scientific topics, there is less danger of this -- for literary and especially pop culture topics, we're in great danger of losing project focus, and should be much more strict. --Improv14:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
TV program schedules
I have nominated Template:TV3 (New Zealand) Primetime Schedule for deletion, on the grounds that it's a copyvio (the TV station explicitly forbids publishing of its listings without purchasing the right to do so), that Wikipedia is not a TV guide, and that it's a recreation of a speedy-deleted predecessor. Since the deletion on the ground of Wikipedia not being a TV guide would set a precedent affecting many other articles on television networks, I'm drawing wider attention to the deletion debate. Please comment at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 October 22, not here.-gadfium04:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Notability
Just ran across Centrist Party (United States). Neither the article not the party's web site indicates that it is anything more than one guy, or a handful, claiming to be a political party. Besides just making a remark on its talk page, is there something short of nominating it for deletion that I can do to press for demonstration of notability? I see we have a template {{notability}}, but it appears to be specific to articles in about half a dozen areas (biographies, bands, etc.) and doesn't seem to cover political parties. - Jmabel | Talk07:03, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I said "is there something short of nominating it for deletion that I can do". Yes, I'm aware that I could suggest deletion, but usually when I fire a warning shot I don't aim at the head. - Jmabel | Talk09:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why not? That shows you're serious. A prod threat might get them to establish notability. If they clear it without cause or don't bother editting the page again, take it to AfD. It reads like an advertisement to me, and you could probably speedy it under G11 easily. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 09:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've added {{notability}} and {{importance}} tags to the article. I normally leave them for a couple of weeks, re-adding them if they get removed without any work being done on the page. If after that period nothing happens - then I would prod the article. Megapixie09:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Table of contents of books in article about non-fiction books
I hear diverging opinions about the question whether it is okay, fair use or copyright violation, informative or uninformative, ugly, lazy to include a table of contents of the non-fiction book in an article about book. See e.g. here The Making of a Moonie, Bounded Choice. It is a re-curring dispute. Any thoughts? Andries12:36, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking purely about the asthetics of an article, i think it does look sort of ugly. And wouldn't it fall under the category of "lists of indiscriminate information"? since it's just copied right out of a book's TOC, with no added commentary or information. I'd say it would look out of place in the middle of an encyclopedic article. But looking at the Bounded Choice article, it does seem okay (although i think naming the section "table of contents" is a bit confusing, especially when you have an actual Table of contents right above it), although that could just be because there's really nothing else on the Bonded Choice article. No idea what copyright/fair use laws say about this though. --`/aksha14:13, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The Bounded Choice article gives a review, word for word. Aside from sounding like spam or vanity, isn't that a copyvio? -Freekee15:06, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can terms invented by Wikipedia articles become notable if others start using them?
Sure, they can... while it's not proper to use Wikipedia as a place to introduce or promote something new, it's still true that once something becomes popular and notable it deserves inclusion, even if some of that popularity began via improper Wikipedia use in the past. *Dan T.*20:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note that WP:NEO requires reliable secondary sources about the neologism before we can have an article. Remember that Wikipedia is not a reliable source, so none of its mirrors are either. GRBerry02:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In answer to the title question, of course. In this specific instance, I'm not sure the term merits an article, but there's no reason that a Wikipedia term couldn't become an actual word. As an example, I've encountered the real-life verbing of the word Wikipedia itself (by non-editors) to mean looking something up on Wikipedia, similar to the use of Google to mean an internet search. --tjstrfNow on editor review!06:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Basically, about a month ago, the line which said random usernames aren't allowed was removed because it was causing problems (people were getting blocked erratically. like how User:Asdfghjkl:; was blocked on sight, where as User:Lkjhgfdsa and User:Asdfg12345 were not blocked, and have gone on to be decent contributers).
Now User:pschemp wants to add the line in. Because he things it should be kept. And he insists it should be kept on the policy page because there was never consensus to remove it (although there was never consensus to add it in the very first place.)
Can some people go take a look and give some third opinions? Both regarding whether the line saying "no random usernames" should or shouldn't be kept on the policy page when there is no consensus to keep it; and regarding whether we should keep it in the long term.
There was never consensus to remove that part of the policy in the first place, thus its stays until consensus to remove it reached.pschemp | talk06:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Prove that please. While your opinion is nice, until consensus is reached, we don't remove things. That's the whole point. Your addition of an opinion does not consensus make. pschemp | talk06:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No offense intended, but people are given a better impression when it doesn't look like a user picked their name by randomly pounding the keyboard or dragging a finger across the center line. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
i agree. Usernames that look well thought-out do give a better impression. But it doesn't mean usernames which don't look well thought-out should become a bannable offense. --`/aksha06:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I still think it should be discouraged. It could be done in a nicer fashion, of course. Slap together a quick substable template saying "pick a coherent username" or something like that and stick it on the talk page when banning them. User gets a name we can understand and it's all good. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 07:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problems with discouraging it. I don't think many people would. I do, however, have a problem with the "ban on sight" approach some people seem to be taking. Whether they look good or not, there are people with very random names who seem to be contributing fine. --`/aksha07:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is human error to consider. It's highly unlikely that they'd catch every randomly named account in existence. Those that slip through the cracks with good edits will inevitably survive, but only by a stroke of luck. Plus, a change in username can be forced on those editors if it was really deemed necessary. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 07:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
the human error in this case is exceptionally high when compared to the other username guildlines. Throughout all the discussions, no one's even bothered to try and provide some definitions/boundaries for what is meant by "random". Simply because it's almost impossible. For policies like "usernames should personally attack other groups of people", it's (in most cases) glaringly obvious whether a username falls into the category or not. The blurry grey area in between is small. For randomness, i'm afraid the blurry grey area is huge. The most obvious example i can think of is admins who don't read leet doing "block on sights" for usernames written in leet codes. As a matter of fact, leet often looks very "random" to people not familiar with it. Maybe we should disallow usernames written entirely in leet too then? See my point? --`/aksha13:06, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"the human error in this case is exceptionally high when compared to the other username guildlines" another statement you cannot prove Yaksha. Again, where is your proof? Where are the legions of wronged users who have complained?pschemp | talk13:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
fine, let me rephrase it into "the human errer in this case would be exceptionally high".
or actually, i don't even need to. I think the example i pointed out on the username talk page of how when one username was blocked, and another almost identical one was not proves the point. I don't suppose you could dish up any example of such inconsistency when it comes to enforcing the other accpetable username rules?
the legions of wronged users...well, i hardly except newbie who gets banned within two mins of registering to make any public complaints.
you demand proof for a lot of things pschemp, but i don't see you ever supplying any proofs for your claims. (explaining how each of the other examples of random usernames that i found (on the username talk page) were in fact 'not random' or 'leet' would be a very good place to start. Since you dismissed all the examples on the basis of them all actually being not random.) --`/aksha14:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Who's to say what is and isn't random? What seems random to you may be a deeply meaningful screename that a person has used on all sorts of websites throughout their internet life. Lets say, for example that someone comes along with the username "SACGWDGSRG18" That seems a little random, doesn't it? I've never used that screen name, and probably never will as I always use ONUnicorn, but I could see myself having picked it at one time. To me that would be a meaningful name as it consists of the first, middle, maiden, and married initials of my mother's name, followed by the first, middle, and last initials of my father's name, followed by the first, middle, and last initials of my (maiden) name, and ending with my age when I first went on the internet (all caps because they are all proper nouns). On the other hand, if we block "random usernames" that seems to me like a very blockable name. Why bite new contributors before they've done anything wrong (or right for that matter)? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Who's to say what is and isn't offensive? Yet, we make that decision all the time and its the same thing. Nothing here is 100% as it is run by human beings and the two cases are the same. At some point, a line needs to be drawn. An example, from last night User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq blocked on sight, had already vandalised the moment he created his account. Check the contribs. This happens all the time. The other point here is that this is a long standing policy and until there is consensus to change it, we don't. That's how wikipedia works. And blocks are not biting newbies, especially when done early so as to save them the aggravations of having to change later. A perfectly polite message is left for them. pschemp | talk16:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I don't think there is anyone anywhere who would argue that a username like "F_U_U_(insert group of people here)_FREAKS" is not offensive. For the most part it is patently obvious when things are offensive. On the other hand, "aslgore fjoenroe", while it seems like randomness (in this case it was), may not be to the person who contributed it. As for it being a long-standing policy changed without consensus, we are encourgaed to be bold in making changes, and that includes policy. If someone disputes it after the change, then a discussion is entered into (as now). Maybe it was rude for whoever changed it not to discuss it first, but they were just being bold. As for the length of time that it was there representing consensus, I'd be willing to bet that WP:Username is not one of our highest-traffic policy pages; I know I've only looked at it once (before today) and never referenced it in discussion. Most Wikipedians have probably never paid it any attention at all. (After edit conflict) As for User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq, they had already vandalised, thereby demonstrating their bad intentions. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I went to block before it was known they had vandalised 'cause they did it so fast after creation but decided to check because people around here are claiming innocents are getting bitten and they aren't. The other point, is that most ramdom names *are* vandals, as with this one too User:1524gf86d3sf546 which is the exact same story. (Whereas I would normally just block, I check first and lo and behold, it was vandalising). pschemp | talk19:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How many times do i have to say this. Just because most random names *are* vandals is NOT an excuse to block on sight. Most anon edits are ALSO vandals, should we start reverting on sight too? Actually, most vandals are anons, maybe we should just block off all the anons? --`/aksha04:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you are taking this the the absurd, and no one has suggested doing that. You seem to be suggesting we should ignore obvious vandal usernames until they vandalise which is silly. I'm still waiting for the proof of the legions of innocent users who were harmed. pschemp | talk04:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The best "policy" on acceptable usernames is that any username is acceptable unless somebody reasonably finds it unacceptable. Lets avoid instruction creep and very harmful blocks against new editors whose only mistake is picking an esoteric username. Let common sense prevail. Thanks/wangi05:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Um wangi, its not instruction creep, the random rule has been in there for over a year. Also, they *are* deemed unacceptable at the time they are blocked, that's why they are blocked. pschemp | talk05:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Although what might have been consensus at one point might no longer be so :) Anyway, I'm not really that fussed about getting into the this debate, however I do not believe that we need to mention random character names in the policy - it simply makes it easier for good faith editors to be banned before they make a contribution (for example Someguy0830 would be banned). It's a piece-of-piss for the robot script folk to generate usernames combining dictionary words which are immediately non-random. This is a harmful "rule". But getting back to my original point - I really have no problem with individual admins blocking usernames thay find offensive (be they random or not) but see no need to enforce banning of "random" usernames. Thanks/wangi05:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't there a policy against unpronounceable usernames? I think most names that would be recognised as random fall into this, so the "random" policy is redundant, and ambiguous. Remove.--SidiLemine12:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Remove: Two reasons, both already noted by other users: 1) what looks random to one user may not be random to another (pschemp looks pretty random to me) 2)judge the user by the contribution, not the name. --Badger15114:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly I agree with Badger151, that pschemp looks random to me. Almost any username can be considered random. But I can see how some could be considered more random then others. Here are some usernames from the last few minutes of the User creation log. I have picked them as being the ones that seem the most random to me (but that's subjective): User:KMC1986 at 14:10, User:0101ccty06 at 14:10, User:Nanfengbb at 14:11, User:Tadg04 at 14:13, User:Pal9900 at 14:14, and User:Nkrajenka at 14:15. Let's give them a bit of time (say, an hour) and see what kind of contributions they make. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 14:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Krajenka" is a surname as well as a town in Poland. A big problem with making assumptions about users with seemingly random names is that many first and last names (as well as words, especially foreign ones) would be considered "seemingly random" by some people. It should also be noted that as wikipedia gets bigger, users are going to have an increasingly difficult time finding an unused username that "makes sense". And is there a policy against "unpronouncable usernames"? Where? --Milo H Minderbinder14:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's almost exactly my point; randomness (unlike, say, offensiveness) is entierly subjective... what seems like a random collection of letters to me is a town in Poland and someone's last name. "11100010101010" might be how someone would spell their name in binary. "SACGDWGSRG18" are meaningful initials to me. "Wyq49h" is how I'd spell my first name if my fingers were on the wrong keys (one row up) "Xbzfk" would be how I'd spell it if they were one row down. "Djstpm" is how it'd be spelled if they were one letter right and "AgEIB" if they were one letter left. I could see myself using any of those options for a username if I had to choose a new one I'd never used before. Meanwhile (from Wikipedia:Recently created admins) what does Aski mean (User:Aksi great)? How about User:TKD; that could be anything? It's completely subjective. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect, "Someguy830" doesn't make a "better impression" on me either, it seems equally careless and hard to remember or understand. But probably the prime offender would be someone trying to be cute by misspelling a common term for anonymity and sticking in the name of a small furry animal. That should be bannable on sight. AnonEMouse(squeak)14:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. As should anyone whose name makes no apparent sense, and consists of far more consonants than vowels, such that they have been mistaken for a bot before. Postdlf14:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Username blocks, continued
