Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Bluemoose (talk | contribs) at 15:28, 30 November 2006 (→‎[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Illustrated Wikipedia]]). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 
Shortcut
The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
This talk page is automatically archived by Werdnabot. Any sections older than 5 days are automatically archived to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive. Sections without timestamps are not archived.

Discussions older than 5 days (date of last made comment) are moved here. These discussions will be kept archived for 9 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 9 days the discussion can only be found through the page history.


South Asia versus Indian sub-continent

There's been a low-level edit war ongoing in various articles and templates relating to South Asia/the Indian sub-continent. A certain cadre of editors have been replacing the term "South Asia" with "Indian sub-continent." I and others have been reversing the edits, but the game of whack-a-mole doesn't seem to stop.

I did a google test on the two terms (in quotes, so as not to get partial matches) and there are 965,000 ghits for Indian sub-continent and 29,800,000 for South Asia. Indian sub-continent was the older term, in use during the British Raj; it seems still be in use primarily in the context of geology. However, since the sub-continent was split into five countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal) the term South Asia has replaced the older one, as not claiming the whole sub-continent for one of its parts. As we see from the ghits, South Asia is 30 times more common than the older term.

The Partition of India was a horrible, bloody disaster that is still sparking controversy, hatred, riots, massacres, and wars half a century later. I believe that the campaign to use the older term is politically motivated. It implies that the non-Indian nations on the sub-continent are somehow illegitimate.

Can we have a policy ruling that in any context OTHER than the geological or historical, that South Asia is the more common and the preferred term? If there's consensus that the use of the common term is preferable, in which policy statement should this be enshrined? Or do we write one from scratch? Zora 07:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Surely South Asia is not the same as the Subcontinent. I'm not sure most people would see Nepal and Bhutan as being in the subcontinent. Clearly Sri Lanka is in South Asia but not in the subcontinent. I'm sure there are other differences too. Use whichever term is most accurate for what you are saying, jguk 09:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think that South Asia, geologically (and politically), is actually in the subcontinent as well - it's presumably on the same tectonic plate as the rest of India? I understand that in some parts of the world, "Indian Subcontinent" may be politically charged, but at least where I live, it's a pretty neutral term that's not uncommon (among other things, I've heard my friends from that part of the world use it in a present-day context). --Improv 11:52, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When I took a graduate level course in the history of modern India and Pakistan, the preferred term for the region was "South Asia." I'm not sure it's possible to get a policy rulng on this, but you could certainly propose renaming the disputed articles. Notify me on my talk page and I'll participate in the discussion. Durova 15:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to second Durova. I don't think you can get a ruling, but I'd be very interested in the discussion. Just let me know. --Doc Tropics Message in a bottle 19:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

South Asia is not an obviously self-explanatory term. Why does it not include Saudi Arabia or Indochina, which are also the southern part of Asia?--Runcorn 21:01, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this is the problem with the term. When I read Sout Asiain the newspaper I am sure that the writer means at least India, but I am not sure what else the author means. Andries 23:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Indochina is part of South-East Asia not South Asia. I would say it's understood by most SEA including those in Indochina that they're a part of SEA not South Asia. Indeed I'm somewhat doubtful that many in Vietnam would say they're part of South Asia and also why only refer to Indochina? What about Indonesia, Myanmar etc? I agree that the term doesn't make perfect sense but I think it is the understood term. Indian subcontinent arguably isn't as clear as well. Is Sri Lanka part of the Indian subcontinent? What about Nepal and Bhutan? In any case, I would suggest until there is consensus changing existing references is a no-no. If these editors write new article then perhaps it would be acceptable but otherwise I would suggest not Nil Einne 00:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia's mission doesn't include redefining established academic terms. Durova 04:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have always seen "South Asia" as an Americanism. I don't think it's commonly used in Britain even today. And incidentally, Nepal and Bhutan were always independent - they weren't part of the partition, since they were never part of British India. The fact is that the area has been known as India for far, far longer than Pakistan has existed. To claim its use is politically motivated is flying in the face of the facts. -- Necrothesp 21:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it's used in the UK. Both Cambridge and Oxford have schools of South Asian Studies! Ghits, academic usage -- all point to South Asia as being preferred. Zora 05:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Southeast Asia vs South Asia is indeed a very confusing term, and I think that both are preferable to the Indian Subcontinent. It seems like South Asia is clearly the modern term. Cephyr 03:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, first I didn't say South Asia wasn't used in the UK. I said it wasn't commonly used in the UK. Big difference there. And second, you can never point to Google as a measure of world usage, since such a high percentage of webpages originate in the United States. -- Necrothesp 23:02, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What do the people that live there call it? That would seem to be the best choice. My feeling is that since the area including Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia is called South East Asia, then South Asia is logical. raining_girl 16:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the term South Asia has gained preference due to political correctness in lieu of smaller countries in the region that are much less often the subject of discussion. Here in India, the term has also gained popularity. Substituting South Asia for Indian sub-continent is less of an issue, but there is a tendency to substitute South Asia for India with which many in India would have a grouse: e.g. South Asian Entertainment (read Bollywood), South Asian Economy (read Indian Economy).
Also the term clubs India with its neighbours that are less successful economically and/or politically. (Try substituting "American" with "North American".) Though India has its fair share of internal problems, most of its neighbours can be categorized as troubled states (Fundamentalism in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Maoists in Nepal, LTTE in Sri Lanka). Compared to contemporary India, that projects an image of modest progress, South Asia comprises of countries that would be seen around the world as unstable and/or riddled with woes. A natural reaction by some in India then would be to view the term with skepticism. 09:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
"South Asia" is a perfectly good term; it's very clear what it means (the region of Asia comprising India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan). Nobody confuses this with Southeast Asia, so there's no problem with the use of this term. Badagnani 22:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I will have to aggree with jguk here (he says "Use whichever term is most accurate for what you are saying") South Asia is not same as India is not same as Indochina is not same as British-India. What bothers me most is when people talk of India and put then label it as South Asia. India so so much different than other countries. You can not Compare the countries here (like in Canada or USA). Japan is totally different from China and India is something totally different. So please use the terms which best indicates your point and do not generalize. If you are talking about Nepal do not say South Asia.Charles.2345 17:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Indian subcontinent is a perfectly good term. It refers to the geographical area, and there is no ambiguity which countries occupy the region bounded by the Hindu Kush in the West, The Himalaya/Karakorum in the North, the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Naga Hills in the east.Bakaman Bakatalk 05:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a graduate student in international studies so I feel I'm in a good position to throw in my opinion. While both terms are still used today, the more common term would be South Asia because not only does it not explicitly name only one country in the region while excluding others (such as Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangledesh) but, more importantly, its in line with the standard naming conventions of other regions of asia (such as Southeast Asia and Central Asia). --The Way 08:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indian subcontinent is fine. Don't see what the problem is.--D-Boy 08:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let me explain why "South Asia" is the term to use:

  • Google hits show that the term "South Asia" is 40 times more common than "Indian subcontinent".
  • Almost all (except one or two) universities have named the departments about the region's culture as "South Asian studies".
  • Major news outlets, for example BBC, have news sections titled "South Asia", NOT "Indian subcontinent"
  • United Nations uses "South Asia" 40 times more commonly than "Indian subcontinent"
  • UN agencies, such as the World Bank designates the region as South Asia, NOT Indian Subcontinent. [1]
  • Also, according to the statistical division of the United Nations, "South Asia" is a designated region [2], and documents from there exclusively mention "South Asia", with NO mention of "Indian subcontinent" for the region.

So, I don't see any quantitative argument for choosing IS over SA. Usage numbers show that South Asia is prevalently used over the older term, Indian Subcontinent. Thanks. --Ragib 08:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"South Asia" was just a "political" term invented during 60's-70's .-Bharatveer 08:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to have to agree.--D-Boy 08:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whether it is a political term or not, is really irrelevant (and personal opinion). What matters is which one is more common, and I've shown above that South Asia is at least 40 times more common than the older term "Indian subcontinent", and almost all major world agencies, media, universities, publications use "South Asia". *That's* what matters in Wikipedia. QED. --Ragib 09:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The only thing that matters in wikipedia it seems is concensus and the people involved, THe group working on the matter are usually the people who care to make the changes. which was to be demonstrated!!--D-Boy 18:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My editing on articles on "Jacques Pluss" and "National Socialist Movement (USA)."

I noted that my recent editing on both of the articles above was removed. It was decided that I seemed to be using the articles to publish my own websites or blogs. New information was contained in those sources, but I do respect Wikipedia's decision, do not wish to contest your removal of my editing, and I thank you for your attention. Sincerely, Dr. Jacques PLUSS.

NPOV and WikiProjects

I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on how or whether WP:NPOV may govern WikiProjects. Note first that this is not a question about POV in actual article content. There's a particular WikiProject (which I don't want to identify yet) that currently has an explicitly POV goal as part of its mission statement, of the form "We want articles to show how great X is," and where X is a subject of which people have widely varying and intense views. This statement does not appear in the talk page article tags for that project, but those tags of course link directly to the WikiProject, which has the POV goal stated at the top of its front page. I've also seen it in userboxes for project members.

I am not a member of this project (nor am I familiar with anyone who is), nor do I regularly work on articles under its scope, so I haven't raised this on the project's talk page or attempted to remove it myself. It's also an issue that is likely to stir emotion for the project members, so I wanted to raise the abstract issue first before singling them out.

Should WikiProjects be treated as more akin to user clubs, in which case they can identify themselves and their goals with as much freedom as they'd have on their talk pages? Or do WikiProjects have too much "color of officiality" to be allowed to expressly espouse a POV goal, due to their Wikipedia namespace use and their pervasive article tagging? Postdlf 21:17, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good question - I have another question about wikiprojects. Can they create guidelines that conflict with overall wikipedia guidelines, overriding them? And is there an article somewhere that explains specifically what "power" wikiprojects have (if any)? --Milo H Minderbinder 21:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Postdlf: Violating NPOV is unacceptable for a project. We've deleted political wikiprojects for advocating POV editing before. Of course, if it's just something like a fiction-based project that wants to make people think Spongebob is great it's probably not worth raising a big fuss over. Just point out to them that their mission statement should have to do with improving the articles, not making people think their subject is awesome. (They can probably do whatever they want with the userboxes. Especially if they're in userspace.)
  • Minderbinder: That would depend on what the project was, what the official guidelines were, and what the project guidelines were. The official guideline might very well not make any sense when applied to a certain subclass of articles, in which case forcing compliance would be counterproductive. --tjstrf talk 21:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The specific one I'm looking at is at WP:LOST, specifically Wikipedia:WikiProject Lost/Episode guidelines which says that episode names for that show should always be disambiguated with a suffix to the name, whether another article shares that name or not. This contradicts WP:D and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television) (where there is some debate right now about changing the issue), both of which say that articles, including TV episodes, should only have a suffix to disambiguate if it shares a name with another article. In a case like this, can a wikiproject declare their own rules that are inconsistent with the rest of wikipedia? --Milo H Minderbinder 22:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not involved there, but I have seen other sets of articles where such a rule would make sense in contrast with the recent Munich Air Disaster debacle where project rules moved the article away from the title that it had been know by for over 30 years (And apparently just been reverted back - can't keep up with the moves there) Agathoclea 22:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Broadly speaking, a WikiProject's guidelines get their "power" from the fact that the members of the project—who are generally a large portion of the editors in a particular area—are presumably supporting them, not because of some partiular official status of the project itself. While WikiProjects shouldn't be coming up with things that conflict with major policies, I see nothing wrong with developing exceptions/special cases/etc. to issues of formatting, layout, usage, and so forth for particular areas where the Wikipedia-wide guidance may not make sense; this happens quite often, and is generally entirely uncontroversial. (In this case, for example, there may be good reasons for pre-emptive disambiguation; the best thing to do would be to ask the project why the particular guideline has been adopted.) Kirill Lokshin 02:10, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, seeing from the above comments that I'm likely right to think this is a problem, I'm going to point out Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity, which currently states that "WP Christianity desires that the Lord Jesus Christ is represented honorably and magnificently." "Honorably and magnificently" of course being rather different than Factually and neutrally (plus the whole issue of referring to Jesus as "the Lord"). This might be a recent addition to the page that the regular project members may not have noticed, so I can't say that this represents project consensus. Postdlf 23:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