*Sigh* you guys just aren't getting how this rule has been applied in actual use. The only random ones that are blocked on sight are the really obvious ones like User:1524gf86d3sf546 and User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq. The borderline ones and unobvious ones and short ones aren't and never have been. And no, randomness isn't an entirely subjective quantity. All the examples OnUnicorn has given are either short (and short ones never have been blocked since human can remember short things easily) or have an identifiable pattern. Basically people are arguing that admins can't be trusted to make correct decisions and that's a load of crap. pschemp | talk15:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Um, pschemp, you didn't follow the links, did you? Those *aren't* usernames. To my knowledge no one has acutally tried to register with any of those names. Those are all things that, if someone did register with them, would seem like a random combination of letters to someone patrolling for unacceptable usernames. The fact that they all exist in the real world makes them not random despite the fact that they might seem random to someone who didn't know better if someone were to use them. That was my point. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that they aren't random enough that they would be blocked. I wouldn't block those and neither would any admin I know, they aren't blatantly random. Agian, you seem to think admins can't make rational decisions, which isn't the case. pschemp | talk16:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My username is random? I'm hurt. Well, not really. If you can honestly say you have trouble remembering two combined words and a short number sequence, then I don't see how you expect to remember something like tjstrf. Random in this case would mean something that has no indentifiable pattern, like sdbaivb or other such nonsense. The usernames that get blocked in this policy are rarely here for a good purpose, and those that are probably register good usernames after learning better. Also, I recommend we get off the subject of bashing each other's usernames to make a point, since it's quite clear that our names do fall well within the tolerance for understandable usernames. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 16:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My bad, no such policy (pronouceable). pschemp, I think the controversy comes from the fear that accounts will be deleted without warning. The way I understand hte policy, it is made so as to avoid automatically created accounts (spam, bots, etc.); A manual check (and possibly advice to change username) should be able to handle that. But for clarity's sake, the term "random" needs to be clarified with a few short definitions and examples, as are "offensive" and "wiki-related".--SidiLemine16:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Um, a username block doesn't delete an account. In fact regular admins can't delete an account at all. When they are blocked, the {{usernameblocked}} template expands to give an explanation already. pschemp | talk16:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Copied from Wikipedia talk:Username - "That list is intended as a guide, it is not supposed to be exhaustive (wikipedia is not a bureacracy or experiment in rule making), it is the broader purpose behind the username policy which is important, if the rationale for an item on that list doesn't tally with the broader policy rationale then there is arguably something amiss. It also has to be remebered that the emotive "banning a newbie" etc. is not the case, blocks for most inappropriate usernames are without prejudice and the autoblocks should be removed without question, it is of course important that appropriate edit summaries are used {{usernameblock}} for example expands out in the block message to give the whole text regarding the status. --pgk 12:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)" That is exactly what is done in practice. pschemp | talk16:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Given the current power of computing, I wonder if it possible to do some sort of analysis to determine what characteristics are shared by those usernames that are the most prolific vandals, but aren't shared by other users. If this can be determined, perhaps new usernames sharing those characteristics could be more closely watched until they develop a pattern. --Badger15117:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, pschemp seems to be the most vocal supporter of this policy. Let's look at some of pschemp's blocks since so far most examples have been hypothetical. User:Qwerty123456789101112 doesn't seem random to me, it seems easy to remember, and quite clever if someone wants to maintain a high degree of anonimity. Of course, the stated reason for the block was the length of the name (Is 21 characters really that long?) rather than its randomness but still... User:Qwerty123456789101112's contribution log shows one contribution (diff) that might be considered linkspam, but has not been removed from the article despite the subsequent removal of other seeming linkspam. User:1524gf86d3sf546 is much more random then Qwerty...., and the block reason was vandalism rather then randomness or length. User:NotForVandalism was blocked before making any edits with "are you sure?" as the reason... now tell me, aren't we to assume good faith? If an editor says their account is not for vandalism, shouldn't we believe them until they prove otherwise (yes, that is slightly tounge-in-cheek)? User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq seems random, and was vandalising, and the block reason was, again, vandalism, NOT the randomness of the name. User:Mamamamamamamamama doesn't seem random, and was blocked because the name was too long (18 characters, even shorter than Qwerty, and exactly twice as long as my username). They had made one edit, diff, which was reverted (and probably rightly) using vandalproof by someone who, in my experience, has a history of misusing vandalproof. User:Random or unreadable text or characters looks like someone trying to make a point, and has no contributions. Same goes for User:I read your username policy and it's gay. Perhaps these are people who were blocked for seemingly random usernames and are now complaining by re-registering with pointy usernames? User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB was blocked as random with no contributions... but I can see it making sense to someone. Anyway... ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 18:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It might be better to discuss this in just one place... use VP only to build awareness that there is a discussion. But that said, every one of your examples is a good block based on the username alone, under current policy as it has existed for months and months. You have not shown any of them to actually be bad blocks, or that there was harm caused to anyone by them (with 0 or 1 edit, getting a new username is just Not A Big Deal). And the onus is on those that want to change policy to show reasons for it, not on those that want the status quo to show reasons for not changing, because the status quo ought to be presumed to be good, in the absense of any compelling reason to change. Again, policy is descriptive not prescriptive. Admins block scads of IDS under the current policy all the time and I am not seeing a huge volume of reports at the admin incident noticeboard suggesting that this behaviour is causing massive problems. What I am seeing here by proponents of change is a lot of hypothetical supposition. ++Lar: t/c18:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
oh good God OnUnicorn, I already told you above that [User:1524gf86d3sf546]] and User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq were ones I wast just going to block for username but that I checked first because I wanted to make *SURE* that innocent people weren't getting wronged and lo and behold, they weren't innocent. They weren't blocked because of vandalism, they were blocked because of their username!, and I just added vandalism so people would know. How many times do I have to spell this out to you? And User:Qwerty123456789101112 and User:Mamamamamamamamama aren't random, and that's not *why* they were blocked as said in the edit summary. Your assumption that they are random is illogical, I don't lie in my edit summaries. Let me repeat this again since you seem to have missed it "you just aren't getting how this rule has been applied in actual use. The only random ones that are blocked on sight are the really obvious ones like User:1524gf86d3sf546 and User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq. The borderline ones and unobvious ones and short ones aren't and never have been." pschemp | talk18:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I never said Qwerty123456789101112 was blocked for randomness, but I did question the approprietness of the block for the length of that name. It's only 21 characters. User:Can't sleep, clown will eat me for example is 31. Are you going to block him? You never addressed User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB, the only one on my list above where you did give randomness as the sole reason for the block. User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB hadn't vandalized. User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB hadn't done anything yet. You also didn't address User:Random or unreadable text or characters and User:I read your username policy and it's gay. On their face, doesn't it seem like those are people who were most likely previously bitten by our username policy (specifically the part under discussion here)? Lar says we're "not seeing a huge volume of reports at the admin incident noticeboard suggesting that this behaviour is causing massive problems". How many newbies even know that the admin noticeboard even exists? I started contributing here in March and I didn't know the villiage pump existed until sometime in July. That's 5 months. I found out that the admin noticeboard existed shortly afterwords. What kind of newbie whose username of User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB is blocked under this policy is going to go complain there? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 19:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Guess what? we aren't discussing length of names here, we are discussing randomness. User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB is a name that I feel is not conducive to collaboration, regardless of vandalism. As for User:I read your username policy and it's gay that was from a whole string of names that quoted bits of policies. And his original name that he was blocked for was so offensive I won't repeat it (It was *not* a random name but a vulgar attack). However, since you weren't watching the username creation bots at the time, you don't know the whole story and have therefore picked out bits and pieces to use to criticize. Unless you are on the bot at the time, you don't have the whole picture and criticizing people's actions without knowing the whole story is a mighty big assumption of bad faith on your part. Last, any blocked person can complain on their talk page and request and unblock, and *that's* where I don't see complaints. That's where the proof of abuse would be should it exist. pschemp | talk19:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
ONUnicorn asks "What kind of newbie would complain?" I'll tell you what kind... The kind that reads anything at all in their block message. That kind would ask the admin that blocked them, or would seek some help. But the kinds that are getting blocked for randomness aren't reading, because (news flash) they almost certainly are here for vandalism!!!! Is this a perfect system? Might we block someone inadvertantly who then chose not to create a new username despite the instructions on how to do so? Yes, we MIGHT. But the alternative is far worse. Please stop wikilawyering about this. You don't have a case for change. Get over it, internalise it, and move on. ++Lar: t/c19:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Since when is it instruction creep to restore an inappropriately, non-consensus delete of a portion of policy? Discuss, get consensus, then delete. Don't delete then demand consensus to put it back. Random names are blocked. Period. Get over it. User:Zoe|(talk)01:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Random in this case would mean something that has no indentifiable pattern, like sdbaivb or other such nonsense." You see, this is the entire problem. YOUR defintion of random is that it has no "identifiable pattern". In which case, User:Asdfghjkl:; is not random (it's just the middle row of the keyboard). But clearly, pschemp by his definition of "random" believed User:Asdfghjkl:; IS random (User:Asdfghjkl:; was blocked by pschemp for randomness.)
Pschemp - if you think randomness is not a subjective quality. Then how about gracing us with your definition of randomness? How long is two long? how obvious is an "obviously identifiable pattern". Clearly, the pattern behind User:Asdfghjkl:; was not obviously identifiable enough for you.
"ONUnicorn asks "What kind of newbie would complain?" I'll tell you what kind... The kind that reads anything at all in their block message. That kind would ask the admin that blocked them, or would seek some help." - no, they won't. The sheer size of wikipedia is intimidating to many new people. You probably don't realize it, or maybe you just don't remember when you were once a newbie. But someone who has never edited wikipedia before, comes to sign up an account, and gets blocked within a matter of minutes, is not going to go chasing after people who blocked them. Maybe if the person was a regular in internet communities, maybe if they've edited for a long time as an anon and became familiar with the environment here, they might complain. But a complete newbie isn't going to. That's what WP:BITE exists for - it protects such new users.
If new users do go and seek help from admins when they are blocked, then i suppose you could provide a few examples? Considering how many usernames get blocked, surely by now, there must be quite some records of newbies who do go seek help after sudden blocks.
"Since when is it instruction creep to restore an inappropriately, non-consensus delete of a portion of policy?" when the portion of the policy was never added in consensus in the first place. It slipped in as something that is "discouraged", then slipped in further as something which is not allowed. Then it became something which was bannable on sight. And got removed when someone noticed how users like User:Asdfghjkl:; get blocked on sight but users like User:Lkjhgfdsa and User:Asdfg12345 survived. In other works, inconsistent happy-trigger blocking. --`/aksha03:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe not. I didn't read your rants. The length of the comments is usually inversely proportional to the soundness of the proposal. —Centrx→talk • 04:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Further discussion of username blocks
Huh. So, the less recognizable a username is as meaningful to an English-speaking admin, the more likely it is to get blocked as a random string of characters. In some cases, it's a vandal. In some cases, it's a legitimate contributor who picks a different name and that's fine. In some cases, it's a legitimate contributor who is so intimidated or confused by the {{usernameblocked}} message that we lose them. It seems to me that, if too many username blocks are the second or third type, then the admins making those blocks would need to exercise more restraint. There's no reasonable way to define what makes a random username, and since so many of them are vandals, it wouldn't make sense to refrain from blocking every account until it proves itself to be vandalistic. We have to depend on administrative discretion, and the fact that {{usernameblocked}} is pretty helpful and polite. Since this isn't a job robots can do, we just have to trust the humans who are doing it. -GTBacchus(talk)03:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
well, lengthy/insulting/wierd-non-latin-characters/POINT aside, there aren't that many. Or at least, all the examples that have been provided as "obviously random" have fallen into the category of being very lengthy, insulting or making a point, or having wierd symbols in it. As i said, there's really no evidence that blocking usernames which are only random (and doesn't break any other username guildlines) based purely on randomness has done any good.
and rules against things shouldn't exist by default. As in, we should not take a "everything is not allowed until they are proven to be okay" approach. Assume good faith means we assume things are okay until there's evidence that they're not okay.
Yeah, I don't think of it in terms of "not allowed". You make a new account, the username you choose may work out, and it may not. You find out pretty quickly. No big whoop. That happens to me every time I set up an account at any website - the name I first choose may or may not stick. You're thinking way too much in terms of rules, but Wikipedia works in terms of humans. We don't need to talk about correlation and causation and evidence and "proof" and what the word "random" really means. We just need to accept that admins exercise their judgement, and if there's a problem in a particular case, we address it.
It's really not about assuming good faith, either. Blocking an account within a few minutes of creation isn't a statement about the account holder's motivations at all. It's just a judgement, by a human, that a particular username isn't going to work. If a roughly equivalent one gets through, whatever. No big whoop. -GTBacchus(talk)03:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The reason is that usernames must be identifiable. Random strings of characters defeat most of the purpose of a username. —Centrx→talk • 04:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
and that justifies the appropriateness of ban-on-sights? Considering all the opposses inthis (which was for 'extreme cases'), i can't imagine how consensus for shoot-on-sight blocking would have been reached for something like randomness 7 months later when that rule was first added. --`/aksha05:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What justifies quick username blocks is that they're no big deal, and it's very easy for someone to either try again with a more wieldy username, or defend the one they first chose. It's likely that none of our policies would have achieved consensus, had they been submitted for it to a group anything like the current population of Wikipedia. That's not really an argument against good practices. In specific cases where problems are caused by quick username blocks, you should bring up those specific problems. If there are so many of these problems, that will become apparent, and we'll do something about it. Until then, try not to worry so much about it. There really are hundreds of things at this website more worth your energy. Most people who want to contribute to Wikipedia use nicely accessible usernames, on their first try. It's really ok. -GTBacchus(talk)06:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
After being accused of wikilawyering I was going to stop participating in this discussion; but I conducted an experiment and feel obliged to state that it's not {{UsernameBlocked}}. {{UsernameBlocked}} is part of it, but the actual message is a lot longer then that and, imo, slightly confusing for a new user. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 14:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In looking only at the {{UsernameBlocked}} template, I note that all username blocks seem to be given the same lengthy message, which starts with a huge red X and, "Your username has been blocked indefinitely because it may be rude or inflammatory..." For the moment leaving aside the issue of the wisdom of blocking random usernames, perhaps we should subdivide the username blocks based on the reasons for the block. Equally important, perhaps the message associated with the block can be made a little more friendly and/or use a block similar to those found on other sites: registration of an improper username fails to go to completion, but perhaps suggests similar alternate names. Does anyone know how many usernames are blocked on a typical day? --Badger15117:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have that number handy. I asked some admins and someone said "around 50 100-150". As for making the message more friendly and helpful, I support that. What would you change about it? -GTBacchus(talk)18:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I took a moment to review the registration process by creating User:Test (see talk page), and I noticed a few things. 1) On the registration page there are some notes on what constitutes a valid username, but I don't know how many people notice or read them. 2) On entering a username and creating a password, the next screen said "Login Successful... Your account has been created...) with no mention that usernames to be found unsuitable would be blocked - I expect that most new users interpret this to mean that their account name was found to be acceptable, making subsequent blocks very unexpected. Perhaps adding something along the lines of "Wikipedia reviews all new usernames to see if they might match or resemble current users, or for some other reason create difficulties. This process typically take a few minutes (or hours, or days - whatever is correct). If, for some reason, your username proves to create difficulties, we will contact you and help you move this account over to another username. For the moment, click here to change your preferences, or here to go to the main page" would make subsequent blocks less shocking. For the blocks, removing the big red X might make them more friendly. The bold "blocked indefinitely" also seems a bit rough... I'll tinker some and see if I can put together a written-out proposal. --Badger15118:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The dividing line between original research and source-based research becomes quite blurred when it comes to modern history and in particular the availability of increasing numbers of primary documents on the internet. In particular, the work of the [3]National Security Archive is a great boon to historians and teachers in the line of their work. However, they are also open to egregious abuse by people with particular hobby horses. I cannot see how the use of primary source materials in a historical article does not count as original research - it is certainly verifiable, but if it cannot be found in a published work on the topic, then it is also original. Documents are the historical equivilant of a scientist's data, and unless dealt with carefully by a professional can be abused. Personally, I would like to see citations from primary documents banned in historical articles, on the basis that they are original research. If the point being made cannot be found in a published work by an authority on the subject, it should not be up to editors of this site to make it through the use of google. Cripipper15:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This can be a slippery slope but I do agree in the most part. I have seen too many people present documents that were released by the government as proof of XyZ, however were unaware that those documents were later proven forgeries, or that information alone would not be considered significant, the document didn't reach person X even though it was addressed to them etc. These are issues a real historian examines that Wikipedia should not draw their own conclusions for. --NuclearZer015:58, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is a discussion on Talk:Sviatoslav I of Kiev, in which an editor objects to citing the Primary Chronicle in the article on the ground that the chronicle is a primary source, while WP:RS guides us to prefer secondary sources. I don't see why speculations of a modern researcher should be preferred to the first-hand account. --Ghirla-трёп-16:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Because your average Wikipedian is not a historian and just because they think an item states XYZ or is proof of ABC, doesn't mean it is. If you are using it to cite that it exists, or that person X was mentioned in the Primary Chronicle, I guess that is fine, though I would argue not to say person X but a person named X. --NuclearZer016:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Because, at least in theory, a historian has an expert grasp of the pitfalls and inadequecies of primary sources and knows how to handle them appropriately. I cannot comment on the advisability or otherwise of using the Primary Chronicle as a source, because it is now within my field, and so for the same reason I wouldn't use it. Cripipper16:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Traditionally, encyclopedic subjects are well established and have a number of secondary sources. Wikipedia editors are creating articles which are much more current than paper encyclopedias can create. The WP:RS guideline follows WP:V which is based, but not constrained to, traditional encyclopedias. Therefore, I view Ghirla's statement to present a weakness in the WP:RS guideline which might be restated, thus preventing the confusion that editor had. Terryeo16:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Vehemently opposed This proposal supposes that because some Wikipedians don't understand the difference between a literal and an interpretive citation, no one should be allowed to use primary sources at all. That's unworkable. Below is one example of much damage would result:
The photostat of Abraham Lincoln's handwriting would have to go. That shows part of an original draft, so we'd have to disallow the image if we started to classify all primary sources as original research.
The third paragraph in the introduction would have to be rewritten. It begins, Beginning with the now-iconic phrase "Four score and seven years ago," and ends with ""government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Those are quotes from a primary source.
The photograph of Lincoln would have to be removed also. That's another primary source.
Since excerpts from the text are disallowed as original research, the entire text itself has to go.
In a letter to Lincoln, Helen Nicolay stated, "Mr. Hay told me shortly after the transfer was made that your father gave my father the original ms. of the Gettysburg Address." Contemporary correspondence is also an original source, so editors would have to replace this with a paraphrase from some secondary source.
The photostat of the complete Hay Copy would have to be removed for the same reason as the other handwritten excerpt: these are original sources.
Likewise, the link to the Cornell University virtual library for the Bancroft copy would have to be removed from the article.
The photostat of The New York Times article would also have to go. File:Gettys.nyt.jpg
The citation to a 1938 audio recording by William R. Rathvon, a surviving witness to the speech, would have to go.
Not only would the proposal gut this particular featured article, but Joan of Arc, also a featured article, would suffer. The page would lose more than half of its images: photographs of places she visited and a photostat of her signature. The four quote boxes, which highlight excerpts from her correspondence that I translated myself, would all be lost. Citations to her trials, which comprise a substantial percentage of the article's footnotes, would all have to be replaced with secondary source references. Since that would require more time than I have to spare right now, we might have to roll back to this version.[4] Also at Geoffrey Chaucer the line translation I created for the article would have to be removed. Same for the line translation at Beowulf, which served as a model for the Chaucer page. Durova18:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As mentioned below, these are primarily illustrations of the article, not sources. The letters, for example, can be used to illustrate something referred to in a secondary source. Where the problem exists, is in the numerous articles on 20th century history which have within then the phrase "As recent documents released/published/put on the web by X,Y,Z show..." A case can be made that these do not break guidelines, as they do indeed show what they purport to show. The problem exists with context and the abilty of the person using them. Sadly there are many editors out there who wouldn't know the difference between a literal and interpretive source. A tightening of the guideline to permit primary sources that are used to illustrate points verifiable from other sources, but ban them without other supporting evidence would accomodate the concerns outlined above. Cripipper18:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose when the primary source is unambiguous in meaning. However, when there can be a reasonable level of contention over the meaning of a primary source, I believe we must be careful not to make interpetations based on it. For example, I do not believe you should interpet complicated legal documents (especially when the law is new) in their primary form. --tjstrfNow on editor review!22:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Two thoughts:
I tend to see quotations of primary sources as illustrations. A bit like images. Wikipedia:What is a featured article? advises to use images where appropriate. I'd extend that to a broader concept of illustrations. Take, for instance, the article on Tacitus: we have no "image" of what this author looked like. There are some "images" in that article (among them a bust of Cicero). But an "illustration" of how Tacitus was perceived by contemporary authors is given in Tacitus#Studies and reception history in the form of a quote (= "primary source") by Pliny the younger. But that quote serves primarily as an "illustration", to the content of the body of that section which takes a broader view on Tacitean studies. Similarly, I don't think it would be possible to write an article about Laplace's demon without giving the actual quote by Laplace, that set off what later theorists would call a "demon". Again, Laplace's quote only works as an "illustration" (he never used the word demon as such), the body of the article is about how *other* theorists interpreted that quote by Laplace. The images/"text illustrations" analogy could also explained thus: when we write an article about (for instance) an architect, then the article would usually be illustrated by some images of that architect's buildings. Note that such images would generally be "primary sources". If we write an article about an author (or in general, about someone who is primarily known for his/her words), likewise that article could be illustrated by primary sources in the form of text. The same argument becomes only stronger when writing an article about a "building" vs. writing an article about a "book" (if a "cover image" of such book can serve as an illustration, why couldn't a "quote"?), etc...
Note that for "current event" topics a recent ArbCom case decided: "It is appropriate to temporarily include external links to blogs and other sites which reflect contemporary reactions to a developing event. This is especially true in the case of events which are the focus of substantial attention. As the article becomes history rather than a current event the appropriateness of such links may change." – In the same ArbCom case it is further stressed that such use of (primary!) sources is to be seen as a *temporary* exception to existing guidance: "In appropriate circumstances it is proper to markedly deviate from the usual practices set forth in Wikipedia guidelines and style guides in order to fulfill the encyclopedic purpose of Wikipedia, for example, as in the instant case, an adequate presentation of an ongoing event. Deviations from Wikipedia policies, especially fundamental policy, may also occur in rare instances but are much more difficult to justify." – what I mean by these quotes is that when we're discussing "modern history and in particular the availability of increasing numbers of primary documents on the internet" (the problem brought forward by Cripipper), it might be useful to distinguish between "current events" (really, really "recent" history) and "Modern history" in general. For the first I think we can state that some exceptions, as stated in the ArbCom case, have to be taken account of. --Francis Schonken09:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't it about time that it becomes policy to use correct headers for the References sections. A lot of different forms are currently used, with most of them not really making sense. A lot of people use:
==Notes==
when they are references and not footnotes. Footnotes are rarely used on wikipedia since it would be just as easy to go to the article which the note refers to (if there is one, there often is). I have seen one, maybe two pages which actually had a footnote in the Notes section, although the majority were still references.
So shouldn't something be added to the MoS to say that inline citations should be placed under the References header with a subheader below that for General references:
Then all the references will be under one header, and they will just be references. I suppose another way could be to call References, Notes and references.
Ideally another <ref> style thing will happen for <note> (there is already {{note}} or something but it isnt built into Wikipedia) so that a seperate header above
==References==
would have the notes and that would be just for notes. No crossing over.
I haven't found a real preference yet for Notes or References, they are about even, but Notes doesn't make sense. Can't something be done? chris_huh16:04, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I always simply use references and the div setup. I do not think general references is useful, if you pulled information from it cite it, if not then leave it off. If they need general shark info they can goto the library. I think notes and references is the way to go, though I normally do not see notes sections and have yet to need one in an article I have started. --NuclearZer016:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That may be fine for articles that don't need a section of notes per se; but there are certainly some that make extensive use of footnotes (like this one), where having a "Notes" section and a separate bibliography-style "References" section makes perfect sense. Kirill Lokshin21:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So I was wondering what people think about the notability of academic journals. Some of them lead their fields, and a publication in them can make a career at a stroke. Others are hugely significant. Others still are very good for their papers' authors, but not top-flight journals. My particular context is the very many journals published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Most of these journals are definitive in their fields. In the UK, for instance, publications in many of them are (eventually) worth real money from the Government's research-funding bodies.
So my question is this. To what extent should we have seperate articles on them; to what extent should we aggregate them somwhere, and at what granularity (by discipline, by publisher, by ... )? For example, we already have (from my field) IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. These are both seminal journals, and each has published papers of massive significance to the research community (and, in due course, to the lay public and their information-carrying devices). But what of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology? You, generally speaking, would try publishing there if your paper didn't make into the others. Should it, and others like it, get an article? -Splash - tk19:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well there are two questions here: should we keep the article IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology if it's created and should we bother creating it. I'd say yes for the first and no to the second. I see no point in deleting neutral articles about well-established journals even if they're less prestigious but I don't see their absence as a problem. In many cases, a list would be appropriate for "lesser" journals. Pascal.Tesson22:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to prefer a "mergist" approach for these sorts of articles. The reality is that there are very few people on Wikipedia who actively contribute to them. Whatever will be written for them will stay static for a very long time. Generally speaking, unless the journal has had a lot of coverge outside of academia, I don't expect their Wikipedia articles to be substantially more than (let's ballpark) 3 paragraphs. Probably better to write a single article, say, IEEE Transactions or IEEE publications, and within this single article, mention all the "prominent", "notable", and "encyclopedic" journals. The rest can be relegated to a list. After that, I'm sure the Magic of the Wiki will take over. See Annual Reports Section A, Annual Reports Section B, Annual Reports Section C for a place where this might be very applicable. --HappyCamper11:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's not really a lot you can say about these publications - they are simply collections of other peoples' papers - what you can say about them (first publication date, publishing body) ensures that all of these articles will be cookie-cutter identical . I would prefer they be made redirects to the associated body - to IEEE for IEEE publications, ACM for ACM publications, etc. Raul65413:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Excessive Use of Unnecessary Images on User Pages/Galleries
I began to notice how some people upload unnecessary amount of images on their user pages and "galleries". And then they legitimize the pictures' presence in Wikipedia by offering them to be displayed in other user pages or articles. An example is [5].