hey, they can easily change that to "WP Christianity aims at representing in detail Christian views of Jesus Christ as lordly and magnificent", since that's what how it will turn out anyway (viz., statements "Christians believe..."). There is nothing wrong with people being motivated to document in detail what they think is cool. It will be different if projects all but instructed members to edit-war or circumvent consensus. As long as they just state that Jesus is their lord and that motivates them to write brilliant article about Christan theology, I can see nothing wrong with that (same for any other Wikiproject. People on Wikiproject Pokemon likely think Pokemons are cool, and while I think they are obnoxious, I won't rant against their project, or their drive to write articles about all aspects of their infatuation in insane detail) dab (ᛏ) 08:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But there's a big gap between a group who say that they want to create encyclopedic articles on Pokemon because they think Pokemon is cool, and a group who say that they want to ensure that all Pokemon-related articles reflect Pokemon's coolness. The first is just a matter of motivation, which is not anyone else's business anyway; the second promotes the violation of a core Wikipedia principle. I'm not familiar with WikiProject Pokemon's work, so I can't comment on which of these is actually the case for them. But in general we should not be permitting POV-pushers to organize on Wikipedia. -- Visviva 10:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As I see it, supporting POV editing is absolutely unacceptable in a WikiProject; it's not really acceptable anywhere on Wikipedia, but especially not in projects which are supposed to be focused on improving the encyclopedia. At the very least such a group should be moved to a descriptive title like "Association of Christian Wikipedians Who Oppose NPOV." But actually, I don't think any reasonable case can be made for tolerating statements of the sort quoted above. These POV cliques only act to poison our community discourse.
Concerning the matter of WikiProject "policy," this seems kind of ridiculous too. We have Wikipedia:Naming conventions (television) for a reason. If there is a case for a specific exception to that policy for Lost episodes, let the WikiProject editors make that case on the naming conventions talk page. If not, well ... anyone is free to ignore the naming conventions, of course, but it seems a little strange for a WikiProject to be *encouraging* people to do so. Such behavior only creates messes that other editors will have to clean up. -- Visviva 10:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm all for WikiProjects deciding their own standardization guidelines. There is no reason that we must drag every would-be standardization before the high wikjury when it only applies to .01% of our articles, and there's similarly no reason that our naming conventions should be forced to detail every single instance of exception. It's the easiest way to avoid process and bureacracy creep, and any action that's too egregarious can always be corrected by the community at large later. --tjstrf talk 11:19, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The debate at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television) seems to me to have sprung from an attempt by the community-at-large to do just that: to correct an exception that was established without sufficient reasoning. We have invited members of WikiProjects whose guidelines contradict the general guideline (and general Wikipedia practices on disambiguation) to join the conversation and express their views, and nearly all of them have accepted the arguments for avoiding preemptive disambiguation. However, Elonka's perspective seems to be that because a given WikiProject had previously established a guideline for articles in their field of interest, that guideline should be retained even though its members have not opposed it being changed. This seems nonsensical to me, and to several other admins participating in the discussion at [{WT:TV-NC]]. Elonka herself provided a very useful summary of the views of participating editors here, which Radiant and I interpreted as indicating a consensus in favor of the existing guideline. I believe that if members of a WikiProject have been invited to particpate in a wider discussion on multiple occasions, and a consensus emerges in that wider discussion that the WikiProject's guidelines should be changed, it is appropriate for that WikiProject to follow the greater consensus. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A majority does not necessarily mean consensus, if there are multiple editors voicing good faith objections. Also, my concern about over-ruling WikiProjects, is in situations where a WikiProject may have spent months going through an agonizing discussion and debate process about a particular matter, in order to reach a painful but ultimately satisfactory compromise on an issue. Then, after everyone's attention has gone on to other articles, a few non-WikiProject members raise a fuss about it, start a discussion in a different part of Wikipedia, and effectively subvert the entire consensus/mediation process. Especially when an original consensus was obtained by a group of editors who only check Wikipedia a few times per week, and then the consensus is challenged by editors who post multiple times per day, rapidly attacking anyone who disagrees with them, and if the original editors don't respond within a few days, they're written off as "not caring anymore." For myself, I tend to listen less to any editor who uses personal attacks and incivility while trying to get their point across. I would also point out that there are multiple editors in the naming conventions discussion who are pretty obvious sockpuppets (the only reason I haven't filed an RFCU check, is because I'm not certain who they're sockpuppets of). --Elonka 03:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, they're not obvious to me. In fact, I'm not even certain who you suspect of being a sockpuppet. But that's a digression from the core issue — if there was a "painful but ultimately satisfactory compromise" reached after "agonizing discussion and debate", there should be some evidence of this discussion and how it was reached. I've asked before, but I'll ask once again: where was this discussion? What were the reasons why Lost, in particular, made the decision to put suffixes on every episode article? How did you get from the actual mediation (which was on the issue of whether there should be episode articles at all, and makes no mention of how they should be titled) to the guideline you wrote? Where was the discussion of episode titling? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So if a couple editors vociferously objecting makes a non-consensus, then Elonka, how exactly do you define one? You obviously don't consider a supermajority (~80%) a consensus. You've admitted that unanimity isn't necessary. So what exactly would you consider a consensus? I don't see how wikipedia could ever get anything done if every time 20% or less of the people objecting to something made it "no consensus" and "disputed". You simply can't make everyone happy all the time. I'd also like to agree with Josiah's observation that the naming "guideline" on wikiproject lost was never mentioned in the mediation process by anyone but you, and was not a part of the proposal agreed apon [[3]]. Could you please stop making that incorrect and misleading claim? I'm not even convinced there was any consensus to do that, the rule was added by you to the episode guidelines[[4]], and then you cited your edit as "evidence" of consensus[[5]]. Basically, you made a rule, you insisted there was consensus for it, and people took your word for it, even there was no consensus. And now you're saying that a wikiproject isn't being allowed to make a decision, when that decision wasn't even really made by the wikiproject in the first place. --Milo H Minderbinder 14:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If there's an 80% consensus in a clean poll, sure, I can go along with supermajority. But when a poll's wording gets changed multiple times throughout its run, to the point where multiple people are complaining that their original opinions got twisted: [6][7][8][9][10] [11][12][13][14][15] [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] [25][26][27][28] [29][30] others are complaining that they can't participate because they can't figure out what's being talked about, and others who came along after the fact are repeating the call for a new poll [31], then no, that 80% doesn't mean much. In such a case, what needs to be done is to agree ahead of time on wording for a new poll, which should be run in a clean and stable manner. But of course those who were in the "majority" on the first poll are claiming consensus, and that the minority side were just "sore losers" and "whiners"[32][33][34]. Which incivility is even further proof to me that it's essential that the poll be run again, in a fair manner, to ensure genuine consensus. --Elonka 23:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So how specifically do you define consensus, assuming a clean poll? If there were to be another poll, what result would be needed for you to agree that it was consensus? (Also, if you want a "clean" poll, I'd recommend waiting until there is wording all parties agree on instead of trying to do it with wording that people have objected to.) --Milo H Minderbinder 23:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per Wikipedia:Consensus, 80% with a clean poll, would be sufficient for me, personally, to agree with supermajority. Possibly less depending on other factors/comments in the discussion. And yes, I agree that for best results, wording should be something that all parties agree on. The most recent version is at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#Proposed poll wording, feel free to suggest changes. --Elonka 09:01, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
At 80%, nothing would ever get done here. —Wknight94 (talk) 15:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ironically enough, Elonka, we already have 80% support over there on TV-NC. The first poll has 26 support and 7 opposse, and no one one the support side said they felt they got misrepresented. i believe 26 out of a total of 33 is 81.8% support. --`/aksha 12:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Very interesting. May I have permission to copy some of these comments to an active discussion on the matter, at Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (television)? There is currently an active debate there about the naming of episode articles, such as when is it appropriate to use a suffix such as (<series name> episode), and whether or not WikiProjects should have the right to set guidelines for their particular shows. Any interested editors are invited to comment, at Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (television)#Request for comment. --Elonka 08:54, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • In fact this debate has been going on for several weeks now, and a consensus has been reached on retaining the existing guideline at WP:D. Elonka is about the sole dissenter to this consensus. (Radiant) 09:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a general rule of thumb you can tell when a group of people know there goal is failing when they have to start pointing that xyz is the "only" one - FYI there is zero consensus for what you would like. MatthewFenton (talk • contribs • count • email) 10:10, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is an existing guideline (WP:D) which indicates prior consensus, and at the very least there is no consensus to changing that. Note that I didn't say Elonka was alone, I said she was about the sole dissenter. Meaning nearly alone. (Radiant) 10:32, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • In general, the point is that consensus among a small group (e.g. a wikiproject) cannot trump consensus among a larger group (e.g. the whole encyclopedia). As such, Wikiprojects are given a lot of leeway but should not in general break wikiwide-accepted standards. (Radiant) 09:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • What exactly are you taking issue with? Generally, guidelines are intended to be followed. And while exceptions are allowed, usually "but I don't want to" isn't considered a legitimate reason to ignore them. I'd hate to see the state of wikipedia if everyone considered "common sense exception" to mean all guidelines are optional and can be ignored for any reason. --Milo H Minderbinder 17:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Kirill Lokshin's statement above almost makes it sound like a Wikiproject can do anything it wants because the members of that project would be the only ones privy to its discussions and guidelines. In xyr Munich Air Disaster example, did the name of the article have anything to do with guidelines outside of the project? Or anything in the Wikipedia: space at all? I'm guessing not (but that's a wild guess so my apologies otherwise). In the case of the Lost project, the desire of 2 or 3 of its members is that they be allowed to override longstanding conventions at WP:TV-NC and WP:D - but they haven't yet given a convincing reason why and , worse, the discussions leading to that desire apparently took place entirely off-wiki. To me, it's akin to a few members of a comic book Wikiproject going off-wiki and suddenly deciding that the text of all of the articles the project "covers" will be 100% boldface - because the comic book they're covering is printed in 100% boldface. (If anything, the reasoning given for the Lost convention are actually less convincing than the ludicrous example I just gave.) Hopefully no one is entertaining the idea that such a thing would be acceptable. —Wknight94 (talk) 23:30, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm not quite sure how my statement could be read that way; all I was commenting on was that a WikiProject's guidelines were meaningful because they (presumably) represented a consensus of editors working on some particular topic. (Which is not to say that WikiProjects can do unreasonable things; but, if the editors who are actually writing articles on X decide that some section of the MoS doesn't make sense for those articles and come up with a reasonable alternative, I see no reason to reject it out of hand because the MoS is "more official" than the WikiProject.) Kirill Lokshin 23:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Avoiding Disputes: Mandatory Editing Lag

It seems to me there's a simple solution to avoiding many content disputes: Prohibit editors from "camping" on a page in the first place. After an edit, prohibit the editor from any further changes to that article for several (30+) days.

The delay is acceptable since its unlikely the editor will "discover" new, known, verifiable content relevant to the article in a matter of days. If this does happen, they can post their citation or change to the talk page and let someone else incorporate the content into the article, should someone see fit to do so. Meanwhile, if that page gets vandalized or otherwise made incorrect, one should -- in assuming good faith -- trust the invisible hand of Wikipedia with its many eyes to solve the problem.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. However well-intended, the views of those with the most time on their hands seem to prevail. I've run into enough of these "article guardians" through experience and observation to be generally discouraged from participating in what is otherwise worthwhile project, and urge this remedy be adopted.

CleffedUp 10:59, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Awful idea. Many people do e.g. proofreading one paragraph at a time (to minimize edit conflicts) or as they encounter typos. Also, what is to stop people from using several (30+) accounts to cycle through on a daily basis to avoid the prohibition? And no, it is not unlikely to "discover" new, known, verifiable content relevant to the article in a matter of days. When I'm interested in a topic, I often start digging and find out more information, typically on a time scale of some hours. --Stephan Schulz 11:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's nothing to stop someone from creating multple account for other reasons today, nor would an IP block be perfect. As for your hours timescale, if your depth of knowledge in an area is measured in hours, should you really be contributing to an article on the subject? CleffedUp 16:44, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly. We have tried the other thing, see Nupedia. I'm scientifically literate, and an expert on some subfields of automated reasoning. But an encyclopedic article gives an overview, not an in-depth treatment of its subject. At that level, I can easily find (and have found) contributions that are useful in a few hours. You have also failed to address the issue of incremental improvements (typos, wikilinks, "see also", ...).--Stephan Schulz 17:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Incremental edits could be implemented as a planned batch, e.g. I typed my many replies to these threads in notepad, and cut and pasted into the text box. For legitimate new content, there is always the talk page where someone can aggregate and make those changes. CleffedUp 17:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If the plan doesn't include stopping a sufficiently motivated sockpuppet/meatpuppet master, I'm afraid it's probably useless. Whoever has the largest posse wins the argument. And that's very bad for NPOV. ColourBurst 23:31, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think that you'll not find much support for an idea of not letting someone edit a page for over 30 days. What about reverting vandalism or clear factual mistakes? What if one does come up with better information? Or what if you come back the next day, and saw you made a typo? I can't tell you how many times it's taken me several days to make major edits to a page. I have to say, I don't really agree with your idea. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 11:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In all of your examples of fixing vandalism and typos, you seem to forget that you're not the only editor. As for "better information," I'd rephrase what I said to Stephan (above) -- shouldn't one only contribute information in which they're expert, or at least know to be complete and factual? CleffedUp 16:44, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are many high profile articles that are regular vandalism targets. There are not remotely enough editors to revert vandalism if each can only revert one vandalism act every 30 days. Fan-1967 16:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But wouldn't such a restriction cause a closely equal decrease in vandalism as well, particularly if the restriction were IP/machine-based? CleffedUp 16:54, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, because the frequent vandalism targets get a lot of hits from many different IP's (a large percentage of which seem to belong to school districts, as you might guess). It isn't a small number of vandals making a lot of edits. For the mots part, it's many, many vandals who just make one or two each. Fan-1967 17:01, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Another thought on addressing vandals with such a limitation: Much as there are administrators, and arbitrators, etc. there is surely a subset of the general editor base who are established and motivated members of the community who can be trusted to "play nice" as it were, i.e. those who actively seek consensus in making edits with which some may disagree. I see no reason why this group couldn't be elevated above your average editor to be exempt from the lag. CleffedUp 17:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Replying to CleffedUp's earlier point, if you have a verifiable fact that will improve the article, you're entitled to add it. If you find more info later, add that too. For example, if it's a list of classical composers, and you see a few omissions, add them. Next day, you've thought of a few more.--Runcorn 16:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would say the remedy in this case is through the talk page. This approach of posting an idea and letting someone else aggregate them will also help keep the article in all the "same voice" and otherwise consistent. CleffedUp 17:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's discovered typos in his work directly after posting it. And are you really expecting other editors to fix my errors? That would greatly increase the workload here. Or reduce the quality of this encyclopedia. -Freekee 17:05, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This seems inconsistent with the notion of a community encyclopedia, though your point is taken. To address this, perhaps the lag begins after the next edit by someone else. CleffedUp 17:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would this apply to talk pages as well? -Freekee 17:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, my intent in the proposal is only to avoid conflicts in article content edits. An open talk would be a critical component as a forum for a proposed change while the lag was in effect. CleffedUp 17:28, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, your proposal seems to put up too many barriers to legitimate editing. Seems the "cure" would be worse than the disease. Fan-1967 17:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In this model, the remedy to any prohibited legitimate content change is an addition to the discussion page. It seems to me that this encyclopedia has reached a critical mass whereby most changes call for consensus, and this model encourages just that. The only barrier to a good change is the next person to edit the page. CleffedUp 17:39, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You may be missing the whole point of Wikipedia, which is that anyone can make any edit at any time. Now you want all edits to be done by committee? If I've made an edit, then I need to wait 30 days, or propose it and hope someone else will make the edit? No, sorry. You make updates incredibly cumbersome in order to accomplish what? Content disputes aren't that common a problem that we should totally throw a monkey wrench into our whole update process. Fan-1967 17:42, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid this is one of the worst ideas I've heard in ages. It may go some way towards hindering disputes, but only by preventing serious editors from working on articles. Just imagine. I've written a beautiful article but I've made a mistake or forgotten to add something. Oops, can't change it for a month! And as for "its unlikely the editor will "discover" new, known, verifiable content relevant to the article in a matter of days", what absolute rubbish - I'm always discovering new tidbits of information after I've finished my main work on an article, sometimes within a matter of minutes or hours, let alone days. I'd rapidly lose interest in ever working on Wikipedia again if this was introduced (even more than I am at the moment with constant battles with the obsessive deletionists out there) and I'm sure I'd not be alone. No, kill this idea now before it spreads. -- Necrothesp 17:47, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Can we stop discussing this? This isn't going to go anywhere (and I agree with Necrothesp that it's one of the worst ideas I've heard). I can't believe it's already generated this much discussion. The answer is simple: No —Doug Bell talk•contrib 17:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Why don't we make it so that you can only edit an article once! After all, there are 1.5 million articles and 1.5 million edits should be more than you'd ever need to make! It would totally get rid of editing disputes because once a person made a change they'd never be able to repeat it ever again!" This is basically a perennial proposal, and it's among the most irrittating in my opinion. It ignores that Wikipedia develops gradually, not by one individual writing an FA-class piece in a single spurt. I propose anyone who supports this idea be indefinitely blocked for their utter lack of understanding of the wiki system. (I also propose that this paragraph be read with a sense of humour.) --tjstrf talk 04:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It made me laugh. Postdlf 05:00, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a good idea. Uses often do many good edits within a few days. Also, adding forced rules is usually not a good idea. It is better to use "soft" rules the the 3-revert-rule. Edit wars are not that common anyway. --Apoc2400 01:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is above all a collaborative media. Two or three editors will put information into an article over a period of days - some finding better ways to express information that others have provided, some adding weight to areas they had not thought to write about but which one of the other editors throught to introduce but did not have the breadth of knowledge to flesh out. Our edits weave in and out like the threads in a tapestry with each person tweaking a little what the last person entered. Some people edit mostly for nice layout, typos, spelling and grammar - others have almost zero knowledge about a subject and specialise in finding links for technical terms that they didn't understand while reading the article. When the 'technical expert' dumps in new text, those people come along and clean and polish - then more technical stuff goes in and the cycle repeats. There are myriads of ways for people to contribute beyond typing in the entire contents of their brain in one massive editing session. When I was getting the Mini article through WP:FA, I was making a dozen edits a day in response to people's feedback and suggestions - not edit wars, not controversy, just things like "Hey Steve - why don't you say something about such-and-such?". It's inconceivable that this proposed policy could be anything other than ruinous - even a 5 minute bar on re-editing would kill us. It is utterly ridiculous. SteveBaker 21:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tagging of articles