I myself have one pic of myself on my user page, but I think that should be it. Wikipedia should not serve as personal home pages for people. (Wikimachine04:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC))[reply]
The example that I think you have in mind is not the link you give above but rather this. However, I'm not so concerned by it. I think I've seen larger collections of grossly inferior photographs, but I didn't make a mental (let alone other) note of them. Perhaps you could come up with more salient (more obviously objectionable) examples. -- Hoary05:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
if you dig around, there was a user gallary nominated for delete just about...a week or two ago? (it was by a member named kingstonjr and called "Work Gallary"), and ended up as a delete. You may also want to take a look at discussion being held at this proposed guildine - Wikipedia:Galleries, especially the section under "Userspace gallaries". --`/aksha08:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've started a proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Blanking which I hope will clearly explain to editors when blanking is vandalism, and when it may be a legitimate content dispute, possibly from an inexperienced editor. In my experience, this is one of the most frequent causes of misdirected vandalism warnings and reports on WP:AIV, and the potential problem of an editor trying to remove inappropriate material (possibly even BLP-violations) and getting warned or even blocked for his pains is sufficiently serious that we need clearer instruction for Recent Changes patrollers and the like. Currently, all I can think of to point to is the one line in Wikipedia:Vandalism, and possibly the two lines about 'Bold edits' under 'What vandalism is not'. Edits and opinions are welcome. --Sam Blanning(talk)19:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No Legal Threats
I hereby propose that the WP:NLT policy be rescinded. It is a relic from the early days of wikipedia and now that our site has grown, it should be able to handle it. The "No legal threats" policy is a stifling of discussion and probably if anything hinders the free exchange of ideas, which, lets face it, Wikipedia is all about. Perfect T02:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Individual editors are just as important to protect as they ever were. I doubt the policy really stifles any productive discussion. Melchoir02:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The Siegenthaler debacle should be convincing evidence that people DO have rights they should have protected, and taking it to the courts is one way to protect them if nobody else will. Banning someone just for obliquely hinting at the court system does stifle discussion. Pretty much throws a wet rag on the discussion, in fact. Perfect T02:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The policy is an absolute necessity and must be kept. More than once I have been in a legal dispute here over people and their own biographies on Wikipedia. It is crucial that they cannot edit while undergoing the dispute and that they can be blocked if they continue to make threats. You'll see its importance when you're in that situation :-) —Mets501 (talk)02:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Wikipedia is all about building a free encylopedia. I don't see how users being able to make legal threats would help us reach that goal any sooner. Megapixie02:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"No legal threats" is a "stifling of discussion and probably if anything hinders the free exchange of ideas"? Last time i checked, all threats stifle discussion and hindre free exchange of ideas... --`/aksha02:40, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. In today's legal climate, threatening to sue people is a form of intimidation that has no place in a free encyclopedia. *Dan T.*02:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Careful, if you continue making careless suggestions like that I will sue you. But seriously, even in the very very extremely improbable cases where making legal threats would help the project (!) WP:IAR would just allow you to. But even as I am writing this sentence I can't think of any situation where making legal threats would be helpful. Excusable, ok I can imagine with a little bit of effort but helpful? Can you actually tell us what sort of situation you had in mind? Pascal.Tesson02:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon me but I must be missing something. I just can't see how it would hurt really. If someone is really doing something actionable they shouldn't worry. Perfect T03:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It does hurt, a lot. It's disruptive. Many, if not most, of us here are not educated in laws. If someone goes on and on about "i'll sue you" or "i think this is not legally allowed", what are the rest of us supposed to do? We're not lawyers. If someone really had a sensible legal threat, then they can take it up in person, in real life, with people involved in the wikipedia foundation. So i'm talking about Jimmy or the board and so on. As i said, threating of any kind, whether legal or otherwise, is counter-productive to discussion. --`/aksha03:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok so saying I'm going to have my attorney contact the Wikimedia foundation is totally allright under the WP:NLT policy? Is that what you're saying? Perfect T04:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, "saying I'm going to have my attorney contact the Wikimedia foundation" is usually not ok (doing that in the context of discussing a large donation would be, but doing so in any conflict situation is likely to be perceived as a veiled threat, and is not acceptable). Of course, actually having your attorney contact the foundation is fully within your rights. --Stephan Schulz18:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand. So presumably we are allowed to exercise our rights. Just not allowed to talk about said exercisement? Please explain Perfect T19:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You can talk about them all you want. Just not in a threatening manner. Talk is cheap. Everybody can summon a virtual army of killer lawyers threatening to sue an editor into bankruptcy. We want conflicts settled by the force or argument, not the fear of a lawsuit. And if you cannot settle by discussion, WP:DR is available. Now if you have a real grievance, of course you can contact an attorney, and he can contact the foundation. The foundation is prepared for such a case and has adequate resources to hande a lawsuit until it is resolved on its merrits. --Stephan Schulz19:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The online part of Wikipedia is a collaborative workspace dedicated to the creation of an encyclopedia. It's neither intended nor suited to be an arena for the discussion and development of legal theories, issues, or threats. Those issues are best handled by the office of the Wikimedia Foundation's legal counsel, Brad Patrick. In other words, you're welcome to participate in the Wikipedia project to build an encyclopedia; you're not welcome to use its servers and networks to threaten or prosecute lawsuits, be they against the Foundation or other editors. It's pretty straightforward, really. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Shouldn't editors on here have some sort of notice of litigation filed though? Or does the WP:NLT policy simply mean "no empty legal threats," as real legal manoevering is well-prepared for, as you put it. And where did Brad Patrick go to law school anyway? Perfect T19:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We enjoy writing an encyclopedia. We do not want anybody to spoil our fun by threating us. If you enjoy doing legal threats, join some lawayers club. They will be glad. --Jan Smolik20:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"I don't understand. So presumably we are allowed to exercise our rights. Just not allowed to talk about said exercisement" allow me to explain then
In the above posting, the "right to fork" means you have the right to copy part or all of Wikipedia content and host it on your own servers. I was confused when I first read it because I was thinking of "content forks" and "POV forks", neither of which is acceptable in Wikipedia.
Yes, as strange as it sounds, you have the right to seek legal action but not the right to participate in Wikipedia if you threaten legal action. If you believe you have a legitimate basis for a suit, we cannot stop you from exercising that right. However, since threats of legal action have a chilling effect on contributions of Wikipedia editors, we insist that you pursue your legal rights outside of Wikipedia. You may sue a Wikipedia editor or the Wikimedia Foundation but you may not use the threat of a lawsuit in any postings to Wikipedia. If you do, you may be blocked from editing. That's WP:NLT in a nutshell.
I have a question about campaign workers editing articles about the politicians they work for (I'm not a campaign worker). We've had problems in the past, of course, with political staffers of current Congresspeople/MPs editing articles about their legislator or his/her opponent in a POV manner. I don't think I've ever seen a discussion about edits by a campaign worker for a non-office holder, however (perhaps I've just missed it). Particularly, what if an editor admits to being a campaign worker for a political campaign then proceeds to edit the article about the politician he or she works or volunteers for?
My initial thought is that this type of editing is fine. If the edits are well-referenced to reliable sources and appear neutral, I think WP:AGF compels us to accept the edits of the campaign worker and even encourage that editor's broader participation in the project. When we've had problems in the past, I think POV and the editor's attempt to hide his or her identity has been the problem. But I'd really like to see some other perspectives on this just to be sure. · j e r s y k otalk · 02:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The guidelines are there, but routinely ignored. Frankly (and it's worst just before an election like now) many articles on less notable candidates and created by their staff or supporters and never reviewed or edited by anyone. Frequently the content bears a strong resemblance to their existing website, sometimes word-for-word, but, as I said, often the articles don't attract neutral editors, so we end up being free webspace for them. Fan-196703:05, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For Wikipedia:No original research, see these
extensive diffs since October 16th. SlimVirgin had zero edits to the talk page during that period, but made approximately 24 changes to the policy itself.
SlimVirgin has also been making somewhat controversial changes to Wikipedia:Verifiability. Thre's been a minor edit war over there between SlimVirgin and Jguk (talk·contribs). There are so many SlimVirgin edits involved that it's tough to tell what's substantive and what's just text rearrangement. However, for that article there's some discussion on the talk page.
U betchum, red rider ! I've worked with User:SlimVirgin on a number of those pages. She hasn't changed policy and hasn't changed guideline. She has worked with a number of editors, toward clearer, cleaner statements. She discusses extensively, complies with editor concensus, ignores no one (that I've seen), is polite and makes damn good sense. The reason for rewording (not real change) is to resolve difficulties that manifest as editors work articles. If Slim wasn't doing it, someone else would have to because the policy and guideline pages often get editors attempting to modify a policy so the article they are involved with can say what they want it to. It is not so easy to make the policies and guidelines both easy to understand and hard to misunderstand, particularly as our quantity of editors and articles increases and the scope of Wikipedia expands. She is doing a FINE JOB. Terryeo09:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Slim's doing great work. I'll also note that Slim isn't altering the policy, but streamlining it. I fully support Slim, even if I might disagree over the odd word here or there. Steve blockTalk10:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I've never seen SlimVirgin jumping in and trying to change a policy without discussion. I have seen her reverting people who had made changes to the meaning of existing policy, and I have seen her changing the wording to make something clearer in cases where there was general agreement over what something was supposed to mean but the words were ambiguous. Like others, I'd say she's doing great work. AnnH♫10:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree fully with the idea of streamlining. However, I'm concerned that that is not happening and SlimVirgin's overly aggressive approach (reverting all edits she disagrees with on sight and without comment, and making lots of changes herself with little comment) does not improve the text as well as adopting a truly collaborative approach would be. It is frustrating that anyone else's suggestions (both mine and others) get throttled violently at birth, rather than discussed in an adult way.
Indeed, the most streamlined, and best presented, out of WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR is WP:V. WP:V is a 52 word long policy covering the essentials on the point. SlimVirgin's proposed alternative at WP:ATTRIBUTE is already over 2,000 words long, and still does not cover everything within those 52 words (and believe me, not many will read it unless they are looking for loopholes)! Of course we should examine carefully whether WP:ATTRIBUTE should replace WP:V rather than rush into it as some seem to be doing.
It's already difficult to keep up with WP's 42 long and ever-changing policies - I'm not surprised that John Nagle wants to at least catch breath and see what is happening to V, RS, NOR and ATTRIBUTE before other major changes are made, jguk12:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
John Nagle is not a regular editor of the content policies, and therefore may not realize that my edits to NOR and V simply tightened them; there was no change to either of the policies, as all the regulars on the page will confirm.
It was Jguk who was seeking to remove a key phrase from WP:V, not me, and he has been opposed by six editors.
As for WP:ATT, that's a separate issue: it's a proposal being edited by several people at the moment (and I've not been particularly active there in the last week or so), and it'll settle into shape as people have their say and it gets tightened. SlimVirgin(talk)14:06, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I don't know what Jguk means about V being 52 words long. It's around 900 and NOR is around 2,000 (although I'd like to shorten it further). The WP:ATT proposal aims to merge them and possibly also merge WP:RS (currently around 6,000 words), so a proposal of 2,000 words instead of those two or three pages isn't bad, and it will get shorter as people firm up the writing, not longer. SlimVirgin(talk)14:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
These re-wordings and tightening of prose on various policies was long overdue, as anyone familiar with them would know. They could still be improved, which is why WP:ATT has been proposed, but at least they're now more comprehensible. Jayjg (talk)16:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, everyone. My main concern is to insure that enough people are watching these edits to prevent a single user from making substantive policy changes, unnoticed amidst a collection of confusing edits. So please put these pages on your watch list. Thanks. --John Nagle20:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And now, John Nagle, you have the opinion of several editors who work commonly with User:SlimVirgin. All of us have stated our support of her edit mannerisms in response to your concern. Apparently this is not enough to reassure you, however becuase you additionaly request we (and unspecified others) place the pages which SlimVirgin edits on their watch list. From my point of view it would be appropriate for you to say something pleasant to SlimVirgin just to demonstrate that you are not implying a lack of good faith. Terryeo11:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is not the principle of reducing the size and number of policies, nor with assuming good faith that I have an issue with. But I would like to ask that no-one moves so fast as to not allow even a short time for collaboration, and that proper respect and consideration is given to everyone's constructive suggestions on how to improve things, jguk11:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Those who have been in Wikipedia for quite some time know what Gdanzig refers to. These days a similar (in terms of its persuasiveness) problem plagues Jogaila. Although there have been numerous polls on the naming issue (they seem to happen each month), the Polish editors accompany the latest vote by spamming totally unrelated articles with misleading comments.[6], [7], [8]. I would like to know whether such underhand tactics of massive campaigning are allowed by current Wikipedia policies and how (and whether) the spamming impacts the validity of this vote. Thanks, Ghirla-трёп-13:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well they don't help, but the vote isn't really useful either. The whole situation looks like it'll take work to sort out what the best path through the muddle is, and seeing as someone on the page has already suggested mediation, I think that's the best route to push now. In binary polls issues do get divisive and that divisiveness does lead to frustration amongst editors. There's been a bit of sniping in the poll so I don't think there's anything more needed here than that people try and put differences aside and work out the best path. Both sides should remember redirects are free, and that where an article is found in Wikipedia isn't that important. Give mediation a try and a chance. Steve blockTalk15:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I believe we are allowed to advertise polls in general places to generate discussion, and I believe we are supposed to in a neutral manner. I'd suggest again that mediation is the best answer. Steve blockTalk15:33, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Major changes: How do I generate discussion?
I feel there should be a major rearrangement of the articles on Jewish Music. What is now called Jewish Music should be renamed as "Jewish Liturgical Music", other articles should be revised or consolidated, and a new article needs to be written called Jewish Music, with pointers to the other related articles.
Renaming an article is a major change, and I felt I should do it only after some discussion with other authors who have worked on the topic. But nobody has responded to my comments on the Jewish Music discussion page, though people have gone into the article a couple of times to make minor changes.
I feel a bit uneasy about going ahead with this on my own. Does anyone out there want to read the stuff over and voice a second opinion, before I go rejiggering everything?