I am sure this must have been discussed at sometime (many times?) before, but should blind tagging of articles be allowed. Shouldn't there be a policy enforcing explanation on the talk page if you are tagging articles with the broad maintenance templates like {{NPOV}}, {{cleanup}} etc. It is very irritating to visit articles with such tags and then try to figure out what really is wrong. If there is no explanation accompanying the tag, then I feel we should be able to as blindly revert the tag, without it being called edit warring. The onus to explain should lie on the person tagging the article. -- Lost(talk) 05:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In some cases, as with {{sources}} or even with a lot of cases with {{npov}} and {{cleanup}} it is quite obvious by looking at the article where the problem lies. Also, edit summaries should be sufficient; if people are editing the article, they should fix the problem and if no one is editing the article the edit summary will remain at the top of the history; though, it doesn't always work that way. —Centrx→talk • 05:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is not always obvious especially if one puts the tag at the top of an article without an edit summary. The least the taggers could do is put the tag at the appropriate section with an appropriate edit summary. What does this edit explain? If you see the history of the article, there are a series of such edits -- Lost(talk) 05:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The good faith assumption is that the people putting the tags really have a reason to be concerned. Contact them on their talk page and ask them politely why they keep adding such tags. However, repeated attempts to add such tags to an article, when other editors have made good faith attempts to request a reasonable explanation, and no explanation has been provided, could point to point making or could also be obvious triple revert violations. If the editor in question is being deliberately disruptive, and has been warned repeatedly as such, then report them at Administrator intervention. However, make sure that the editor has been politely ASKED for justifications, and then repeatedly WARNED. We need due process before accusations of bad-faith disruptions should be made. --Jayron32 06:40, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Jayron. Earlier today I added a WP:WEASEL tag to the article on the Bahamian politician Perry Christie because of some very obvious weaseling and POV pushing, e.g. ...many people understand that the Christie government has acted wisely, even though sometimes being very deliberate in their decision making. I also marked the relevant areas with a {{citation needed}} tag, and edit-summarised that change. The reason I used a tag rather than actually improving the article was because I really don't know enough about Perry Christie to rewrite the relevant statements. I think I acted correctly. Walton monarchist89 10:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anything more than an occasional 'citation needed' tag makes the article look TERRIBLE to the reader - when some random person comes along and sticks one of these on the article without saying why on the Talk page - I look to see if it's obvious why it's there and if it's not, I leave a note on the talk page asking for clarification and delete the template with a "rv: See Talk" in the edit summary. There is no purpose to having the banner there if the article's editors don't know what the problem is. If the tagger can't fix the problem themselves, they should at least have the manners to explain the problem on the talk page...and be prepared to come back and discuss it further if need be. I've seen situations where tags are essentially no better than vandalism - but it's hard to tell if no other information is present. It's all very well saying "Contact the tagger via their talk page" - but it might be another week before they reply (if they reply) - and it could be another week after that before you get back to reading their reply....in the meantime, the article has been looking terrible for weeks! SteveBaker 22:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tags asking for sources or citations are pretty self-explanatory. After that, it gets much murkier. In any case, why not assume good faith on the part of the existing editors: If the problem seen by the tagger were obvious to everyone who has edited the article, the article probably wouldn't have that problem. Also, a lot of tags go unaddressed for months, so one doesn't know who left the tag. I have mentioned this on the project page for the {{limited geographic scope}} tag, because there is often legitimate room for disagreement. If a piece of medical equipment is little used outside of the richest countries, how does one increase geographic scope? By reducing the article to a stub until the rest of the world catches up? (Don't laugh -- I had someone actually suggest as much.) If the concerned editor can't be bothered to do more than tag and run, then frankly, I don't take the criticism very seriously. Robert A.West (Talk) 22:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The least one could do is watch the page after tagging. That way, the tagger can reply when someone finally gets around to asking, "What's the problem with xxx? What do we need to do to fix it?" Instead a batch of editors who don't see the problem tend to stare one another in the face. Maybe the problem was addressed months ago and the tag left? Eventually, someone is bold and untags the article. Robert A.West (Talk) 22:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Never put an npov or pov tag on an article without explaining on the Talk page. That's a sure-fire way of getting your tag removed without anything being changed. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed disambiguation guidance

I've noticed the following problems seem to crop up repeatedly with newbies and disambiguation pages. Frequent problems include them

  • Including information that belongs in the article itself (i.e. not necessary for disambig).
  • Hiding article titles (because that's what we do elsewhere; and there are a lot of them on disambig pages)
  • Linking non-subject items (when the linked article *doesn't* include a definition of the subject)
  • Including "normally" constructed sentences with the subject somewhere in the middle
  • Including every item under the sun in the list, even if it's not a likely search/disambiguation term.

Obviously, this is done in good faith; they're "helpfully" applying rules that would be fine (and indeed encouraged) elsewhere in Wikipedia.

It's a minor waste of our time to revert these changes, and a greater waste of the newbie's time. And every time we do so, it leaves no clue to the next uninformed newbie. So it happens again, and again, and...

I propose we include a brief hidden comment on each disambig page. Not the whole MoS, obviously; just something to get their attention and cover the most common problems/mistakes.

If this is a good idea, the other question is what to include. We don't want to bloat pages with more comments than necessary (even though they're hidden from non-editors).

There's a draft at Template:Disambig-guidance. Because the comment is hidden, you have to "edit" to view (also, it *must* be included using subst).

Any thoughts?

Fourohfour 12:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to make this conversation easier, here's the "hidden text": 

<!--***** NEW USERS, PLEASE READ THIS FIRST *****

Disambiguation pages use a slightly different style to normal pages. Please:-

(A) DON'T LINK NON-SUBJECT TERMS, except when they are NEEDED for disambig

 and/or include definition of subject. (B) KEEP SUBJECT AT START OF 

SENTENCE IF POSSIBLE.

Thank you. More info on disambig page style can be found at 

[[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)]].

*************************************************-->

Too bad wikilinks couldn't be hidden in there... I wonder if a "Disambiguation" namespace might be handy, since it might be possible to change the css for the edit page (this would solve the "disambigs appearing in search/randompage" problem too). --SB_Johnny|talk|books 14:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Radiant; yes, it'd be a lot of work to tidy up all disambig pages from scratch. I'm not going to get wound up about every tiny deviation from the MoS (besides which, there are occasions where it makes sense to deviate). But the comment would (a) Avoid any further waste of time with non-standard changes/reverts/etc, and (b) Encourage future additions to follow same style, reducing maintenance. Fourohfour 16:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
pre text edited for printability ? -- DLL .. T 21:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How about a note saying something like, "if you are unfamiliar with the format for disambiguation pages, please see the talk page for guidelines." The talk page will then begin with a slightly less brief outline of common pitfalls, then a (clickable) link to MOSDAB? Just a suggestion. The problems I run into most often are only one live link per line and don't add an item to this list unless it stands a chance of being linked here accidentally. -Freekee 04:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think this is good. It might also be nice to add a clause to "keep topics alphabetical if at all possible" or somesuch. Note that a DAB namespace is not going to work, because the pages need to be in the main article namespace to be found most easily. (Radiant) 10:02, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is useful, thanks. Nothing that would justify doing it to every disambig page yet, but I'll include it if and when I find pages with the problem occurring. One of the main snags is that as it *must* use subst, we can't easily change/update existing notices automatically. Fourohfour 11:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No. Bad idea. I can't decide if this is Chicken Little or the camel's nose but either way, we don't need it. Anyone who edits any page is entitled to do it with a minimum of hand-holding and flummery; I might prefer new editors be run through boot camp before their first edit but that's not our policy. New editors edit, wisely or not, and then we edit. That's who we are.
Meanwhile, experienced editors don't need to stumble over yet another shrill, repetitive nag. I already see enough of those, some built right into the interface. Do not copy text from other websites without permission. It will be deleted. Um, yeah. I read that the first time, maybe the first dozen times; now, I try to ignore it but my eye still falls in, like some visual pothole. I've edited my skin to hide most of the glurge but page after page has silly tags up top, nagging, nagging, nagging without really informing me in any way. This article needs more sources. Don't they all? This article is biased. All articles are biased; we work to reduce bias but its impossible to eliminate it anywhere. Remember that this is only a preview; changes have not yet been saved! That's after an H2-size Preview. Did you need to waste all that screen real estate? Far, far better to drop a 2px red line down the left-hand side of the entire page and put the word "Preview" at the very top, in RED. If you don't know what a preview is, you learn quickly.
My personal whipping boy for this nagging issue is the image upload page. An entire screenful of nagging, none of which changes in response to the item I intend to upload or my level of skill. All these dead pixels and a very stingy selection of links I might actually find useful at upload time, such as Image copyright tags. What would be useful is an upload summary preview and an actual edit summary field (instead of cramming the entire image description into the edit sum).
Oy.
Special comments like these are vital when the situation is nonstandard. For example, we generally add new comments to the bottom of pages; when this convention is reversed, we insert a notice: New X to the top, please. Nagging everywhere, all the time, only leads people to ignore -- to not see these special cases.
Whack with an axe™ further general nagging. John Reid ° 10:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Another suggestion: if you see a problem DAB page edit, drop by the offending editor's page, and leave a message similar to the one above. -Freekee 16:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
John Reid; the situation *is* nonstandard - that was the whole point!!. We say to users "do X, Y and Z", and only *after* they've wasted time "fixing" a disambig we say "Oops, sorry, but all that stuff we told you to do, well it doesn't apply here". Well, gee, thanks for letting me know after I've wasted my time! Put simply, it's not fair on them.
Anyway, the template "as is" is a bit on the naggy side; I'm going to cut it down again. But it's not "hand holding" (no-one's stopping them doing anything). I suspect that most well-intentioned editors *want* to help and contribute useful edits. I certainly don't expect them to read the whole MoS (or even the whole disambig page) before editing for the first time, though- I didn't.
Bearing that in mind- What *might* be more useful is a much briefer and more accessible summary of selected parts of the MoS that covers all the important points (possibly using graphics; arrows and stuff). Any thoughts on this?
Your problem with Wikipedia (or rather the current version of the software) seems to be far more general. I agree absolutely with your general grievance. I'd much prefer that new users got informational messages automatically, but had the option to turn them off (at which point we can reasonably assume that they've read them and know what they were doing). However, I don't think focusing on one specific issue as a whipping boy for a more general problem is the best way to solve it. Fourohfour 11:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

can unregistered users vote?