Indeed. Even if you posted your message 20 days ago, it's always better to have a good talk before going on moving articles. What I would personally advise is to first create the article you want (lithurgical), and provide a link to it on the current article. At worse, you'll endu up merging them later on; but for now, there may still be a need for an article representing contemporary jewish music, and that's the article. You won't have a "Contemporary Jewish music" article because there's so little to say. Anyway, the people you're looking for are probably at WP:JEW, and more specifically at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Jewish_culture. Cheers, and bon courage.--SidiLemine18:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Policy Regarding Current Candidates for Political Office
Considering the harsh back and forth of the editing parties as well as the editing and attendant retaliatory reverts (reference the talk pages for either Tammy Duckworth or Peter Roskam), it is apparent that it is exceptionally difficult to maintain neutrality. In short, too many people with personal agendas are making edits that are prejudicial and not in keeping with the 5 Pillars policy of neutrality.
I propose that, due to the potential and likely abuse by political operatives (or otherwise biased individuals), resulting in WP being used for dirty tricks like astroturfing and viral campaigning, that we institute a stringent review policy for all entries for political candidates standing for election.
I know that some will complain that this proposal contradicts the Openness of WP, the third of the 5 Pillars. In response to that, I point out that the first two Pillars of WP are that this site is 1-an encyclopedia, and 2-neutral. As well, I would point out that entries about current political candidates for office have substantially more potential impact than say, a review of the latest comic book or tv series. The stakes in these campaigns are enormous, and the potential for abuse in the editing process are equally so, especially when weighing the potential disaster of a massive re-editing a day or two before the election, coloring one opponent or another as a child molester or whatnot. Such propaganda-influenced edits can swing the course of an election, and there are no repercussions for such against users who cynically choose to use Wikipedia for their smear campaigns. That WP could be used in this fashion should be considered terrifying.
This is not to say that there aren't well-meaning users who try to correct incorrect or inappropriate data. However, even these people can unknowingly influence their writing, displaying a preference for (or prejudice against) a political candidate.
All of these variables, and their potential impact are whar drive this call for closer scrutiny in regards to the edits on political candidates. I propose the following:
any entry for current or potential political candidates immediately becomes Protected.
any such entry content is not immediately available for public view (with a notation that the entry is being reviewed for accuracy and neutrality) until the review process is complete.
any such entry be reviewed for accuracy and neutrality by at least three editors. Ideally, these editors would be familiar with the Politics Area of WP. Potentially, a pool of these editors (of all political persuasions) would serve to preserve the non-partisan neutrality and accuracy of the entries.
any such entries, upon being made public, are not subject to immediate revision (preventing October Surprise-style editing), and are debated in the Discussion area before edits are posted.
I understand that this is a policy shift, and can seen by some as drastic. Considering the potential for abuse (intentional or otherwise), and the far-reaching ramifications of said abuse, this policy applied to this specific category only protects the integrity and neutrality of Wikipedia. It also eliminates to a large extent the bickering, enmity and wasted bandwidth currrently occupying some of the political discussion pages.Pete02:40, 26 October 2006 (UTC)arcayne[reply]
Don't take this the wrong way, but this is a setup for disaster. Specifically:
What you describe is not possible technically.
nothing is impossible.
Anyone is a "potential" political candidate.
well, that's not exactly true. Bozo the Clown, isn't. Please don't play semantical games.
Who chooses these three editors? How are their qualifications asserted?
I don't know how they would be suggested. What would you suggest? It's kinda the reason I posted the policy assertion. It wasn't intended as holy writ, it's a suggestion, and one wherein I expect counter-suggestions and possible alternatives.
I see nothing about a political candidate which makes their biographies more important than other living people, and we already have strict content guidelines for that.
Political candidates biographies tend to be more relevant during election season, and political dirty tricks run rampant - a phenomena that doesn't occur when Tom Cruise releases a new movie, or Beyonce releases a new album. The stakes are ever so much higher for the average citizen, both at the local and national level. And if you think the current policy is working just fine, I would submit that your view is incomplete and inaccurate. The editwars are pretty vicious and rife.
Protecting an article to lock-in a specific version is contrary to Wikipedia's protection policy.
I propose that my suggestion supports and is in defense of the first two Pillars of WP, and is offered in WP's defense.
No election is going to be decided on a Wikipedia article.
I absolutely disagree with you her. No one thought that a bunch of political hacks hiding under the aegis of SwiftBoats for Justice would affect the last political election, and yet, the same man won the presidency - again without a majority of the vote, and with disastrous subsequent repercussions. I am sure the book publishers and tv stations taking money from the SwiftBoaters didn't think they could alter an election, either. This is the internet age, and for good or ill, a great many people use Wikipedia for research. This includes political research. It is our job as user/editors to ensure that WP is not manipulated by unscrupulous political operatives or partisan 'true believers.'
It's not Wikipedia's job to make sure U.S. elections are fair.
You are missing the point, Fagstein. That is not what I am proposing at ALL. I am not suggesting that it is WP's duty to make sure US elections are fair. I am strongly suggested that we take steps to prevent WP from being used inappropriately to unfairly influence a voter based on incorrect or biased information. While as a US citizen I am concerned with the political chicanery that always seems to go on in American politics, my concern here is first and foremost to protect the truthfulness and neutrality of Wikipedia.Arcayne02:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed in all points, and let me add that you would be adding a hitherto unknown amount of bureaucracy to Wikipedia. However, I think the rationale makes more sense than the suggested actions. Nothing stops you from setting up a pool of editors who make it their business to keep critical articles on their watchlist, or report tendentious edits on a project notice board. --Stephan Schulz07:51, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you could help me suss out a way to do this, Stephen? Check my user page for my email.
I don't like the proposed solutions, but I recognise there's a valid concern. As Stephan notes, it would be fantastic if you could start a notice board to coordinate patrolling of political pages for problem edits. I suggest that you don't have membership (as those tend to lead to cultural problems, as the mess with the CVU has shown us), and keep it as informal as possible. If you'd like help getting that started, drop me a note on my talk page. --Improv14:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would appreciate guidance on the use of citations from published books which purport to be factual accounts, but which themselves clearly fall short of the standards of WP:V, or WP:RS, or WP:NPOV.
A related issue which I would also like clarified is the acceptable use of the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention.
I am sure that these are issues which arise frequently, but I will illustrate the problems by citing a specific group of exemplars.
The book Outrageous Betrayal by Steven Pressman, which represents itself as a biography of Werner Erhard was published in 1993 and went out of print shortly thereafter. It has been used as a source reference for numerous edits, especially by user:Smeelgova and user:Kat'n'Yarn.
I have raised my concerns about the acceptability of this book as a source with these two editors in discussions on the (archived) Landmark Education talk [[9]] page, and their response was that it qualified automatically by virtue of being a published book. I have also brought the issue up with various administrators, but have not obtained a clear ruling so far.
Clearly the book is partisan in nature, and seeks only to highlight and sensationalise negative material about its subject. But more importantly, it appears to me that the book fails to meet what I understand to be the criteria for being a reliable primary or secondary source. Although written in a matter-of-fact narrative style, it clearly deals with events to which the author was not party or witness. That would be fine if he were to identify specific verifiable sources for the events he describes, but he does not. There are no footnotes or references to identify the author's informants for any particular incident which is depicted. Perhaps anticipating criticism over that shortcoming the author includes the following bland statement it the 'Acknowledgements' section at the end of the book (p. 279):
A note is in order here about my use of quoted conversations throughout the book. In some cases, conversations have been recounted based on the recollections of participants or witnesses. ... Many of the sources I relied on for information are named throughout the book; many others are not. They all deserve equally my thanks for contributing to this disturbing story of Erhard and the movement he created.
My question is: "Is this good enough?" Especially bearing in mind the potentially defamatory nature of many of the assertions in the book (not only as they apply to Mr Erhard, but also to many other living individuals mentioned by name. And also considering that many of these accounts are directly contradicted in other published books (e.g. Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man: The Founding of EST by William Warren Bartley III; and 60 Minutes and the Assassination of Werner Erhard by Jane Self. By contrast both of these volumes are meticulous in identifying their sources and witness statements).
As I said, I also have a concern about the usage of the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention. It was a frequent gambit of user:Smeelgova to write a verbatim extract from this book (or other suspect source) into an article in blockquote format with a ref tag. Although sophisticated readers would recognise this as indicating a quotation, I feel that others might be misled into seeing it as a factual assertion within the article. Should there be an explicit indication that this is a quotation? Maybe the problem would not arise if we are more rigorous about the sources that are acceptable? DaveApter13:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To answer the easy points:
Just because something has been published does not mean that it can be used to support a statement. You still have to question with academic rigorously whether what has been written is credible enough for what you are saying.
I don't know what the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention is meant to be. If, however, it does not necessarily make it clear to readers who may be unfamiliar with the style that it is a direct quotation then it should not be used - or at least it should be modified so as to make that clear. Presentation matters, jguk13:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently the author of that book got most of his "conversations" from the mouth of people who were recounting those conversations. As for its use in the article, a book which is narrowly published should be treated as a source which is narrowly published, i.e. it should not form a major portion of an article except about itself. There it could (if it qualifies as worthy of an article) be more extensively quoted. Wikipedia prefers the best sources of information possible. A person's recollection of a conversation which is passed on to another person, who then publishes the recall is not a very good source of information. In a court of law, for example, it would not hold the same weight as better sources of information. Terryeo21:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused. Blockquoted and referenced is a standard academic method of referencing sources. It may indicate laziness on the part of an editor who will not take the time to reformulate material into his or her own words, but it is in no way a "gambit." Should we also note on every page that material surrounded by quotation marks are quotes? If you could link to a specific example where blockquotes are used in a misleading fashion, that would be helpful. Edited to add: has the article been deleted? -sthomson21:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Here's one example to illustrate the kind of thing I'm talking about. It's from the article on Brian_Regnier created by user:Smeelgova (one of a dozen or two disparaging pages about individuals arguably not notable apart from a - sometimes tenuous - connection with Werner Erhard).
______________________________________
Transformational Workshops
Brian Regnier began his experience with "Transformational Workshops", through his early associations with Werner Erhard and est :
Regnier's had plenty of practice at changing people's lives and checkbook balances. In 1971, he tells us, he abandoned a career as a computer analyst and started doing transformational workshops. What he means by "transformational workshops" is est, the controversial seminar made popular by former automobile and encyclopedia salesman Werner Erhard, born Jack Rosenberg. Est's 60-hour program shares such defining features with Landmark as buzzwords and long days with few breaks. The difference seems a matter of politeness: Forum participants can go to the bathroom when they want. No one yells here. And no one is obliged, as they were in the '70s, to refer to Erhard or anyone else as "the source."[2]
____________________________
Note that there are no quotation marks and the only indication that the second paragraph is merely the opinion expressed by the writer of the quoted extract is the indentation and the numerical reference. It would be easy for a reader to misinterpret that statement as a factual assertion of the wikipedia article.
In answer to your question, this article and a number of similar ones still exist. Some others have been deleted or re-edited. DaveApter10:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I found the articles after a little searching. Thanks. In regards to block quotes, here [10] is a quick guide to the MLA style rules on block quotes. No quotation marks are needed. If you prefer Chicago Style, it is similar [11]. The place to indicate who the author is and how that applies is either in the introduction to the quote or in the paragraph following. sthomson19:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - that essentially addresses my concerns. The above example violates this convention by failing to "indicate who the author is and how that applies ". Adding some text such as "Steven Pressman makes the claim that..." to introduce such passages would make all the difference. DaveApter10:18, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The license that all Wikipedia text content is covered by is in the process of being rewritten. Apparently no one involved with Wikipedia cares, as the discussion draft has been open for discussion for over a month now and the silence has been deafening. If anyone cares about the future of Wikipedia, go here and join the discussion. Sections that significantly affect Wikipedia include 6a, 8a, and 8b. Speak now or forever hold your peace. Kaldari19:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not being a - and this is not a derogatory term to me - nerd, I am not really sure what the issues are here. Perhaps you could tke a moment and tell us all what they are, from your point of view. :) Arcayne02:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You would be incorrect that nobody cares. But since the wiki license is for GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation all material will be under both the 1.2 version, as well as any later versions, dual, or triply licensed, as versions proliferate. Here's an interesting discussion about the issues of defending infringement under the GFDL, and other issues, from an IRC transcript: James explains the law. -- Yellowdesk23:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Copied from Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies to get a broader segment of the population. Less than 25 people have made their opinion known in the poll so far, and this has some pretty far-reaching implications:
Recently a point of discussions has come up: is there, or should there be, any policy or guideline regarding wikilinking portions of quotations? One editor views it as "common sense" that we should "leave the quote alone"; I disagree that we are not doing anything which isn't standard practice in the academic world, leaving the integrity of a text intact but annotating in order to provide extra information. Talk:Voyage Au Pays Des Nouveaux Gourous#Wikilinks in quoted text is where the discussion has gone on so far. -- Antaeus Feldspar04:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A name that makes clear what it is about (very important as most Wikipedians will never actually read the text of the policy);
Brief and to the point (so that it can be read quickly - eg the policy box in WP:V);
May be rule or principle based;
Be expressed in positive terms - ie say what behaviour, content, etc is expected/wanted, not just what behaviour/content is banned;
Be accompanied by some brief explanation of the policy itself, but no more than 1,000-1,200 (no-one will read beyond that unless looking for loopholes, and a text that size will have loopholes;
Be referenced to guideline pages that examine how certain aspects of the policy are interpreted in practice.
Additionally, policies as a whole should complement each other, and should not contain duplication. There should not be too many policies, but there should be enough to cover all key points.
Very few of our policies actually follow all of the above. Many are good on the first point. Almost all are very poor on the second, fourth and fifth point. And far too many are rule based when a principle based rule would be better (and far, far shorter).