It is pretty clear that they can't vote at RfAdm but how about other votes such as article's deletion or article's title disputes? It seems to me a no-brainer that only registered users can vote but there are so many policy pages, proposes policy pages, rejected policy pages etc, that I failed to navigate myself to an answer. Or should I construe that the lack of the issue's being addressed explicitely implies that unregistered users can and do vote on such matters? Thanks, --Irpen 00:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, polls aren't settled on a strict tally of votes. It's more about what is said, than how many people say it. So if an IP user has a good point, his voice will be heard. -Freekee 04:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This does not match my actual experience. What I have seen is that the opinion of anyone who has not made significant contributions to Wikipedia will not be seriously considered. Even if they have significant experience and expertise in the subject matter, and even if they offer evidence, their votes will be considered "suspicious" and their votes heavily discounted. Seasoned Wikipedians need not offered a reasoned argument. They may merely say "not notable" and their vote will carry more weight than the experts -- UNLESS the expert happens to be a seasoned Wikipedian.
Yes, you should. They can and do, and as long as there is no suspicion of sockpuppetry their "votes" are considered as valid as any others. Note, however, that title and deletion debates are better considered as discussions than votes; see Freekee's well-made point above. -- Visviva 05:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is not about whether the anons are allowed to opine and comment. This is about voting. For moves and deletions the voting tally is an important factor in the closing decision. As for commenting, anons can even comment on RfAdm. Diversity of opinions is always a good thing. --Irpen 05:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The exact weighting of votes is, I believe, up to the closer; anon votes may be discounted, and so may votes lacking a rationale. The closer is, I believe, also free to ignore the resulting tally entirely if the situation warrants it. -- Visviva 05:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone is able to leave a comment and it's not going to be removed, and the reasoning and evidence of comments is the greatest factor in any "vote", so that's what happens. I think you overestimate the importance of a voting tally. —Centrx→talk • 06:04, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As was shown by the cosequences of Carnildo's promotion and the nightmarish "Giano" ArbCom case, underestimating voting tally is a bad precedent. Point being I never claimed that everything comes down to the vote tally. I asked a narrow question and instead of a clear answer on whether the issue is addressed by the policy this or other way, I get a lecture about admin's right. I know those. Is there still a chance to get a response on what are the current policies? Or we don't have this addressed directly? --Irpen
There is no ballot box, so there is no question as to whether an IP can use the ballot box. If IPs could not "vote", they could just create an account, or three, and "vote". IPs are free and welcome to make reasonable comments in a discussion, just like everyone else. —Centrx→talk • 10:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not exactly. You shouldn't compare the apple RFA (which judges people) with the orange AFD (which judges articles). Since we don't really have policy about people's character and trust, RFA ultimately boils down to opinion, and hence people get upset if the tally is ignored. Since we have a lot of policy and guidelines about articles, AFD boils down to those and to precedent, and tally can safely be ignored if one side has a better argument, and neither is this controversial. RFA is the exception, not the rule. (Radiant) 09:53, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When you have the ArbCom vote, where the tally is absolutely critical, not only can anon IPs not vote, even logged-in users must have been around for a certain length of time and have a certain number of edits.--Runcorn 10:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Radiant makes the best point. RfA is about opinion, XfD about policy and precedent, if not fact. Every admin nominee is a special case. Nobody ever makes a good argument at RfA, only a more persuasive one. Thus, it boils down to a straight vote -- or would if we didn't rely on b'crats to figure out who is not a sock or meatpuppet. If it's all personal opinion anyway, all we can go by is a show of hands. This is a special case. One might even argue (I don't, but one might) that Carnildo had been in and out of RfA so many times that he was beginning to lack specificity -- that general arguments based on something more than personal opinion actually carried weight.
In discussions that are not about editors, we pretty much deal with things that are not unique. Articles and their subunits fall into categories, and we have policy governing each one of those eleventy billion cats. So rational argument plays a part that a show of hands does not. John Reid ° 15:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think anons should be able to vote. There are a few anons who are anons basically to make a point but they are widely known (some even have user pages). Outside of those, I have to wonder what we gain by such things. If XfD is to be determined by policy and not opinion, what percentage of anon editors are really going to be familiar with those when even many regular editors appearantly aren't? The very need for the SPA template tells me that any value in anon voting is somewhat suspect already. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 15:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Again, XfD is not a vote. Tagging a comment with {{spa}} does not mean that their opinion is automatically invalid or totally ignored. SPA's can and do contribute to deletion discussions, occasionally providing crucial information. --Interiot 16:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Anonymous users are welcome and encouraged to make good XfD discussion contributions based upon our policies and guidelines. A good rationale, backed up by good research and well founded on our policies and guidelines, is welcome whether or not the editor has an account. Uncle G 17:28, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Former studies have shown that anons contribute a significant proportion of the useful content to Wikipedia, so it would reason that they have a right to participate, collectively. On the other hand, any particular anon is usually involved in the community to only a minor degree, does not have strong familiarity with policies or precedents, and has very little interest in articles outside their own area of interest (or even articles written by themselves). For this reason I think their discussion at XfD should be given careful consideration, but they're not particularly qualified to judge the suitability of an applicant at RfA. Of course, there are anons who are as deeply involved as any registered user and ought to be treated like one - frankly, these people ought to create an account. It just makes things easier. Deco 16:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the feedback. Now, is it possible to have this somehow stated clearly on the policy pages? That anon's opinions are welcome at XFD/RM discussions but if they intend to cast a vote, not just opine, they are advised to create an account? --Irpen 17:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But remember to make absolutely clear that no-one, anonymous or account-holder, should only cast a 'vote'. The vote should always be accompanied by some reasoning, and the reasoning should be over and beyond "me too" voting. ie. change to "if they intend to cast a vote as well as opine, rather than just opine, they are advised to create an account." Clear reasoning on any issue should always be noted, regardless of who contributes it. Carcharoth 17:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ad hominem rationale should always be avoided in all discussions. All point must be taken on content only. Anon users, even those brought in from outside wikipedia specifically to refute claims in an AfD (and thus obvious SPAs), often do bring in relevent information that is cogent to a discussion. We must NEVER discount any revelvent information on a strictly binary qualification (if user meets X criteria their opinions are valid/if they don't it is not). Closing admins act as trusted judges, and thus are given the right to accept or discount any comments or votes as they see fit; so long as an admins criteria for inclusion are applied consistently and without prejudice. If an admin acts inappropriately, it is a problem with the ADMIN, not with the SYSTEM. Wikipedia has a membership of ~6.5 billion users (see World population). To be a registered user does grant certain privilages, but being able to contribute in a meaningful way is not a privilage restricted to the registered. Ultimately, though anon users present a special challenge for closing admins in XfD and other discussions, it is not the place of anyone else BESIDES the closing admin to decide a priori whose opinion matters and whose does not. --Jayron32 18:00, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree completely, however this is not the way Wikipedia currently works. Articles are deleted based on the ad hominem rationale that Wikipedians are more believable than industry experts. If an article is deleted based purely on an ad hominem rationale, is there a way to appeal?Dgray xplane 22:10, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have never seen this happen. I have seen people make poor arguements at AfDs all the time, but closing admins are generally smart enough to delete articles based only on the guidelines of WP:NN, WP:V, and WP:RS among others. If we had a specific AfD to go on, perhaps we can comment on this more inteligently, but I am not aware of any closing admin deleting an article merely because people supporting it were judged to be unreliable. People supporting the article may have been unable to provide evidence as to its encyclopedic nature, but I have never seen such arguements be successful. --Jayron32 04:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Jayron: Here's a specific example and an exact quote: "Hi Dgray_xplane. The article was deleted as the multiple votes to keep were from people who had not contributed to Wikipedia before (which is always very suspicious); if you believe the deletion was incorrect, please go to Wikipedia:Deletion review. Regards, Proto::type 15:44, 22 November 2006 (UTC)" You can read this for yourself on my talk page. Te AfD this refers to can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/XPLANE
On reflection, I think a big issue here may be education, by which I mean educating both newbies and the "patrollers" who see their role as scrubbing out vandalism. When articles are posted for deletion review, it's probably not uncommon for people from outside Wikipedia to come to the article's defense. In such cases they do not understand the criteria for things like, for example, notability. I suggest that it's incumbent upon any experienced Wikipedians to assume good faith and educate the newbies. Words like "non-trivial" can be subject to much interpretation. Even the word "subject" can be confusing. When we say, "sources independent of the subject" do we mean independent of the article's subject or independent of the subject, as in "the field of study?" My interpretation is the former but I believe there are some who interpret it as the latter. These kinds of interpretations are delicate; there are shades of meaning and I think experienced Wikipedians should make every attempt to clarify and explain their meaning, especially when weighing in on things like AfD's and deletion reviews.Dgray xplane 18:28, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting that the votes were disregarded for being "suspicious." Suspicious in what way? Suspicious of not having anything intelligent to say? And the closing admin disregarded those votes because he didn't feel he had the need to read their comments? Usually, when new account or IP votes are ignored, it's when some local-level band gets up for AfD, and they post on their MySpace so a couple dozen fans show up and say, "KEEP!". Or "OMG this band is the best!" Those are the anon comments that should be ignored. Another common type of new account is the sock puppet. This is why admins are "suspicious." But that doesn't give them license to ignore them. As I said up above, if a comment with a vote has something intelligent to say, the vote should be given weight. Some would say that it would be fine to give such a vote less weight, but if the comment makes sense, what's the difference? Personally, I think that is enough of a reason to warrant a Deletion Review. Also note the message on the article's debate, the closing admin may well disregard comments by people with few edits. I suppose the admin can disregard any comments he wishes. Unfortunately, this attitude seems widespread, so good luck with a Deletion Review. -Freekee 02:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

yes, this is another userbox-related question. yes, I do other things then mess with userboxes. :P

Quick question; recently, the color of {{User:Menasim/Userboxes/User Google}} was changed so that it was all black, rather than the colored version is was before.[35] The rationale was that it is a copyright violation. The logo is text, not an image (it isn't just an upload of the actual Google logo). Similar, yes, but I think it is sufficiently different (not the same font, not the same styling; just the same colors) that it should stay.

I'd just like some additional opinions. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anon vandalism

On 11/21/06 an anonymous editor 216.49.181.128 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) made 11 edits in just over a half hour, mostly deletion of material without comment in the edit summary. I left an {{anon vandal}} warning on their talk page. Another editor (Trödel) has repeatedly removed my warning and replaced it with another of his choosing. A 'whois' search shows that the anonymous editor is posting from a Church of Latter-day Saints address; Trödel seems to be very pro-Mormon and I feel that he is bending over backward to treat the anonymous editor with kid gloves. Wikipedia is no place for favoritism of any kind and I am wondering what can be done in this situation. Thank You. Duke53 | Talk 20:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When dealing with an organization, it's better to be nicer. A potentially large group will be posting from that address so it's best not to bite the newcomers, no matter how obvious their vandalism might be. Continued and consistent vandalism merits stronger warnings. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 20:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"When dealing with an organization, it's better to be nicer". Ah, there's the rub ... I did not know that it was 'an organization' until after I ran the 'whois' test, which wasn't available to me until after a warning had been posted. I wasn't going to change it after I posted the warning initially, just as I wouldn't change it for an individual. Duke53 | Talk 20:28, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In either case, the second part of my comment comes into play. Unless this editor is replacing pages with "I stab puppies with sporks" or some equally obvious vandalism, you should use the test warnings. Blanking, while annoying, isn't necessarily intentional vandalism. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 20:31, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
According to Wikipedia:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace#Warnings, the template User:Duke53 used is at the intersection of the "Obvious vandalism" and "Final Warning" headings. I think its use in the cited case was therefore against the WP:BITE guideline, since the edits were not obvious vandalism (though they did arguably violate WP:NPOV) and it was only Duke53's first warning or communication with the anon user. I further think the "pro-Mormon" statement Duke53 makes above does not assume good faith of Trödel's actions. alanyst /talk/ 20:39, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When any editor repeatedly (11 times) removes, without comment, items that aren't strict LDS POV then it is fairly clear that it is obvious vandalism. This was someone who knew exactly what they were doing, and did it methodically and quickly. p.s. Did you even go to that talk page and read the text that Trödel used to 'welcome' the anonymous user to Wikipedia? Duke53 | Talk 20:42, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I did see it and thought it was very sensible and well-written. If I were in the anon user's place, I would be concerned if, based on my IP address, edits I made were perceived as official acts of my employer when I intended the edits to reflect only my personal opinions. And I would be grateful to someone who informed me of the situation and gave me advice on how to correct it. That's the way newcomers to WP ought to be treated, regardless of which organization's IP addresses they happen to be using. Besides that, you are confusing inappropriate POV edits with vandalism. Not all of the former qualify as the latter. I could remove eleven times, without comment (though comments are better), material from articles that I honestly thought did not belong in Wikipedia, and not be guilty of vandalism; I might have been absolutely correct that the material didn't belong, and been perfectly justified in removing it. (I hasten to add that proper discussion on the articles' talk pages and commented edits would be much the better way, but we can't expect that of all newcomers.) Wholesale indiscriminate blanking of pages or sections of pages can be construed as obvious vandalism, but selective removal of text in furtherance of a point of view is an NPOV violation, but not vandalism from the outset. Continued POV editing after appropriate warnings and discussion can be construed as vandalism. Finally, even if it was obvious vandalism, which IMO it wasn't, the "Final Warning" template shouldn't have been used right away. alanyst /talk/ 20:57, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting interpretation of vandalism. I suppose that I will just go ahead and E-Mail the 'abuse' link on that whois report and see if the LDS has any problems with their people using their computers for this type thing. Duke53 | Talk 21:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You could do that, but that seems like a pretty vindictive thing to do to someone who has already ceased their wrongful behavior, from all appearances. Why would you want to continue to harass this user? alanyst /talk/ 21:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting choice of words: vindictive and harass. I look at it more as a service to the IT dept. at the LDS church; they probably have policies in place concerning the use of their computer systems. If their people might be using their equipment against their policies they should be notified; they do have an address to report abuse, BTW. The person who made all these deletions knew exactly what they were doing, as far as visiting their targeted article pages, technique for deletion, etc.; no way a 'newbie' could have done all these edits in just over half an hour.Duke53 | Talk 22:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You have a history here of strong criticism and mistrust of the LDS church, and antagonism of LDS editors. Are you honestly saying that you've had a change of heart and now you're trying to render a service to the LDS church by reporting this user? Because if you're really just trying to get this person in trouble with their employer out of spite (particularly since the consensus here is that it was not vandalism and therefore does not constitute abuse of the user's Internet privileges), I think that is vindictive harassment, completely out of line, and not to be tolerated on Wikipedia. alanyst /talk/ 23:01, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
One little detail you didn't know: I work in CITS ... an allegiance to my IT brethren is the motivation. I will be reporting you for the personal attack, BTW. We don't tolerate that at Wikipedia. p.s that would be consensus so far; I would expect others to chime in on this. Duke53 | Talk 23:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This case does not look like obvious vandalism. The user should be warned with {{test 1}} first and given then opportunity to reform and stop. If they do not stop, then add a {{test2}} or {{test3}} before a final warning is given. Additionally, editors who place the test messages should leave at least a few more words explaining their concerns. This is a clear case of not biting the newbies. The compelling evidence here is the high number of edits in a short time. The user may not be aware of policies and conventions and should be warned gently until it is obvious they are acting in violation of policies with full knowledge of such violations. Always assume good faith, and until this user has shown a pattern over time of disruptive edits, treat them as any other newbie. --Jayron32 21:13, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Duke53 is again biting newcomers. He left the following on the talk page of an editor who made an edit he didn't like to an article he monitors. I tried to replace his rudeness with {{blank2}} as well as include a standard welcome message {{LDSWelcome}}. He has reverted my attempt to encorage this potential editor to stick around. Trödel 02:20, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I quoted Wikipedia policy ("Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia".) and Trödel is trying to distort that as rudeness. The truth of the matter is that he attempts to put a pro-Mormon spin on all Mormon related articles and I am not accepting of that. Talk page comments should be left alone by everyone; if he was so concerned about 'welcoming' new editors then he should get to it before other editors leave messages. Duke53 | Talk 02:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is rudeness. You don't assume good faith. You just jump to the worst case scenario. Warnings increase in intensity, they don't start at the top. Read WP:BITE as you've been told to several times now, because it's a guideline which you're consistently ignoring. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You two seem to be forgetting (conveniently) the following:
Basic rules for all talk pages
Sign your comments (see above)
Log in. (Read why here.)
Use coherent formatting.
Copy formatting from others.
Indent with colons (:), not with tabs.
Break up very large paragraphs.
Be civil at all times.
Don't make personal attacks
Don't SHOUT
Do not edit other user's comments.
So at least two editors have decided to break Wikipedia policy willingly. The bold areas are formatted in this manner on the Wikipedia policy page that I copied it from. Now one of you can go back and restore my comments. Duke53 | Talk 03:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Guess what people? You can always *add* your own comment to a talk page, but removing others comments when it isn't your talk page is not acceptable even if you don't agree with them. The only case this is allowed is when it is a clear personal attack. IF you disagree with the warning you may say so, but you may not remove other's comments. pschemp | talk 22:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, we have an anon user who is behaving badly by blanking content, we have Duke53 who is biting the newbie and not issuing graduated vandalism complaints and we have Trodel who is editing other peoples comments on a Talk page. All three people are in the wrong. Since none of them can really lay claim the moral high ground here my advice is for all parties to back off, calm down and take a short Wikibreak. SteveBaker 23:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry but graduated vandalism warnings are not a requirement anywhere here. Vandalism is vandalism and any warning about it is fine. pschemp | talk 01:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But it's not vandalism, at least not if you follow policy and assume good faith of the newbie. It's not wholesale or indiscriminate blanking of a page; it's removal of a particular bit of material that the anon user presumably deemed offensive. POV? Sure. Vandalism? No; we cannot assume that it is done "in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia". Perhaps the newbie doesn't fully grasp WP:NPOV yet. Calling them a vandal, or strongly implying such by quoting and emphasizing the vandalism policy at them as their only greeting, violates WP:BITE in my book. alanyst /talk/ 01:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When they do it four times in a row from different IP's it *is* deliberate and is vandalism. Sorry, but repeat offenders are not required to have good faith assumed for them. Somehow I doubt you'd be saying the same thing were these users inserting slurs about the LDS church. pschemp | talk 02:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you that if it were the same person continuing to make the edit after being warned, whether from different IP addresses or the same one, it would be vandalism and the stern warnings would be quite justified. Where it appears we differ is in our perceptions: I think the edits are being made by different people, while you think it's one person making the changes. The basis for my perception is the fact that the content that is being removed is a photo that is offensive to many LDS people (or at least makes them highly uncomfortable to view it), and it is thus more likely to be a target of removal by many different people than the average image or bit of prose in WP might be. This is not written to justify the photo's removal; those edits do indeed violate NPOV and should be reverted. If you or anyone else could show evidence that the anon IP addresses all represent the same person, I have no objection to labeling it vandalism. But if the only evidence is the repeated removal of the photo, I think mine is the more likely explanation and hence demands that each anon user be treated as if they were editing in ignorance but in good faith, at least at first. As for whether I'd say the same if the edits were made with the opposite POV, please assume that I would treat POV warring consistently regardless of my personal biases (see [36], [37], [38], [39], [40] for evidence), as I assume you would do too. alanyst /talk/ 03:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia". Please show me where I 'bit' the newcomer; I offered a definition of vandalism, without comment as to whether the newcomer had vandalized or not. Your characterization of this as 'biting a newcomer' is your opinion only.Duke53 | Talk 00:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia". Unless you can prove intent here, all we have is a user who disagrees with the validity of statements that have been added to articles, and are thus removing those statements. The repeated removals of specific statements show that this is a dispute over a specific set of statements, and is thus related to the content of those statements; it is a content dispute. It may be misguided, it may be misplaced, it may be contrary to other wikipedia policies, but it is definately not vandalism. If it was clear that the users only intent was to deface the article in question, it would be vandalism. I have seen no evidence that this user is doing so for any reason other than a specific disagreement. We cannot as yet prove that this user is just being disruptive for disruptions sake. Their actions may feel disruptive since they remove what you see as valid information; but if the intent is not to disrupt but to correct, then we cannot mention vandalism here. Tell the user that his edits are unproductive, tell them that they are contrary to WP:V or WP:3RR, but they are not really vandalism. The fact that it happens from different IPs mean nothing. It just means that either the user logs in from a service that uses dynamic IP assignments, or uses different computers at public sites, like a library. It is not necessarily a deliberate attempt to avoid detection. To bring up the topic of vandalism with said user is unwarrented. To claim that you only mention vandalism, and not accuse is moot. You respond to an edit with a comment that includes the word vandalism. Sounds like an accusation to me. --Jayron32 03:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is your right to interpret anything as you choose ... doesn't make you right though. Duke53 | Talk 03:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Non-latin characters in titles

The specific gaffe in question is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lǐ (李) (surname). The argument is that the names are actually different but are pronounced the same in English. However, there are several people arguing to seperate the articles because each of the names are unique (which they are, they have no conflation except what conversion to English gives them.) This technically violates Wikipedia:Naming conventions, and although this is bad for the reader, any other alternative is worse. So I'm posing the question here: is it worth the unreadability for English readers? My gut says that it is not. ColourBurst 05:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: The names (of which there might be two, three, four, five, or even more completely different surnames per English spelling, such as "Li") are distinguished by Chinese character as well as by tone (high, rising, low-rising, and falling) -- although some have the exact same pronunciation and tone (though different characters). Badagnani 09:40, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Disambiguation seems in order here. We have an ambiguity, and thus need to solve it with a disambiguation page perhaps. The source of the ambiguity is unique, in that it is in translation that the ambiguity shows up, but it is a real problem. I woudl recommend setting up a disambiguation for Li (surname) to each of the different chinese characters that COULD be translated as Li in english. --Jayron32 06:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This seems like a reasonable exception. The idea of using Latin characters is primarily to stop people from moving such articles as Bejing to whatever the Chinese characters for that would be. (Radiant) 09:35, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • are there any latin transliterations that make a distinction? if so then theese are probablly preferable (english speakers are going to find it hard to remember chineese characters) Plugwash 15:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • There are (in some non-Mandarin Chinese languages/romanizations, these are spelled and pronounced differently), but they'd violate some other convention of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (namely, that Mandarin Chinese is to be used in all Chinese articles except people names, and only if they're known by English speakers by some other name). ColourBurst 17:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • There is a Romanization system that uses different spellings for different tones, but it is quite unwieldy and known by few people. Ludahai 23:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We have to assume that English language readers are not going to type some chinese character or other into the search box and click "Go". So putting that into the name of the article isn't going to help people to find it directly - instead it will utterly guarantee that they'll stand NO chance of typing in the correct article title. If the reader types in just 'Li' then they must arrive at a disambiguation page no matter what - it's the only way they'll stand a chance of finding the correct article. The other time it matters is when you link to the article - then you can use the [[XXX|YYY]] to put in whatever clarification is justified in the 'YYY' part - so we don't need the chinese character in the title for that reason either.
OK - so I can find no compelling reason why we should use these characters. However, there are several compelling reason why we should not' allow this:
  • As an English speaker and keyboard user, I can't type in that chinese character (because I have no clue how to type that exact splotch or even which one it is) - which makes it hard for me to make links to that article.
  • The pronunciation reason is bogus. As an English speaker, it's really unlikely that I could either pronounce or describe that chinese character - so I can't possibly tell a friend over the phone "Hey - look at the Wikipedia article on Li (????)". However, if the title was Li (actor) or Li (guitar player) or something then there would be no problem.
So - I think it's a really bad idea to have non-English-language characters in article titles in the en- namespace. SteveBaker 00:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Do you literally mean non-English, or just non-Latin? As I have recently learned to my dismay, and discussed in another place where this same issue arose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#English_Wikipedia.27s_policy_towards_using_of_Chinese_characters_in_title), at least some "Latin" characters that are used in other languages, but not English, have found their way into titles on English Wikipedia. Moreover, there does not seem to be any policy against it. Hence we have such article titles as Stanisław Lem (note the stroke in what would otherwise be an "l", and Piñata. That tilde over the "n" in "piñata" is not simply a diacritical mark, which (I think) would be bad enough, but rather connotes a whole separate letter (Ñ) in the Spanish alphabet. Apparently now this is also a letter in the English alphabet, at least on Wikipedia. I don't think it's a good idea. As Jimbo Wales stated on his talk page (see "here" link above), this "Li" issue with the Chinese character presents a different and very unique issue. Unfortunately however, it does not represent a new phenomenon -- characters from outside the English alphabet have already been making their way into article titles. 6SJ7 00:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Notability (computer and video games)

I've recently created that (proposed) guideline, and I wanted to leave a message here so I could get some discussion going at its talk page. Feel free to make any changes you may want to make, and please drop a comment and discuss this at it's talk page. Thank you. // I c e d K o l a (Contribs) 21:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Policy or Guideline Concerning TV Characters

I've been looking for a policy or guideline on this but haven't found one. A Wikipedia entry was made for Marlowe Sawyer, a character from the TV show Nip/Tuck. I nominated the article for merging with the main show entry. However, this incident raised a question for me: Is there some guideline on when (or if) it is appropriate for a separate listing for TV characters? It seems rather excessive to me to have such individual entries but perhaps I'm not appreciating the ability of Wikipedia to expand, provide disambiguation pages if there are conflicts, etc. Can anyone point me in the direction of such guidelines? --Pigman (talk • contribs) 07:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • The closest we have is probably WP:FICT. In general, it depends on article length. If we have a dozen articles on a show's characters but all of them are three lines long (excluding redundant parts such as a description of the show), merging is a good idea (and you needn't propose it, just do it if you want). If those pages tend to be a page and a half, merging is probably not useful. (Radiant) 12:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the tip. Usually I don't mind being bold but sometimes I hesitate if I think there might be a guideline I'm not familiar with. I still have gaps in my knowledge of the policies and guidelines which I only fill in when a situation or question comes up.
Relatedly, a friend recently came across an entry for a TV show Day Break. The main page is not too large (about a screenful of text) but someone has gone through the effort to create a template with a link to each of the episodes on the main page of the show with a page apiece for each episode, including future episodes. This show has a 12 week season while Lost (TV series) is on hiatus until Feb 2007. I'm not sure what my question is but, again, this seems excessive and premature. I don't know if this is just good planning and thinking ahead or creating complexity and additional entries which may not be needed. I don't really expect any answer on my observations. I think I'm going through a phase of wanting to tighten up the sprawling edges of Wikipedia and some entries seem (to me) to be overly ambitious. I know this kind entry is part of the nature of Wikipedia but I guess I like to see articles grow more organically and break out sections as needed during the growth. Perhaps I'm just a control freak. --Pigman (talk • contribs) 19:46, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PROD - Miscellaneous prod template for miscellaneous pages.