Ideally, we'd go through the whole collection of policies, and make them up to scratch. This wouldn't involve trying to change WP's procedures in practice, instead it would be a fundamental rewrite. How long that would take would depend on willingness to succeed - and in particular a willingness to enforce brevity. I for one would be willing to help. Any other volunteers? jguk11:53, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You will not find many people to disagree agree on your points above about what makes good policy. Just join other editors in the current discussions at policy pages. Efforts are always being made to clarify things, and although it takes time and after a while we go too far on verbosity there are always efforts made to clarify and simplify. See the effort at WP:ATT, for example. ≈ jossi ≈t • @12:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that policy is "rule based", policy is definitionally principle based. Any community effort has a GOAL, ours was created by Wikipedia's founder. That goal could be more broadly disseminated, but we don't lack a goal. Below The GOAL we have POLICY. Policy consists of broad, general statements of intent. These are descriptions of how The GOAL shall be achieved and how it shall be made real. Policy is to be followed. Below The GOAL and below POLICY come specific rules defining how policy is to be followed toward achieving the GOAL. Policy is created by a broad concensus of experienced editors (usually) and this is very appropriate. It is in our Guidelines that we begin to find rules which are based on POLICY. This is the actual organization of information, rules are not part of POLICY. A GOAL can be stated in a sentence while POLICY requires more page. As we get down to rules (Our guidelines) even more page is needed because they address many specific situations. In addition to the "how do we edit" rules we have "how to get along with each other rules" and those are implied by our GOAL and by our POLICY. Terryeo12:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree that everything has to be expressed in positive terms. Jguk has used this idea to try to get rid of "verifiability, not truth." Express things in positive terms where possible, but there's no need to elevate it to the status of an ideology. Same with the need to be brief: we should try to write tightly, but we're not writing for five-year-olds with an attention span of a few minutes, and in any event, people don't read policy pages from start to finish, they use them as reference works. Also, it's not necessarily true that the longer the page, the more loopholes there are. The shorter it is, the more likely there are to be loopholes. SlimVirgin(talk)12:30, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see Jossi, with hindsight, is changing his mind:) But Terryeo and SlimVirgin are just commenting on the edges, not the heart of what I wrote.
I'm not quite sure what Terryeo means by "goals" - they are not in the standard WP lexicon. But I'm not sure the distinction is important. He writes "Policy consists of broad, general statements of intent" and "It is in our Guidelines that we begin to find rules which are based on POLICY". That's exactly what I am arguing for - having policies of broad, general statements, accompanied by guidelines that delve into the detail. The only disagreement we appear to have is to the extent our current policy is rule rather than principle based - we both seem to favour principle-based policy.
Regarding SlimVirgin's comment, I would ask her to re-read what I wrote on the point, namely that a good policy should "[b]e expressed in positive terms - ie say what behaviour, content, etc is expected/wanted, not just what behaviour/content is banned". That does not equate to expressing "everything...in positive terms". A reader, having finished reading the policy, should be able to answer the question "what is required of me?", not just "what is not required of me?". jguk09:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ban
I'd suggest a ban for new policies. Too much laws kill the law, as nobody understands them except those who really want to pass by them.
Let's peruse the existing ones calmly and take note of any problems that could or have come and domains that are not covered. In common law, analogy applies : why not here ?
Then let's make a validation test of our policies, rules and hints against the goals of WP. Do they help, are they accurate, clearly defined, structurate enough. Amendments are welcome, but only after a delay - let's say, some months.
A former WP editor wants to go back to an expert encyclopedia, based on best of breed articles taken from here, but excluding, I hope I understand, anything related to unnecessary fandom. Fans are many amongst our editors here ... so this means really strict rules. Do we want this ? What do you think ? -- DLL .. T18:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And users with a knowledge of how to conduct meaningful Google searches, are especially welcomed to join in! - Pete
The proposal would allow U.S. cities to be inconsistent with the vast majority of other U.S. cities and towns, which (with a few exceptions) all use the "city, state" convention. -Will Beback23:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia heavy emphasis placed on a person's ethnic/racial/religious background?
I'm a huge fan of WP and use it everyday, but one thing that I find a little creepy is the almost fanatical emphasis that is placed on a person's ethnic/racial/religious background. Every time I look up a person to find out more about his history, there is almost always information on his father's ethnic origins, his mother's ethnic origins, both parents religious background, his spouse's ethnic background, her parents' religious background, etc. It sometimes makes me wonder if I've logged into some racist website.
The really bizarre material is saved for the end of the article. There I can look up such groupings as Italian-Americans in the Music Industry or Arab-Americans who are Christian or Bangladeshi-Americans who were scientists. I personally believe that anyone who needs to know who in the music industry is an Arab-American may have a questionable motive.
I think that this feature of Wikipedia should be looked at and hopefully toned down in the future.
From an American born in South Africa, living in the southern United States with his wife who is the child of an Italian-American and a Dutch-English-American. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Njg123 (talk • contribs)
Hi, welcome Njg123, and thanks for sharing your thoughts here. (How did you find out about this page, by the way?) I think you may have a point with your observation. I think the reason is this: Once one editor starts adding such things, it is likely to attract a certain amount of controversy. The more controversy is attracted, the more attention is paid to that aspect of the article. The more attention is paid, the more space ends up being devoted to it in the article finally. It's a bit of a nuisance, but we can't really do very much against it, in my experience. Fut.Perf.☼21:50, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Njg makes a valid point. In a world where every other individual is a mouseclick away from communication, racism is a non-issue. Who cares? Perhaps as we rub and link our consonants and vowels, editor ideas of which information are important will change too. Terryeo23:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I respectfully diagree with all of the above for several reasons:
One of WP's goals is to be as complete as possible. If an individual merits an entry at all, there's is no reason not to be complete.
An individual's background, whether religous or racial, is almost always am inportant part of who they are and many, if not most, people are proud of their background or heritage.
The idea that mentioning someone's ethnicity is somehow inherently rascist is simply a fallacy.
Personally, I have a lot more concerns about WP editors who emphasize their religous or racial backgrounds to the detriment of accuracy and quality in our articles.
Racism is the belief that one race is better than another, and I hope you're not seeing that reflected in Wikipedia articles. Its existence is not a reason to hide one's ethnic background (at least not where I come from, thankfully).
One of the great things about Wikipedia is that with contributors from around the world, it is not written from, for example, a British, American, or any other Anglo-centric point of view. Editors supply their points of view, and information from sources in other languages, and it all gets shaken out to create better articles. Yeah, I've seen it get ugly on the talk pages, but many patient and thoughtful contributors and Wikipedia's consensus system give great results. —MichaelZ. 2006-10-28 23:38 Z
I'm sorry, njg, but Doc Tropics is correct. Simply mentioning a person's race is not racism, and to think that way is to have a very misguided view of racism (at least in my opinion). Terryeo, we're not at that stage yet (we're not even at that stage in certain parts of the world, let alone the whole world), and pretending we are at that stage creates its own of problems. ColourBurst02:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The observation is probably valid. I suppose when there seems to be a disproportionate amount of emphasis on racial background in an article, it would seem a quite odd, especially when racial backgroun isn't an important to the article subject. But the solution in that case wouldn't be to tone down on talking about racial background. But rather, tone up on talking about everything else. --`/aksha08:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I respectfully disagree. At one time, one's linage was very important within the group comprising one's society. As transportation increased it became less important to society's view of the individual. Today, we don't know the race of most of our fellow editors, tomorrow we wouldn't care if we were told. However, I do recognize the situation with people who are in the public eye. Terryeo08:44, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Nig123. A person's lineage is no doubt important to them, but it in most cases it has no importance to me. Sometimes it is a part of why they are notable and should be included. For example, we should note in an article that the individual was the last white man to captain the West Indies cricket team, or first black and Asian to captain them - that's notable. But to go through and make a note by each West Indian cricketer as to whether he is white, Asian or black is useless information. And as Nig123 correctly notes, it would be racist to do so.
Mentioning someone's race is tantamount to saying that it is a feature about them that is notable to others. Doing this indiscriminately is inherently racist (and DocTropics, ColourBurst and Mzajac really need to research what is meant by the term if they believe it just refers to an assertion that one race is superior to others! Would an apartheid system offering an equally good life to different races not be racist?). The solution is, of course, to remove racist categories. However, these tend to be added and strongly defended by those who use them to for their own race-politics purposes. This leave those who do not subscribe to seeing the world only in terms of black, white, Asian, etc. with the choice of putting up with a constant stream of racial epithets in certain Wikipedia articles, or going elsewhere for a better read, jguk09:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hyperbole much? In all my time on WP I've never seen an article that contained "a constant stream racial epithets". That kind of absurd overdramatization does a profound disservice to our editors and it also cheapens and degrades the topic at hand. --Doc TropicsMessage in a bottle10:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, an apartheid system does pretty much assert one race is better than another. There hasn't been an example in history where an apartheid system has offered equally good life to different races, so your example is a straw man (Even the crime of apartheid under the UN's definition explicitly includes oppression as part of the definition). ColourBurst15:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So I'm reading some gross generalizations above, that there's an overemphasis on race in Wikipedia. Please show me a few examples of articles which overemphasize race to the point of racism. I'm reading that race is not important to us, so mentioning it is apartheid and racist. I may not find someone's date of birth, age, place of birth, citizenship, religion to be significant, but I don't think that these things should be removed from articles because someone out there will perceive the very facts to be ageist, nationalist, religionist or racist. So please explain how apartheid has been manifested in Wikipedia. Also, please name a few of the racist categories.
If there's really a perceived problem, I don't see it, so let's make the discussion a bit more concrete. —MichaelZ. 2006-10-30 00:02 Z
Is a Personal "User Watchlist" ok?
Today I came across a personal "user watchlist" as a subpage of an editor's user talk. It's meant to be a list of editors that the editor in question feels should be watched for controversial or problematic activities. It just doesn't feel right to me, too much like a personal attack. Any comments? --Zeraeph23:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This has come up quite a bit recently and caused a number of controversies. As I understand it the current consensus is that such pages are probably ok if they are "generic" (ie, give no real indication of their purpose), but a list titled "Troublemakers" or "Editors to always vote against" would most likely be deleted. Of course the existence of these pages can be (and always is) discovered, usually by someone who is on the list; this generally leads to unpleasentness regardless of the original intent of the page. At this point there is no policy against such pages but some Admins may delete them on sight. --Doc TropicsMessage in a bottle23:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've got a javascript tool that sort of does what you describe. Personally, I think if you want to see what a certain user is doing, you can easily look at their contributions page without doing anything wrong. I'd say a user watchlist is just a way to aggregate this information about multiple users without having to visit each one of their contributions pages individually. The problem, as you describe it, comes when you publicly list who you're watching. People could take offence if they find their name listed there. I think it's probably best if the list is kept somewhere confidential either inside a normal watchlist (which my tool does) or off Wikipedia. Tra(Talk)00:06, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is indeed somewhat controversial. My opinion would be that what matters is how (if at all) the list is described. Having a "list of Foo users" isn't really substantially different from saying "this user is a Foo" — if the latter would constitute a personal attack, then so does the former. A special case to keep in mind is that an undescribed (or very vaguely or evasively described) list may lead people to assume less-than-innocent motives. The general rule applies here: when what you're doing is not obvious, explain yourself. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is clearly described as "monitoring vandals and other problematic editors", that's what worries me, particularly as the last editor listed doesn't qualify at all IMHO. --Zeraeph01:06, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While many are understandably upset by pages like this, they do have some legitimate uses and can be a useful tool for responsible editors and admins, especially those who frequently deal with vandals and troublesome users. As always, we should assume good faith in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary. --Doc TropicsMessage in a bottle04:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure, whether publicized on a user's subpage or scribbled on a piece of paper, several editors have a short list of people they watch closely. However, it erodes good faith to publicize such a short list in a derogatory fashion. Terryeo08:38, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I am aware ArbCom has actually approved of such lists in the past. I have, however, always seen this as a mistake. Such a page is really nothing more than an attack page - a public statement that that user intends to stalk and harrass those on their watchlist, exercising a personal, and often immediate, veto on anything they disagree with. It is also a clear statement that the person maintaining the watchlist assumes those listed on it are acting in bad faith, jguk09:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on the list. At one point, I had a list that included several users who were knowlegable contributors, but had a poor grasp of spelling. Spellchecking articles recently edited by those users is hardly "harassment". --Carnildo10:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
These are controversial, and I always point out a similar effect can be achieved through an internet browser's bookmark facility. That seems to solve all problems to me. Steve blockTalk08:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Quite. There's no need to have a public user watchlist at all - unless you want to publicise your nastiness. And, of course, there's nothing to stop you having a private user watchlist if that's the sort of person you are, jguk13:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The content is distributed via a site which is both well known and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster.
There's a few instances where people have tried to use this to push through software (like self-published games and mods) that otherwise has no mentions (or passing mentions) in third-party sources, by claiming that the software is distributed through something like tucows, download.com or gamespot (these sites don't really establish notability, they have many, many pieces of software under their wing, and the quality varies wildly). I don't think this was the intention of WP:WEB's 3rd criterion (my belief is that it's used mainly for articles, like a blog/news site that's under the umbrella of a larger publisher, Slate (magazine) being the offhand example) That criterion really needs to be clarified. ColourBurst02:40, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why it goes on
^ Content that is distributed by independent online sites will almost certainly satisfy the first criterion. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of such content will be complete regardless. For example, Ricky Gervais had a podcast distributed by The Guardian. Such distributions should be nontrivial. Although GeoCities and Newgrounds are exceedingly well known, hosting content on them is trivial.