At the moment, the prod template is worded so that it only applies to articles. There are a number of user and miscellaneous pages which could be proposed for deletion if the user or author (or someone else) can change the page concerned so it meets Wikipedia guidelines and policies, rather than have to go through MfD. I designed a template and started discussion here: Template talk:Prod#Miscellaneous Prod. --tgheretford (talk) 08:40, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I posed a question at Talk:Lonely_Girl when a link I added was removed for link spam. Someone replied with "...editors are restricted from linking to the following, without exception...Sites that violate the copyrights of others" and that sites with song lyrics violate this. The reason I added some links to lyrics is because there are many pages with links to these sites. Specifically, here are a few searched I conducted: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. I assume these should be removed? Scott 13:20, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The policy in question is Wikipedia:Copyrights, which (surprisingly to me, who is unfamiliar with Floridian law) bars us from linking to sites that break copyright themselves. It's fundamentally important that we comply with our copyright policy, regardless of whether we like it or not - otherwise WP could be shut down. I imagine that unless it is clear from a site that it reproduces lyrics with permission, we should assume that it does not have that permission. jguk 13:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is clearly a copyright violation. Despite the prevalence of lyrics websites (and I hate to say, but I have used them for personal use myself, when say, learning a song on the guitar) they are all clear copyvios. You cannot get around a rule by letting someone else break it. Thus, since we cannot reproduce entire song lyrics here (except for short quotes for review purposes; that is fair use), we cannot also direct others to sites that do the same. The fact that lots of wikipedia articles are breaking the rules does not make it right. They should all be fixed post haste and any found in the future should also be fixed. --Jayron32 20:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK fair enough. I'll start removing some; if others can do the same that would be cool.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Svivian (talk • contribs)
Links to lyrics that are copyright violations are obviously a bad idea, but lyrics on official sites (if a band posts their own lyrics) and lyrics of public domain songs would be fine. --Milo H Minderbinder 16:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Or links to the record company's site, if they put lyrics up, would be fine, as well. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Pornography?

Is there such a thing? I think if not, we should start one. It seems that pornography is so central to this site (and truly any computer based site) that we should strive to have articles on every single porn movie and actress. If its porn it must inherently be worthwhile, that's what I say! Cocunuthead 01:14, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

fairly certain it already exists. Hunt around and you should find it. There are notability guidelines that cover it as well WP:PORN. Check it out there. --Jayron32 02:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Dunno if there's an actual WikiProject (doesn't appear so), but there is a porn portal. Starting a porn-specific shouldn't be too hard, so to speak... EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just found Wikipedia:WikiProject Porn stars and Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality. EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pornography is a bad term, since it is relative, person by person, based on POV. The only concrete terms that could be used would be "obscene" (which has a legal definition in the U.S., and in Florida) and "offensive" which, again is a relative term.

WIP-image-guidelines is a proposed guideline, and still a work in progress to help give people who choose to adhere to it guidelines on a variety of issues intended to keep images non-censored, and yet within the boundaries of Wikipedia (try not to offend) while remaining completely legal and not obscene. Atom 17:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are articles on shopping centers allowed on Wikipedia?

Hello all. I have been a Wikipedian for a couple of years now, and have edited many existing articles on local shopping centers in Phoenix, Arizona, where I live; and the San Francisco area, where I am originally from. Two of the articles on Phoenix malls were speedy deleted yesterday, citing lack of notability. The argument from the admin was that shopping malls in and of themselves are not appropriately notable since there are few scholarly "reliable secondary sources" available to support the text of each article (outside of local newspaper articles); and therefore such articles fall under the category of directory listings, which I have come to understand are not allowed on Wikipedia at all.

My argument in favor of inclusion would include the following assertions:

1. Shopping centers are a topic of great general local interest. 2. Shopping centers are critical in many ways to local economies. Neighborhoods (especially in the heavily suburban western United States) live and die based on the opening, closing, health, or lack thereof, of any one mall. 3. Shopping centers are notable examples of local architecture - at the very least, they generate debate on architectural merit. 4. Shopping centers are community gathering places and have become the modern "town square", making them relevant from a social and cultural standpoint.

As I stated on WP:DRV, it sounds like Wikipedia is moving towards eliminating ALL individual articles on shopping centers as they do not fit notability requirements as stated. If the articles I have questioned are deleted (and the consensus is currently leaning towards endorsement for deletion), the same must be done to about 75% of the rest, in the interest of fairness. If that is the case there could be hundreds of articles so targeted.

Can an official policy be formulated and publicly stated on the relevance, appropriateness, and/or notability of individual articles on shopping centers? If they are not allowed, that should be explicitly stated somewhere on an official policy page accessible to all editors.

Furthermore, is there a place where major announcements of page deletions and other policy implementation are made to all editors?

And lastly, can editors have the option to relocate such articles to other wikis or other resources on the Internet that may be a more appropriate home?

Thanks very much for reading.--Msr69er 12:23, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • While I have not yet read the DRV, there is a general and a specific concern. The general concern about any topic is whether an article can be written from the neutral point of view. In order to do that, we require sources independent of the topic and its proponents. If the only sources for a topic are a combination of self-published material and relatively trivial and/or routine news coverage (the annual Black Friday stories on the TV news), then there is no way to write an NPOV article.
  • With commercial ventures, the specific concern is that Wikipedia not be turned into a venue for advertising, and specifically to raise a Google ranking. There is the further awareness that a commercial establishment will employ advertising and press releases to raise its profile, so many editors try to be vigilent to identify puff pieces and unedited press releases.
  • Now, some malls are unquestionably notable, just as some companies are unquestionably notable. The Mall of America is at least as famous as many small cities. Suburban Square is considered by some to be the first mall, and so might be a good candidate for an article. On the other hand, I can't think why anyone who doesn't live within twenty miles of the place would care about 99% of the malls in the U.S., and that includes the ones at which I shop.
  • Your point about "fairness" is a bit off-the-mark. Each mall needs to be evaluated on its own merits, and since Wikipedia is not an advertisement, covering one mall does not mean that we have to cover all similarly-situated malls. There will always be marginal cases, and there is no way to ensure consistency across all of them. Moreover, consensus can change, so you will always find some inconsistency, because articles are written at different times. Robert A.West (Talk) 12:58, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If the excellent criterion requiring the subject's relevance outside itself were generally applied, Wikipedia would be lightened of much less-than-marginal cruft. --Wetman 13:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WP:LOCAL is a useful guideline here. I would agree that many of these deserve coverage, but in most cases the potential for expansion is severely limited; merging into a more general article (or better, initially placing the information in a more general article) is often the best solution. -- Visviva 15:29, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What impact has the mall had beyond its own community? A routine shopping outlet full of nearly franchise and chain stores would not merit conclusion, but there could be exceptions. The original Sherman_Oaks_Galleria was in several films and a hit song. DurovaCharge! 16:18, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification. It sounds like many of the individual articles that exist on malls may indeed be targets for eventual deletion in the future, if the guidelines I have learned about are to be applied on a case-by-case basis. I can tell you right now that several other similar articles to the ones I submitted to DRV, including a few more I have made edits to, do not pass the test. Perhaps this is the impetus for me to investigate alternative places on the Internet, maybe through Wikia, that might serve as a more useful home for this information, which I maintain has a high degree of validity. Please be assured that it is not my intention to come on Wikipedia and knowingly violate rules. Any suggestions on alternate places to go, if you know of any, would be of interest.--Msr69er 17:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My own opinion is that some malls are notable, but that doesn't mean that all of them are. A mall should be evaluated as any other business per WP:CORP. If it is genuinely notable, meaning that it's had non-trivial mentions in the news, or had a scholarly book written about it, or meets other listed qualifications, and if references which can be used to verify the information are listed in the article, then I can see keeping a Wikipedia article about it. If, however, an article has little information except, "This is a big mall in Cleveland", and there are no references aside from the mall's own website, then the article, in my opinion, should be nominated for deletion. I'd also point out that I've been seeing many new articles show up that seem to be being created by real estate developers who are using Wikipedia to promote a property which is up for sale. Per the request from the Wikimedia Foundation[41], we should be aggressive about getting rid of this kind of spam. --Elonka 19:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did many of the recent mall deletions end up being a combination of Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles + possible G11(spam)? In my case (Gurnee Mills), that's what it ended up being (there was a spammer who was peripherally involved in the article, turning it into a borderline G11 even though it wasn't necessarily G11 for most of its life; plus it had the forementioned no-sources issue, something we haven't yet been deleting articles for). It just would have been nice to have been given the 5 or 14-day warning to look around for sources before it was deleted. I've managed to find a few, and once I find one or two more, I'll recreate it from scratch. *shrug* Whatever. --Interiot 20:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Submit a deletion review for Gurnee Mills; I agree, that was a perfectly valid article that shouldn't have been speedily deleted (I always check the history of a G11 article before deleting; 42 edits from numerous articles means it isn't a single-purpose article, and at worst, should be sent through AfD). Make sure to drop me a line if you submit a DR. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:26, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have noticed that there is a somewhat uneven coverage of shopping malls in Wikipedia. In particular, there are not articles for some of the largest malls in the world. I was somewhat surprised by this, given the importance of malls in commerce worldwide. There is also a variety of scholarly investigation of malls, and the evolution of their appearance over the years. I think frankly there should be an organized attempt to rectify this situation.--Filll 19:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Afd's-Tfd's-Cfd's

I've recently engaged in a couple of template-for-deletion and category-for-deletion exercises. I won't go into what they were, but on both occasions, the subjects clearly did not meet WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV policy in any way. This was shown to be the case by more experienced users in the debate. However, enough of what I would describe as tendentious or misguided users were in support of these templates and categories to kick up a cloud of sand. It would seem to me that the closing admins took one look at the handful of keep votes, judged the subjects "no consensus" and these were kept. My questions are, how seriously does a closing admin take policy when considering votes for deletion compared simply to counting votes? And why would a "no consensus" automatically mean keep? Wouldn't it be wise to consider a "no consensus" to mean delete, particularly in the case of controversial templates that will likely inflame disputes?

Another way of putting this is, if enough goons voted to keep a category called, say, "People who smell", would that lead to a keep on the basis of "no consensus"? --Zleitzen 17:09, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally the closing admin is supposed to look at the arguments presented rather than the simple Keep vs Delete counts. If you don't like the final decision you could ask the closing admin why they made the decision they made, they might answer your question. As for why a "no consensus" in a XFD would result in a keep, the idea is to make it difficult to actually delete things from Wikipedia. If it weren't difficult than encyclopedic topics that were controversial would suddenly find themselves up for XFD and deleted. On the flip side, if a WP:DRV is created a "no consensus" would result in the topic not being recreated in Wikipedia. --Bobblehead 17:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I too was of the belief that admins were supposed to look at the arguments. In the case of an article, it is the responsibilty of an editor to ensure an edit meets WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV or it will likely be deleted. However, in the Xfd's, it seems to work the other way round. The onus seems to be on the editors who wish to delete the material to gain universal agreement. If this is not forthcoming, which is unlikely due to a few votes by tendentious or naive editors, then we are left with a "no consensus" decision which keeps categories etc regardless of how much they violate the basic tenets. There seems to be a conflict between adhering to policy and adhering to consensus (or lack of in this case). With a lonely admin making the final call. --Zleitzen 17:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think the application of the onus being on the submitter to delete an entire topic is rightly placed. An XFD is more a discussion of why the topic should be deleted, rather than why the topic should be kept. If the content of the topic violates the three pillars, then the discussion can be done via the topic's talk page or via the dispute resolution process. If consensus is there to remove content that violates the three pillars, then it can be removed and if certain editors become tendentious, they can be sent through the Wikipedia:Disruptive editing process.--Bobblehead 18:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
if enough goons voted to keep a category called, say, "People who smell", would that lead to a keep -- yes, but then if you go the other way then all it takes is for someone to nominate (say) Mathematics and 'enough goons' to vote to dump it and we have to get rid of it because there isn't a consensus to keep it! In the event of a dispute, we have to favor keeping things to dumping things or a few idiots can dump valuable data. Having a bunch of crap pages (which nobody in their right mind is going to link to or to search for) has very little negative impact on the encyclopedia...compared to great articles being dumped by an annoying few. SteveBaker 00:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, sorry, that's not how xFDs work (or, at least, are supposed to work). Consensus/majority vote is not the be-all and end-all of a closing admin's decision. The admin needs to take into consideration the merits of the various arguments. If everybody said, "Keep it, it's cool", and one person said, "But there are no sources", that one exception should prevail. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Admins are supposed to weigh the arguments, precedent and policy, and not just count "votes". As Wikipedia grows this will be more and more important. If xFD's are closed by "vote" counting there will be more and more gaming of the system. If people realize that one well stated argument can trump dozens of impassioned "votes" people will put more effort into discussion. This is the only way to counter vote spamming, and restore civility. More about this here. -- Samuel Wantman 09:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Header tags

The following debate has been duplicated and relocated here from Wikipedia:Help_desk#header_tags for policy discussion.

Survey

Add * Support (in favor of set of 3 tags) or * Oppose (in favor of 1 tag) followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

For other people named Robert Johnson, see Robert Johnson (disambiguation).
For alternate spelling see Robert Johnston

See also: Bob Johnson, Rob Johnson, Bobby Johnson, and Robert Johnston

vs.

For other people named Robert Johnson, see Robert Johnson (disambiguation).
  • Support I spent a great deal of time yesterday editing all articles and dab pages for persons named Robert Johnson, Bob Johnson, Rob Johnson, & Bobby Johnson and made some minor changes for persons named Robert Johnston and Bob Johnston. This morning I woke up to some controversy regarding the use of some tags I put at the top of the Robert Johnson article pages and the bottom of the dab page. Someone placed the following explanation on my talk page. I am unsure whether I violated WP:MOSDAB, but I propose that the former set of tags should be returned to these pages instead of just the later single tag. Although in creating dab we assume people know the correct spelling of what they are searching for and design the page according to the premise that someone searching for the exact correct thing could end up in the wrong place because of multiple referents for this exact correct search. However, on article pages, I think it may be appropriate for particularly confusing names to add multiple tags like I propose. In fact, why was the bottom of the 3 tags created if not for a purpose like this. If I was named Robert Johnson and people kept confusing me with other people, I might want the former tags. Also, I think novice wikipedians could end up on any Robert Johsnon page while looking for Robert Johnston, or any of the other Johnsons. Feedback awaited. TonyTheTiger 17:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment What about "For other people named Robert Johnson, see Robert Johnson (disambiguation); also Bob or Rob Johnson or Johnston". I'd just like to see it not use up more than one line. Steve 19:52, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I could put Robert Johnston in the see also tag:
For other people named Robert Johnson, see Robert Johnson (disambiguation).
See also: Bob Johnson, Rob Johnson, Bobby Johnson, and Robert Johnston
.
Of course, I could manually code it without the tags in one line as well since the templates won't print on the same line. TonyTheTiger 20:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All above debate was relocated here from Wikipedia:Help_desk#header_tags.

  • Comment: perhaps this should be discussed before taking a survey. It seems to me that having multiple dab messages at the top of an article is distracting, and constitutes trying to disambiguate at the article rather than on the dab page. If there is only one link provided at the top then the user only has one choice (thus no mistakes, like a one-button mouse). I think the disambiguation should take place on the dab page.--Blainster 21:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think the guidelines at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Disambiguation links is pretty clear. There should be one link at the top of the page to the disambituation page. Alternate spellings should be listed in the See also section of the disambiguation page. (Which is currently the case.) The link for the "primary" article should be at the top of the disambiguation page (which is also currently the case). As explained at the guideline, the person arriving at the page from the primary article is not likely to be wanting to return to it. (The "primary" article is the search result article.) I would therefore Oppose the proposal.—Chidom talk  00:37, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use in portals proposal

There is a proposal on Wikipedia:Fair use/Amendment/Fair use images in portals about whether to allow fair use images in portals. Although it might have been brought up before, it has not closed as consensus has not been reached for either side. Ddcc 20:47, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaner formatting for Talk pages

I have proposed a new policy: Wikipedia:Talk page formatting. What do you think? --ADTC 21:30, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Standardise a Date Format

What format for numbers only dates that people use is confusing, and what's worse can be misleading. I found a date in a Wiki tag that used the UK style Day/Month/Year format, all numbers. Could be read as US style Mo/Day/Year. Only I knew which was correct. Is there a standard? I would propose as the preferred standard the Japanese style Year (4 digits)/Mo (2 digits)/and Day (2 digits) for the simple and useful reason that it can instantly sort files in dated lists in a computer word processing file, i.e. 1) for year, 2) for month, 3) for day. Using an alpha form is not helpful. JohnClarknew 01:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Won't happen, proposals have been tried, they just result in stupid protracted debates with no resolution. We have some magic scripts to adapt date formats to your preferences, but those are imperfect.
Let's face it, Wikipedia's not going to have a real standard date format unless the proper format descends to us on a golden tablet from the skies, and I don't think we want "divine intervention" over what are trifling standardization issues in the scheme of things. --tjstrf talk 05:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any real need to use numbers only dates at all? Just use full dates, wikilink them, and they'll display however the individual user wants them to display. And even if they didn't, the month would be dsiplayed in words so there'd be no confusion. -- Necrothesp 19:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

tjstrf, in time, the US will fall into line with the rest of the world, and we'll all use Day/Month/Year. However, as that's probably at least another 100 years away, we'll have to stick with the mish-mash we currently have. US punctuation style will go the same way (although almost certainly quicker). jguk 20:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say that I find the US system lacks logic. Surely the units should be in either increasing (dd/mm/yyyy) or decreasing (yyyy/mm/dd) hierarchy. However I also find that the US numerical system to be inferior to the British - the UK system might be longer to say, but it does extend to several powers of ten greater than the US system. I fear the battle on this has been long since lost. Likewise, unfortunately, the usage of the English language. --JohnArmagh 21:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Enough of the British snobbish attitude. We should simply use either a three letter abbreviation for all months or write out the month. Seems simple. I have been taught this since high school (in the U.S.) BTW, I live in a country that uses year-month-day, but even now, that can cause confusion. Is 06-07-08 June 7, 2008; August 7, 2006; or July 6, 2008? Write out the month, it will save EVERYONE a whole lot of headaches. Ludahai 23:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm British too - and (of course) the US system doesn't make much sense to me. But from a point of view of logical consistency, the British system isn't the best either. In some European countries (the Netherlands is one), they use yy/mm/dd - that's even more logical than dd/mm/yy or mm/dd/yy because when we write numbers, we put the hundreds on the left then the tens and finally the units on the right - big to small - same should happen with dates. Hence, year then month than day. However, there is no point in railing against the system. We are stuck with all three ways of writing dates and unless we're going to have an American-English Wikipedia that's separate from British-English (and probably separate from Australia, Canada and others) - we're stuck with the undeniable fact that people will write things in their 'native' ordering and more than 50% are going to bitch and complain no matter which system we use. Just so long as we spell out the month and use 4 digits for the year rather than just two - we're OK. "2006 November 26th" is every bit as comprehensible as "26th November 2006" or "November 26th 2006". Since we can't possibly please everyone - but let us at least be unambiguous. If someone writes 10/12/06 then NOBODY knows with any certainty what is meant. Even 10/12/2006 is bad and because our readership is unaware of any wonderous Wiki standard, forcing standards down out editor's throats won't help that. SteveBaker 03:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ISO 8601; also works with date preferences. æ² ✆ 2006‑11‑27t08:10z

I strong support your proposal. We need a new tag and write all date like "<date>2006-01-01</date>". Yao Ziyuan 09:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a silly discussion. Per WP:POINT, Wikipedia is not consistent and it should not be. The last thing this project needs is instruction creep. --Ghirla -трёп- 10:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Granted that Wikipedia can be is inconsistent, all-numeric dates don't look good in prose, and can be ambiguous. That leaves us with wikified dates that should display per user preferences. See November 27, 2006. There's not much reason to do anything else, is there? Robert A.West (Talk) 11:26, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This isn't silly at all. While it's not necessary for dates to be standardized, all dates do need to be unambiguous. Any date format that can't be misinterpreted is fine. A date in a format XX/YY/ZZZZ (like the one starting this discussion) is potentially confusing and shouldn't be used. --Milo H Minderbinder 17:51, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Best practice is for people to write out dates (November 27, 2006 or 27 November, 2006). That said I don't think institutionalizing a date format is necessarily a good idea. I agree with Ghirla, instruction creep is not what is needed here. If you see a confusing date format, edit it.--Isotope23 15:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree, writing out the month is best; there's no ambiguity at all, and fully numerical dates are awful to encounter in prose, and ambiguous. Even if how the date appeared were to be fully a matter of user preference, because so many people edit (or just read!) anonymously or don't know how to change such preferences, that would just shift the issue of "how should dates appear in articles" to "what should the default setting be for how dates appear in articles?" Postdlf 15:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unreliable sources on Talk pages

Here is the scenario:
An editor proposes some content he wishes to include on the main page and cites sources (a online self-published book) to support his opinion. The consensus opinion during the discussion is that the sources are not reliable and the content non-mainstream, and therefore the content should not be included on the main-page.

The question now is:

  1. Should this discussion be deleted from the talk page in order not to give undue credence to the minority POV ?
  2. Should only the minority unsupported POV be deleted from the talk pages?
  3. Should only the non-reliable sources cited by the original editor be deleted from the talk pages so as to not give the free-hits to the cited website ?
  4. Should the discussion, including the citations, be left as is for future records ?

Is there any Wikipedia policy covering this scenario ? Just to clarify : (1) there is no dispute on the unreliability of the cited sources, (2) the original proposal was not plain vandalism, although it could possibly be advertisement for the cited sources.

The above scenario is not completely hypothetical. It arose on the Hindusim talk page. (Complete disclosure: I was one of the parties involved) My interest though is to understand the general wikipedia approach to this issue and not in that particular instance. Abecedare 04:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC) Note : I edited my post to number the 4 options for easy reference Abecedare 05:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • There has to be some soul-searching. What's the call of conscience? Are the intentions good? No policy can exist on hypothecation. Isn't righteousness intended while taking benefit of Wikipedia policy? Is the inclusion of links Abecedare strived meet the criteria of righteousness? Do we go by interpreting words of Wikipedia policy or objectives? I wish Abecedare that you look for the call of your conscience, is your act noble? swadhyayee 05:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I, uhm, agree... or something? Are you just telling us to Wikipedia:Assume good faith, or are you getting at something else? (I'm not sure what providing accurate information to our readers has to do with the criteria of righteousness...) --tjstrf talk 05:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
imo removal of talk page discussions that aren't blatant vandalism is not generally a good idea. Links in the talk page are nofollowed so won't effect search engines and the discussion of why we chose not to include the content will also be there for human visitors to see so i don't see a problem. Plugwash 05:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (favor 4). It is important to keep the discussion on the talk page, so that the next time somebody comes up with the idea of citing this unreliable source, they can read the previous discussion and save everybody lots of time. I hope that someone will undo the deletion which appears to have already occured in this case. Matchups 14:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all. Talk page discussion, unless obvious vandalism, obvious off-topic spamming, or in violation of WP:BLP or similar, should always be kept. In particular, "free hits" or potential Google pagerank influence is not a useful critera for Wikipedia to adopt.--Stephan Schulz 14:49, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Use of vernacular scripts in India bio articles - 1

This is a request for some direction regarding the use of vernacular scripts in some India related articles. There have been numerous on-going disputes in articles such as Vidya Balan, Rabindranath Tagore, Jana Gana Mana Bollywood and dozens others. These disputes are based on which scripts to use and even on which order they should appear. The use of these script in my opinion does not add any value. This is an English language encyclopedia. If the scripts are initially intended to provide pronunciation tips, then they are not needed as the reader able to read the scripts already know how to pronounce them. Rather these scripts are used to label someone's ethnicity, leading to regional and linguistic chauvinism. I think there needs to be a policy drawn up to encourage discontinuing these scripts unless they fulfil some useful function in the article. - Parthi talk/contribs 05:39, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This question has previously been raised on the policy pages (by me). The problem continues. One user in particular is incensed by the use of Nastaliq script to write names. He believes that this indicates an origin in an Urdu-speaking (and thus probably Muslim) community and should function only as an ethnic/religious marker. Some editors add script, then he removes it.
The result of previous deliberation here was that no enforcement of tolerance was possible until we had a general policy. I think I've got a possible general policy. If we need a pronunciation guide, we use IPA. If we are quoting a written work, such as a Sanskrit or Arabic text, we can use the script, as is often done in scholarly discourse. Otherwise. non-Roman script is not to be used with names, proper nouns, etc. However, we CAN put such scripts, or foreign versions of the words or names, in teeny type in a box at the bottom of the article, IF there exists an article on the same subject in the Wiki in that language. So a name in Devanagari script would link to an article in the Hindi Wikipedia. There is no requirement to make such scripts, and such links, visible, but it can be done if editors wish. Since the criterion is existence of an article, the scripts cannot be used as covert ethnic/religious tags. If more than one script is used to write the language, then all scripts can be given (if supplied) and they are NOT to be deleted by adherents of rival scripts. (Not just Devanagari and Nastaliq here, but PROC and Taiwanese versions of Chinese script, etc.) Comments? Zora 07:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Script should be in the language of the state that person originates from. Urdu should only be used for a mulsim indian or a pak.--D-Boy 07:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Quod erat demonstrandum. Zora 07:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
which was to be demonstrated?--D-Boy 07:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, there is another problem here: not all "Muslim" Indians speak Urdu. For example, those from West Bengal are very unlikely to speak Urdu as their mother tongue. Similarly, not all Pakistanis speak Urdu as their mother tongue (yes, it's their national language, but not the native language of the majority). --Ragib 07:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Urdu is no way connected to being a muslim or a pakistani.In Indian biographies, Urdu script should be added only if his/her mother tongue is urdu .-Bharatveer 07:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)Bharatveer 07:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly!--D-Boy 07:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. If we are talking about a Tamil Muslim like Abdul Kalaam (say), then an Urdu script is inappropriate because his native language is Tamil (Tamil Muslims even read the Koran in Tamil, not Arabic).It's about native Language. A Pakistani may not have Urdu as a mother tongue either, as he could be a Sindhi or Punjabi or Pashtu, in which case both Urdu and Sindhi/Punjabi/Pushtu would be appropriate. Urdu as the national language of Pakistan and Sindhi/Punjabi/Pushtu are the regional languages (dunno is Pakistan uses the term "Mother Tongue" in any legal context, probably not).An Indian would have his/her name in both Hindi and the native script, whatever that is, whether Urdu, Marathi, Gujarati, Sindhi, Bengali, Telegu, Malayalam, or whatever. The Hindi needs to be there on account of it being the national language, and the mother tongue (officially regarded as such) would also be there. Only official mother tongues must be recognized. I do not know what is the position of Pakistan government regarding non-Urdu languages, so am speculating about them. I can be certain about India, obviously.Hkelkar 07:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Where is the relevant WP policy for this? - Parthi talk/contribs 07:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We're making it as we go along. I think we need a concensus on the WP India so everyone knows.--D-Boy 07:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I doubt if there will be country specific policies. At best, we should work on this at WP:MOS or come to an agreement at Wikipedia:WikiProject India. As this is unique to India related articles, more relevant input is likely to be found there. — Lost(talk) 07:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It should probably go into an indic maual of style or the indic naming conventions.--D-Boy 08:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This never got off the ground:Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Indic-related articles)--D-Boy 08:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I diagree with the suggestion that the English language WP should have vernacular scripts indicating the subject's ethnicity and/or religion. - Parthi talk/contribs 07:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think Kajol speaks urdu. Why is it there? She's bengali and marathi which has the correct scripts.--D-Boy 08:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How do we know she speaks a particular language or not? Her father is of Bengali ethnic origin, and mother is Marathi, but does that mean she speaks either of these languages? I'm not saying she speaks or doesn't speak any of these languages, but how do we know which one is considered to be her "native" language here? --Ragib 08:07, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we do know that she Bengali and that she's part of mukerjee clan. I think the script is appropiate for that situation. An article say like SRK or even Big B would be appropiate for Urdu. Big B's father was an urdu writer.--D-Boy 08:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's a problem, because you can't be sure that; just because her father is Bengali, she speaks the language (unless there is info as such). I mean, we should not deduct these things about someone's native language. Jawed Karim's father is Bangladeshi, but he doesn't list Bengali as his native tongue. --Ragib 08:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think Bengali would be appropiate in that article since he is of bangladeshi descent. If ethinicity and religion are going to get in the way of things such as this, than we should just have it as English...especially for bollywood stars.--D-Boy 08:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, why is urdu on Punjab (India)? When I add the devangari on Punjab (Pakistan), I am accussed of vandalism. This is hypocractic.--D-Boy 08:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We need a fixed policy on this. One for places, and the other for people's names. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Indic-related articles)...--D-Boy 09:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I should add that this is not just a problem limited to India-related articles. I am spending much less time on Islam-related articles, but there's a trend there for people to add non-Roman scripts with abandon. It starts with Arabic, someone adds Persian, someone else adds Turkish, etc. There are indeed persistent problems related to Abbasid-era luminaries, with Arabs and Iranians scuffling over who gets to claim the luminary for bragging rights, but those tend to be waged over specific statements re ethnicity. Scripts aren't being used, as some editors here would have us do, as ethnic-religious markers.