Free encyclopedia: priceless. —MichaelZ. 2006-10-29 07:03 Z
Seconded; WP is priceless...it goes way beyond business and narrow interests.--User:Zaorish
That value would be considerably less if it were for-profit, as the vast majority of the current editors would leave to form their own non-profit fork. User:Zoe|(talk)18:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's an enteresting point. Also, If WP were to suddenly go for-profit, I could see editors suing WP for the collective millions of hours of free editing and such. Sure, it's released under the GFDL, but editors were "signing" (so to speak) under the impression that they were contributing to a non-profit. It would be sort of like the American Cancer Society taking everyone's donation money and opening up a cigarette factory, or the Red Cross buying nukes and invading countries. I have no idea how such a case would work out, but it's an interesting (if slightly chilling) thing to think about. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind19:14, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand the situation (hey, whatta I know), a very, very small handful of persons are waxing wealthy from the efforts of a very, very large group of editors who contribute to Wikipedia in an effort to be helpful to their fellow man. The small handful of people who control inflowed contributions would be most unlikely to upset the apple cart. Terryeo21:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I watched a Maine Senatorial Campaign Debate. Is posting about it O.R. ?
I wrote down pretty much the whole thing, so I'm confident my quotes are accurate. Can I post what, say, Senator Olympia Snowe said about the Iraq war, especially because she's changed her position from what's on her article?
--User:Zaorish
(ec) Reporting on something you witnessed would indeed be original reporting - in this case, you should wait for media to report on the debate, as they indubitably will, and then use those as reputable sources for the quotes. In any case, in such political elections I'm sure the entire transcript will be published by a news source or organization somewhere, and you could then cite those sources to ensure verifiability. However, our sister project Wikinews has a policy encouraging first-hand reporting, and I'm sure they would appreciate your contributions to making an article on the debate, if appropriate. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict...) I've seen people cite video sources. But to be reliable, I would say that there has to be some way of us verifying it other than that we happened to be watching at the time. I.e. a transcript is available somewhere, a tape of the debate is available, etc. --W.marsh16:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Request for information about content policies
There is a discussion on the Dutch Wikipedia about the necessity of citing sources. People use the following arguments: "It would cost too much work to add sources for all articles because there are so many articles without", "I have no reason to lie about these things", "I know because I have an academic education", "I know because I was there" or "I know because I am a specialist". Implicitly, the debate is about the application of two out of the three English Wikipedia content policies, namely Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. In need for stronger arguments, I would like to know whether there are any official(ly authorized) documents about content policies that apply for all language versions of Wikipedia. Could anybody help me with this? Best regards, Ilse@21:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know. The only "core policy", WP:NPOV (as I understand it) arrives at presenting a Neutral Point of View by presenting Published Information (from a single point of view) (and then published information from a single point of view) (and then published information from another single point of view). Terryeo22:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's kind of odd that other Wikipedias are so different than wp-en... arguments like that were ones we had here in 2003/2004 and have long since been dismissed by nearly everyone. As far as I know the foundation is behind the principles of WP:V (only adding claims if they're backed up by a source). I think a lot of people confuse that with "you must cite a source to say anything" but it really just means that you must be able to cite a source if people doubt your claims are actually from one, and not your own opinion.
As for official documents, I dunno offhand, except in WP:V we mention a quote from Jimbo "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." --W.marsh22:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your replies.
After rereading many pages on policies, I think the best support for WP:NOR is in the Dutch policy that says "Wikipedia is not for essays with your own ideas about a topic".
I must confess that in the discussion I also confuse WP:V with "you must cite a source to say anything", occasionally. For me the following quote from WP:V makes the exact difference more clear: "Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article". That leaves one question about validity. The Jimmy Wales quote you give here is from the mailing list for "discussing issues relating particularly to the English language Wikipedia". Can I interpret "Jimbo Wales as ultimate authority on any matter" in such a way that the statement in the quote is also valid for the Dutch Wikipedia? - Ilse@23:29, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You can cite him as a source, but I don't know that it's considered binding. I think I read somewhere (don't ask me to find it) that he basically encouraged the non-English wikis to go off and govern themselves, or thoughts to that effect. Maybe smaller wikis are just starting to face the issues that :en already had to address and hammer out policies for. Fan-196723:59, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think this goes beyond just self-governance issues though, as Jimbo's quote is largely about making sure we don't leave libel in articles. (almost) all servers are located in the US, no matter what language the Wikipedia is, so the same legal issues apply to all of them, even if the most common ones concern wp-en. Anyway, maybe some other people will be able to help you out with more specific policy quotes. If not, you might ask Jimbo or Brad for clarification, because this is an important issue. --W.marsh00:05, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It comes down to credibility. If you make a claim and no-one knows what foundation you have for it, why should anyone believe it? And what value to do place on an article that you are not sure you can believe or not?
Really it is a matter of best practice when writing anything technical to refer to your sources for all new information that you seek to introduce. So, forget whether Jimbo has made a binding statement about it for non-English wikis - look at the big picture. Always quote your sources, jguk13:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Politically motivated AfD's: the elephant in the room
It seems like Politically motivated AfDs are the "elephant in the room"--which everyone sees, but no one can mention. Certain editors will go around in groups (some people call them "cabals") and actively push their own narrow POV.
It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will vote to delete pages which are against their political beliefs, yet fervently support to keep similar pages which suport their political beliefs.
Partisan editors voting record is clear--if an article is against their narrow POV, no matter how well written it is, how well sourced it is, etc, it will be put up for deletion, and this little group will vote against it. I have been an editor for just over a year, and I have been troubled by the amount of articles which have been deleted by partisans of ALL political persuasions, right or left.
It is clear that certain editors are doing it because they are biased and slanted, but no wikieditor can actually bring this up. When another wikieditor brings it up, people scream WP:NPA. I support WP:NPA fully, but in some cases, policies are detrimental. WP:IAR? Policies are tools to help us wikieditors build a better encyclopedia. When a small group of users is actively deleting well referenced material because of political bias, then the policy rule needs to be reevaluated.
Why is the word (insert title here) cabal so off limits?
Why when anyone brings up the subject, they are heckled off the talk page?
One user suggest this:
If an editor or a group of editors is pushing a narrow POV then follow the dispute resolution process. I know it's a lot of work, but going through the trouble of presenting a case with evidence and diffs is what's needed to rise above (possibly subjective) accusations of POV pushing.
If cool, rational discussion between editors doesn't work (or isn't possible), then the Dispute Resolution process is the best option. Taking unilateral actions or appearing uncivil can only hurt your case. It can be slow and, yes, tedious, but the process is still your best bet. Good luck. --Doc TropicsMessage in a bottle23:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
User:Doc Tropics Thanks for your comments.
I am just wondering if there is any system which is faster, which has been proposed before. WP:DR is tedious, and can be disruptive to all of the editors involved. I am concerned how much well researched information is deleted on wikipedia, often by editors who have agendas and strong POVs.
I am looking for editor suggestions, other than the tedious WP:DR.
"Taking unilateral actions or appearing uncivil can only hurt your case." I agree 100%, I was once booted for being uncivil on an AfD and for singling out one editor. Travb (talk) 00:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
* First, discuss the topic on its discussion page. In some instances, some discussion on an individual editor's page might be helpful, too. In some cases, not.
* Get other editors involved. Cite the article which appears to be "owned" by a "cabal" on a discussion page like this one where additional editors might view what is going on. Often enough, just getting 2 or 3 more editors with a fresh point of view irons the wrinkles which are preventing a reasonable, neutral article.
* There is the process of WP:Mediation and Request for comment and so on.
* In the other direction, WP:DE (Disrutive Editors) is a new guideline which is still being hammered out, but you might find some help there if you post your example to its discussion page. Terryeo01:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will attempt to squelch 9/11 consipracy theories by putting these articles up for deletion. (Just for the record, I do not support any 9/11 consipracy theories)
Another example is a user's page, who actively attempts to delete all conspircy theories:
I am sure there are other user pages like this. I bring this one up simply because it is the only one I am aware of. Any other editors now of others? Travb (talk) 03:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While this is a reasonnable concern, I find your example pretty unconvincing. I, for one, have voted on a couple of these 9/11 AfDs and even added a couple to GabrielF's list if I remember correctly. But I fail to see how why this should be viewed as a political question. You seem to assume some political motive behind this string of deletions but I see no evidence of this. I'm not American and I don't have a political agenda around here and to me this is just another effort to clean up some of the cruftiness. I view that particular list like I would the equivalent list that would point out the Pokemon cruft. The few 9/11 conspiracy I got involved in concerned not-so-notable 9/11 truth movement participants, were for the most part blatantly point of view and seemed to exist mainly to give credibility to far-flung theories of the nonsense. To me their deletion was less a political act than their creation was... Are cabals a real problem? maybe. Are politically motivated cabals a problem? I have yet to see convincing evidence that they exist. Pascal.Tesson01:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is only one example, I don't want to get in a debate about this one example, I am only interested in the problem in general...Travb (talk) 03:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The example travb offers does not support the accusation's he's making. I didn't create that userpage to eliminate articles because of their subject matter, I created it because there were a flood of non-notable 9/11 conspiracy articles nominated for deletion around the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and I thought it would be useful to create a list of them. Please understand that article's weren't nominated because someone disagreed with their subject matter - nobody nominated Alex Jones for example - they were nominated because they were essentially free publicity for non-notable people and books. As evidence of this, I suggest that readers examine the AfD discussions linked to at the page in question. You'll see that 46 of about 55 AfDs were deleted or merged and many of the nominations were not challenged. We are not "squelching" anything by nominating an article about a book that appears in fewer than 40 libraries in the world for deletion. Furthermore, I explicitly state at the top of my page that articles can only be listed if the nominator believes the article inherently violates some policy such as notability guidelines. Finally, the page is completely transparent - anyone can add to it or comment on a listing. GabrielF03:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
User:GabrielF, maybe it is a bad example, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and moved it from the main question. I hesitated to use examples, and maybe I shouldn't have. The reason why I probably should't have including examples is because I don't want to get in an argument here about which pages should be deleted and which should not. I have simply noticed that some editors will vote for a page's deletion regardless of the content. With some editors you can guess how they will vote in an AfD before even seeing the AfD. If your page, User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard does not fall into this catgory, my apologies. Travb (talk) 03:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, but then I still wonder whether if the elephant is really in the room. Groups of editors have indeed, at times, acted as a single block in a sequence of AfDs, regardless of content. This has happened for instance in the case of school AfDs (to cite but one example). But I don't know of a case that one can seriously consider as politically motivated. Pascal.Tesson04:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe ideologically motivated would be a better description. Again, arguing whether or not 9/11 conspiracies should or should not be on wikipedia was not my intention in writing this talk page topic. It is clear now that it was definetly a mistake to use any examples at all. Thanks for your comments Pascal. Travb (talk) 11:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While this appears a perfectly good example one needs to anayse things one has no access to. For example there appeared to be, but may not have been, a core of editors who wished the 9/11 Controlled demolition article to be deleted, and their rationale appeared to be able to be said to be "George Bush is right, so there". Agaknst the deletion arguments were a group of people who appeared to think that "It has to have been conspiracy, so the article must stand". In all probability each apparenty partisan grouping cancels the other out. A good closing admin will also be able to spot spurious arguments and discount them. It is not a ballot, after all.
In the middle ground are those who argue Wikipedia's corner. Put plain, a good, notable, verifiable, well sourced article shoudl stay and the rest shoudl either be improved to that standard duringthe AfD process or go. Taking the 9/11 article I mentioned, the closing admin did just that, and several editors have been battling with the article to make sure it can no longer be criticised. That is a valid outcome for a work of reference such as this. Also any ashortcomings in the article can be highlighted on its talk page and improved.
There are different results with Schools. For example it had long been held that a Primary School was not inherently notable and worthy of an article, but a secndary or high school was. There was a sudden rash of sub-stubs from a less than communicative yet prolific editor that generated many AfDs. The often used argument against deletion came from the same names and was on the basis that "Every school is worthy of an article". The deletion arguments came from others with the view that the long held view of deletion od primary schools (or better the non creatioon of the articles) was necessary unless there was inherent notability. Verifiability alone was not and should not be enough, for even the smallest school is verifiable
The Elephant in the Room is probably not politics, but is dogma. And it appears that it is on each "side" of a deletion discussion. But it is also easy to see "cabals" where none exist. People have often shared the same opinions but have not even been loosely grouped together. Fiddle Faddle12:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"All" we need is what we have: sufficient Wikipedia oriented editors and Wikipedia oriented admins to be able to recognise the danger of Room Elephants of this nature, and to neutralise that danger when closing AfDs. It really does not matter if 10 people yell "Delete" or "Keep" with no rationale except "I want it to be (choose your action)", or "My brand of dogma says it must be (choose your action)" and only one presents a cogent argument for the reverse. The good admin will close it to meet the cogent argument coiupled with their understanding of the article and Wikipedia policies and guidlines. A good admin needs to see past spurious "but it passes [[WP:Invent a reason here]], so it must stay" too.
This is one reason I do not wish to be an admin. So much rests on an admin's shoulders in terms of getting it right that the role is one that very few people are likely to do well. We're lucky that so many of our admins do not display bias. We have a few who appear to display it, which also makes us unlucky. But we do have community scrutiny. After all, if you show me an editor or an admin who has never made a mistake I think I can show you one who is new to the role.
I do believe that admins and only admins should close AfDs. And I believe that the admin who closes a heated AfD has a clear duty to explain the decision. An excellent example is the closing rationale here. It does not matter whether one agrees with or disagrees with the decision; that is a completely different discussion. What matters is that one can see the process clearly. In this case the discussion remained live until the point the admin froze it before closing it, because time was needed to consider the huge number of points made by the various contributors. It was a reasonable interval later that the results were published. And the rationale is clear to see for any subsequent review by us, the community. Fiddle Faddle17:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Two responses:
AfD is not a vote. Votes made with a biased justification, or without justification, would typically be disregarded.
Only articles with severe, irreparable bias can be deleted on the basis of bias. More often, if an article has a bias, someone who opposes it can simultaneously improve the encyclopedia and promote their own POV by making it more neutral. This is the invisible hand of wiki at work.
Pornography as defined in the United States by the FCC and its inclusion on this Encyclopedia
Dear Wikipedia,
I would very much like to express my regrets at the inclusion of pictures of erect male genetalia. Specifically the aricle "Penis". Having found this web-site to be, in my own words to my friends and peers, "the best thing on the web", I was more than a little put out to realize that it contained images which are classified as pornography in the United States.
I attempted to rectify this, and my edits were immediately removed.
Now, should all of you wish your daughters to view erect male penises, please shout me down and I will (perhaps) leave you in peace. But I cannot help but think that this is one (perhaps the ONLY) area where I feel that the inclusion of these photos is a matter of opinion, and a bad one at that.
We should be making a resources for ourselves and our children. Should we allow pictures of erect penises? Any penises? Can I put a picture of mine up? Are pictures of naked children acceptable? Should we include links to pornography sites?
There is, apparently a line. It is my opinion that it has been crossed. Please clarify where this line is for me so I can include your policy to my congressmen.
See WP:NOT (censored), which spells the line out (everything encyclopedic that is not illegal in Florida is fine for Wikipedia). Also, the mere image of a penis, erect or not, is not pornography. I just checked the article and found nothing that was a "prurient depiction of sexual acts" or "appealed to the prurient interests". If you are not happy with this policy, you can either fork the knowledge base and create a bowlderized kid's version of Wikipedia, or refrain from using it. --Stephan Schulz01:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This topic comes up on a near-daily basis and the bottom line is: Wikipedia is not censored for children. On the other hand, your last comment comes perilously close to violating our no legal threats policy. If you wish to remain active on WP you need to be very careful about how you phrase things like that. --Doc TropicsMessage in a bottle
I fully agree with the above first reply, and there is every reason to have a picture of a penis in an article about penises. I wish to extend this point to some of the picture galleries which can be found in userspace (examples found here - NOT SAFE FOR WORK) which are displayed to demonstrate the point that Wikipedia is not censored. Just as a picture of a young child with their clothes on is not normally considered to be child pornography, a whole collection is often considered unhealthy, and in many jurisdictions, prosecuted under obscenity laws. Some of these galleries may indeed "appeal to prurient interests". Can someone explain how they are to be judged under US laws? -- Jim18202:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the galleries may, but I don't think your gallery is an example. Overall, under US law only obscene content is not protected by the first amendment. To be considered obscene, any work would have to pass the Miller test, which includes (among others), a test if "the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". Unless the supreme court revises this standard, Wikipedia is very safe. --Stephan Schulz02:15, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please do send a copy of our policy to your congressman. I'd get a really big kick out of some politician trying to argue that a picture of a penis in the Penis article of an encyclopedia should somehow be banned. If you'll excuse the sarcasm, I also heard that the Digital Urology Jounrnal is waaaaaay pornographic. Pascal.Tesson02:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm horrified by the idea that pictures of penises (erect and flacid) wouldn't be available on the penis article. I very much do want my daughter to be able to find out what a penis looks like without having to walk up to a man and ask him to show her. An encyclopedia seems like a great place for her to satisfy her curiosity. --Siobhan Hansa02:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's no good. I simply can't resist it. At what point of erection does the penis become "obscene"? Before answering consider that not all penises rise to the occasion. Some point downwards. Fiddle Faddle20:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
According to The Brethren, at least one U.S. Supreme Court Justice used exactly this standard in obscenity cases, although he didn't mention it in the published opinions. (Personally, I think we could live without some of the raunchier content here, but I know the community consensus is the other way.) Newyorkbrad01:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We're not censored. Especially not for young children. If it's appropriate to the article, keep it. If you genuinely have legal concerns or wish to take legal action, the person you want to contact is wikipedia's official legal advisor User:BradPatrick. legal threats are otherwise not allowed. After looking at Special:Contributions/Xchanter, this is starting to look suspicious like trolling. --`/aksha02:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For any users interested, the convening user above (Xchanter) appears to have been trolling. His talk page has a followup discussion where he self destructed and has been blocked for 24 hours pending further review. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 06:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I wish my daughter (and yes, I do have one) to view pictures of erect penises. I don't really think she has any interest in the matter at her age but when she does, I want her to see a real photo of a real penis and I would strongly prefer that she sees it in a neutral context. Yes, you may upload a photo of your erect penis. Note that unless it is a substantial improvement over existing male organs, it may be deleted as redundant. I would particularly like you to upload a GFDL-licensed illustration of autofellatio. No, photos of naked children are probably not acceptable; these almost always qualify as child porno, forbidden by US and especially Florida law. Please copy our censorship policy to your congressman; I'm sure it will be of public good to demonstrate a balanced application of the First Amendment to our public servants. Thank you. John Reid18:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
At any rate, FCC policy on censorship applies only to broadcasts in the public airwaves, not to other media such as cable TV or the Internet. These boundaries could always be subject to change due to legislation or litigation. There are some trying to get broadcast decency rules extended to cable, while others would like to get a test case up to the Supreme Court which might overturn government authority to censor the airwaves at all given technological and cultural changes since the last (1978) decision in that area. However, attempts to censor the Internet in this manner (the Communications Decency Act, for instance) have been overturned by court rulings, with the exception of a requirement that schools and libraries with federal Internet funding apply filtering. *Dan T.*19:05, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A couple legal clarifications to elaborate on your comments: the internet filtering case was decided based upon the ability of Congress to impose conditions on the receipt of federal funds, not upon any power of the government to regulate internet content. FCC indecency regulation was upheld as constitutional because broadcast radio and television is subject to reduced First Amendment protection. As you suggested, if anything will change it's the disfavored treatment of broadcast speech (and hopefully the completely irrational fear/disparagement of nudity and sexual speech and imagery generally), not the extension of those restrictions to other contexts. Postdlf19:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe this is stereotyping on my part, but I envision this sort of complaint as coming from a parent in a small United States community (they usually use U.S. English or cite U.S. law) and I imagine the same person would - in another context - condemn censorship in China and Saudi Arabia. Sixteen years ago, when Saudi censors prohibited U.S. troops on its soil from having access to Cosmopolitan magazine and Chinese censors blacked out stories about Tienanmen Square, these issues seemed entirely separate. Now we live in a smaller world. Wikipedia isn't a community publication or even a national one. People in mainland China only recently regained access to most of the English language Wikipedia after a year of total firewalling and they still can't read Wikipedia's Chinese language edition. Nearly one human being in five is affected by that censorship, which in itself is enough reason to oppose efforts to censor Wikipedia at an organizational level: the establishment of any such precedent would become a wedge for further censorship. It's simple to solve a perceived problem in one's own home. Just filter access in the home through parental control software or lock out the site and send the kids to a family-friendly Wikipedia mirror. When the children become more mature they'll appreciate the additional lessons in civics and free expression. Durova20:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While I don't disagree with you in any way, shape, or form, I strongly advise against getting worked up about this user; he's already been banned once, and if he continues trolling, will most likely be perma-banned. It is entirely possible the above was posted specifically to get a rise out of people. Just take a deep breath, mutter a few choice obscenities, and walk away. :-) EVula20:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The legislation that actually applies here is COPPA. We are regulated by the FTC (not the FCC) according to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act which is in force. That doesn't depend on locale, only on the fact our servers are in the United States. Also, we are protected by the claim that our material is educational. Issues arise when material is used in a way that can't be justified as educational. However, putting a penis on Penis is a pretty clear educational use so no one need fear it will be removed. How ever Europeans like to complain about prudish Americans, the fact is our server resides in the US and so must follow the laws of that country. pschemp | talk01:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
An RfArb has been opened on the subject of the policy proposal Protecting children's privacy. I must ask at the outset that my fellow editors refrain from commenting here, within this little section, on the merits of this proposal. It may be good or bad; that's not the issue I wish to discuss. I'm concerned about it before ArbCom.
The Arbitration Committee is our court of last resort; there is no appeal from its final decisions except to the person of Jimbo. ArbCom makes its own rules and hears whatever cases it likes. It has almost invariably confined itself to issues involving user conduct, including admins and other editors; it consistently rejects cases which are purely article content disputes. This is as it should be. ArbCom is not answerable to our community. This is a necessary evil.
We have a mechanism for creating project-wide policy; it involves the discussion of all interested community members and may result in consensus. This is the mechanism by which the vast majority of proposals are made, amended, and passed into policy or rejected. This is as it should be. The mechanism is inefficient, frequently raucous, and does not always work as we might wish. This is a necessary evil.
We do not, under any circumstances, want ArbCom to rule on the status of a policy proposal. If the discussion on a proposal gets heated, as it so often does, we ask editors to cool out; if they don't, we ask admins to warn, then block them. We may employ other steps in dispute resolution. So long as discussion continues without participants exceeding the limits permitted in discussion, all is well -- regardless of the status of the proposal on the table.
If admins fail in their duties and begin to wheel war, then we resort to ArbCom. Quite simply, the only sure way to terminate a wheel war is to take away sysop privileges from the warriors. Technically, only a Steward can do this; politically, Stewards heed only ArbCom on this project. ArbCom thus holds the big stick in wheel wars and can stop them by deadminning or threatening to deadmin. This is what ArbCom is for and this is all we need.
If we permit or, worse, encourage ArbCom to rule on policy matters, then they become not only our supreme-and-only-court but also our legislators. Whenever a policy discussion starts to go against you, you just bring it to ArbCom; if enough arbitrators are sympathetic, your problem is solved without any further discussion or messy consensus. Indeed, policy discussion is now pointless, mere heckling from the peanut gallery. ArbCom makes all the rules. We do not want to buy a ticket to this destination.
Until now, ArbCom has acted with restraint and confined itself to user conduct issues. Now, with 5 arbitrators in favor of hearing this case, it looks as though they wish to decide policy for us as well.
I strongly urge all community members, new and old, to protest this power shift. This is our community. It will only remain ours so long as we keep a hand on it. John Reid19:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I share your alarm here. From what I understand, the ArbCom is not being asked "should we use proposal A or proposal B as policy?", or is it invited to impose a compromise policy. It is being asked to decide whether WP:CHILD should be
tagged as a failed proposal (which one group supports)
considered as policy given the broad support that another group is claiming
sent back for more discussion in the hope of garnering a significant consensus (I don't think anyone really wants that)
I want more discussion. I'd prefer that the discussion remain civil and that people tag the proposal with care. (There is indeed a new tag for such polarized discussions of proposed policies: {{polarized-proposal}}.) I would like to expect that everyone will conduct himself properly; that nobody will edit war, tag war, or cite the proposal as "policy" if it has not garnered consensus. If someone should forget himself, I hope that he is cautioned civilly; if that fails, I hope he is blocked judiciously. I trust admins involved in such blocking to do so with complete disregard for the substantive issue, blocking only to remove stubborn, disruptive editors from the table; I'd like to believe that all involved admins will be mindful of our no wheel warring policy and discuss such blocks among themselves, rather than block war. If the proposal itself becomes too unstable, I expect admins to protect it from further editing, while permitting discussion to continue on talk. Of course, I wish to think that involved admins will avoid protect-warring at all costs by discussing the process issue among themselves. Finally, if some of my expectations are not met and weak admins do wheel war, then I expect a case to be brought to ArbCom -- a case involving user conduct.
In short, I want our process of policy formation to play itself out. I do not want to see it aborted by ArbCom or anybody else. Am I alone? John Reid00:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I broadly agree with John Reid. My stance is simple: if the protection of children's privacy is an urgent issue, then it is urgent enough for the Wikimedia Foundation to hand down a policy. Especially if we are indeed breaching this American COPPA law if we don't have it. Otherwise, leave it to the community. The Arbcom should preserve its status as the last resort for conduct issues, not the place where everyone goes if they're bored with discussion. I've made a suggestion in the Workshop along these lines, which would amount to the Arbcom endorsing the status quo with respect to them formulating policy. --Sam Blanning(talk)03:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Using this template is not ideal, because it means that the page will not render properly for browsers that do not support css. Therefore, this type of feature is permitted only in userspace. It is still possible to see the 'official' page title by looking in the title bar. Tra(Talk)21:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
At the very least, it's highly obnoxious -- I am inclined towards the idea that such things should removed on sight for faking the software interface. --Improv21:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Who permitted this, even only in userspace? I say the right to edit our userspace ends at the page title. Nobody should have to go searching for some alternate means of getting information from a standardized interface just because of someone's stylistic fancies. Femto22:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed that whenever Japanese names are mentioned on Wikipedia they are written in an inconsistent fashion. The convential Japanese way of writing names is to write the family name first, then the given name second, in contrast to the Western tradition of given names first and family names second.
Most of the articles which mention Japanese names do not state which format they are using, which could be a real problem for those who are not familiar with Japanese given names, and may not be able to distinguish otherwise between the two, and therefore may become confused as to which name is which, or, if they are completely unaware of the mistake, use the wrong name for the person altogether.
I think that it would be wise to implement a wikipedia policy regarding Japanese names to clarify which format they are to be written in primarily, and have this stated in the relevant articles.
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