The problem is that many people are unclassifiable. Insisting on classification WITHIN a nation-state strikes me as utterly bizarre. Zora 09:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not bizarre. It's completely logical. What's bizarre is having the urdu there. Especially, say when a person is blatently bengali! As for the Islam related articles, I don't get involved there. We had one user threaten another one from there on the phone! What we are discussing as to do with Indic articles, not islamic ones.--D-Boy 18:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The solution is merely keeping the scripts from their ethnicity (vidya balan - tamil/ malayalam), this policy has worked on all the Category:Bengali people (due to the hard effort of WP Bengal) articles. Wikilink to other articles. As for Big B, I usually wouldnt support nastaliq, but his dad was a famous urdu poet, and Big B was more than likely raised learning urdu.Bakaman Bakatalk 15:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. We should include this in our manual of style. Also, the punjab(pak) was reverted again!--D-Boy 18:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why should we label someone's ethnicity? This will only lead to unproductive disputes and edit wars on the various articles. If the vernacular scripts are not there only to provide information on the subjects ethnicity, then they are NOT needed. - Parthi talk/contribs 18:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Then the urdu should be removed because it's NOT needed.--D-Boy 21:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Would you be happy to remove all vernacular scripts and simply keep English and IPA for all India related pages? - Parthi talk/contribs 22:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would be happy if it was just english on the bollywood articles, hindi movies, and indian entertainer bios. Everything else usually isn't a problem except for maybe the punjab situation. But how will you enforce such a policy? Will editors follow it? We have no manual of style on this. Will this apply to chinese, japanese, korean, arabic...and so on. They have scripts for all their articles.--D-Boy 02:32, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I second Parthi's idea that all vernacular scripts be removed. They don't serve any purpose really. I was thinking about this for a long time. If the purpose was to deliver the pronunciation to local readers, then there are 20 odd Scheduled languages in India, and thousands in the world. This is English Wikipedia. Pronunciation can be given thru IPA, if needed. If a link is needed for similar article in other languages, that is what the inter-language links on the sidebar are for. May be we can go into a straw poll regarding this. This stuff needs a cleanup and will significantly reduce the unnecessary indic name translation on English Wikipedia and the edit wars that come with it. -- Chez (Discuss / Email) 00:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion and the one at Talk:Vidya Balan are leaning towards removing these scripts. If we can draw up a policy for India related articles to disallow vernacular scripts for new articles, we can retrospectively edit the hundreds of Bollywood and India bio articles over a period of time. The main intent of this discussion is to reach an agreement on the use of the vernacular scripts. The consensus seems to point to not using these scripts. Please correct me if I'm wrong - Parthi talk/contribs 19:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Parthi, from my understanding, those participating in this discussion support removing Indic scripts from Indian Biography articles, not Bollywood film and song and other India-related articles. Correct? Thanks, AnupamTalk 19:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding is that there is no need for the non-roman scripts in any of the articles in an English language encyclopedia unless they convey some unique information not conveyable otherwise. Hence the scripts will have to go in all artiles. Before tackling the world at large, let us tackle something closer to our home. If we can draw up a policy for India related articles, WP:MOS can be influenced to impact all other articles aswell. IMO these scripts add no additional information and have been a source of endless point scoring and linguistic and regional rivalry. - Parthi talk/contribs 20:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, I am opposed to this policy. I can understand the ethnicity issue with Biography-related articles, but not with clear-cut issues. In regards to Bollywood films and songs: Several Bollywood film covers that utilize Indian scripts give the two standard registers of Hindustani: Hindi and Urdu. You can take a look at some of these film covers: Image:Awaaraposter.jpg, Image:Waqt 1965 film poster.JPG, Image:Sholayposter2.jpg, Image:Padosan film poster.jpg, etc. I have provided a few here for you all. However there are many more. Please also see these references: Bollywood for the Skeptical and What is Bollywood?. Both references metion the use of Urdu and Hindi in Bollywood songs and films. Despite my giving of these references, it is quite clear that film titles are presented in both Hindi and Urdu. In the Saare Jahan Se Achcha article, Bakasuprman and Mahawiki supported keeping the Hindi script on an Urdu song article for the same reason. That is why Wikipedia articles employ one article for many topics relating to Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani (i.e. Hindi-Urdu grammar, Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization, Hindustani orthography, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) word etymology, etc.) Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani, which has been established as one language by many. For example many sources such as infoplease, Tigerx, and several others classify them together when giving populations statistics of speakers. Not to mention, linguists count them together as one language. I do not see any point in excising Indic scripts from song and film articles when the argument to keep them has been well buttressed. In addition, there are many editors (from looking at the Bollywood talk discussion) that would support this argument, including DaGizza, Dieresis, Ragib, and Basawala. Many of these editors do not have their opinions represented here. As of now there are a plethora of editors who add both the Devanagari and Perso-Arabic scripts to film articles, including myself, Devilitself, and Basawala. To remove these scripts from relevant articles would invalidate the countless hours that we have put forth in scripting these articles. In addition, I highly doubt that the rest of Wikipedia will follow suit in removing scripts from other articles. They are an important part in defining human civilization. Thanks for your time and understanding. I am looking forward to hearing your valuable responses. Shanti, AnupamTalk 20:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Resetting indent) I think there are advantages in having the native script in many cases. For example, Rabindranath Tagore's name is written in Bengali language (his native one) as রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর, which is pronounced as Robindronaath Thhakur. So, the native script and its transliteration is definitely necessary here. In many cases, the "English" language versions of these names sound a lot different from the actual name.

The only problem with having several scripts is that, often there are disagreements over what the native language is (even sillier, what the order of these scripts should be!!). That's a different issue from this, and the solution is not to remove all scripts, but to set up a policy of selecting scripts. As an analogy, look into the country articles ... almost all of them have the names of the country written in the official/native language. Thanks. --Ragib 20:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you Ragib. And I strongly disagree with Parthi. Even among readers of English Wikipedia, I'm convinced there are more people able to read Indian scripts than people able to read IPA perfectly. And there are people who aren't sure how to pronounce these names but can read Devanagari script or whatever (I'm one of them). So Indian scripts are definitely useful. However I agree that IPA adds (not replaces) information and that we should avoid having all Indian scripts used for all India related articles. BernardM 21:09, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ragib and BernardM, I agree with you too. For Bollywood films and songs, however, two scripts is the alotted maximum. The de facto policy there has always beeen as follows: that if someone adds Devanagari, thats okay. If someone adds Perso-Arabic, that's okay too. Neither script is required, but when they are added, they should not be deleted. However, since biographies entail numerous other issues, including mother tongue, ehtnicity, etc., a policy/agreement is needed. The way I always looked at it in the past was that the only reason actors and actresses are famous is through Bollywood. As a result, I've always supported keeping the Hindustani scripts (plus any other relevant ones). I can understand why this might be contentious though. Thanks, AnupamTalk 21:25, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In response to Aupam's comments, as far as the Bollywood articles are concerned, if the movie posters contain the relevant scripts why would you need to include them in the article? The audience if they are ethnic Indian, they already know how the movie name is pronounced. If they can't read the two or three scripts then the scripts are of no use to them anyway. Ragib's example about the Tagore article is exactly the same category. Bengalis already know how to pronounce his name. Non Bengalis can read a transliteration or the IPA to find out. IMO these scripts provide no additional information to the majority of Wikipedia users. We seem to think these articles are only read by Indians, which is probably not true. In response BernardM, there are millions of Indian (probably a majority of them) who can't read Devanagri. Thanks - Parthi talk/contribs 21:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, all most biography pages of people, whose native language's script wasn't the Roman alphabet, have the names of the person written in the native script. Example: Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs), Plato (Greek: Πλάτων, Plátōn, "wide, broad-shouldered"), Archimedes (Greek: Ἀρχιμήδης), etc. It definitely helps to add to my knowledge what the actual script looks like. The same IPA pronunciation can be written using several different ways. For example, Iajuddin Ahmed's name is actually written in Bengali as ইয়াজউদ্দিন আহম্মদ, and NOT ইয়াজুদ্দিন আহমেদ, even though both versions have the same pronunciation (and hence, IPA notation). So, the IPA notations are not complete replacements for the scripts. As I said earlier, the root cause of the contention here is not having scripts (which almost all bios have without any problems, after all it's just a few more bytes), but people edit warring over what scripts should/shouldn't be in the article. Solution to a headache is not getting rid of the head, rather to find out the cause of the ache, and solve it. So, here, a policy on the script is the solution, rather than the removal of scripts. Also, this involves thousands and thousands of bio articles here, and therefore "consensus" can't be achieved by only 4-5 people. Thanks. --Ragib 22:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely Ragib. Sometimes adding yet another script adds ethymological information. Another example is Kajol's name : काजोल is the Devanagari transliteration of কাজল, not the same spelling in an other script. In this case giving both Devanagari and Bengali makes perfect sense. I think Indian scripts should be provided when there are relevant, this relevance being defined by a debate (somewhere else than here probably). BernardM 22:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As for the problem with IPA - I agree that IPA is useful for pronounciation, but not for spelling. This is why I propose that we use ITRANS as well as IPA when writing the name. The advantage of ITRANS is that the spelling can be backed out for any Indic script. Using the example of Kajol, the IPA and ITRANS spelling, together completely define how her name should be written or pronounced.Gamesmaster G-9 23:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, it doesn't always do. And Kajol is precisely a perfect example. The spellings of काजोल and কাজল are not the same, their ITRANS representation is not the same : the first one is kaajol and the second one kaajal. BernardM 00:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we can't reach a binding consensus here, but atleast we have succeeded in getting people to think about it. Personally, I think any information is good information. My only concern is the fruitless edit wars that seem to happen to a lot of these articles. If we can come up with a policy and get it voted on in Wikipedia:WikiProject India. - Parthi talk/contribs 22:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the only time when vernacular scripts should be included is when a name or phrase is explicitly written in that language, and no other - for example, Sanskri mottos for Indian Institutions, or the official name of a country. Individual names are not language specific. Gamesmaster G-9 23:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Names are quite often language specific, I mean, written differently in different languages and scripts. Rabindranath Tagore is a perfect example ... in English, his name is written as Rabindranath Tagore which is NOT how it is written and pronounced in Bengali (রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর Robindronaath Thhakur). We should keep in mind that, the names are originally in the native script, and only later written/transliterated in English (i.e. the official one is the native language one, not the English one). Another example is Michael Madhusudan Dutt, which is the English version of মাইকেল মধুসূদন দত্ত (Bengali), which actually is pronounced like Maikel Modhusudon Datto. Even more, note that the same name would be pronounced differently in a different Indian language, for example, Hindi/Sanskrit (which would have pronounced "Madhu" as "maadhu" instead of Bengali pronunciation "Modhu"). So, by dumping the original script, we lose the original information, and instead add different/often incorrect info about the name. Therefore, no need to remove original script. Thanks. --Ragib 00:53, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Names often happen to have an actual meaning in their original language. And of course looking for or guessing this meaning is easier when you know how the word is spelt. For example কাজল means kohl in Bengali, while the Devanagari transliteration loses this meaning because of a purely phonetic interpretation. However काजोल is how it's written in all Hindi media so both scripts should be indicated. BernardM 02:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is the English-language Wikipedia. We should give the standard English pronunciation(s). If the name is pronounced differently in a different language, certainly that can be handled by my suggestion that we have a box at the BOTTOM of the article with links to the same subject in other wikis, with the name given in the script or scripts used in that Wiki. Anyone who can read that script can read the name.

I do not like the current habit of putting all the different scripts at the top of the article, as it puts a full stop to reading. It's gibberish to anyone who can't read those scripts, which is MOST of our readers. Would you give a speech that started with two words in English and then a 5-minute peroration in a language unknown to the audience? Zora 01:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just realized; if people are so gung-ho to add scripts, and can't add them unless there's a matching article in another wiki, they're going to have a good reason to write that article if there isn't one. Proposed policy might be of great benefit to the non-English wikis. Zora 01:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A solution would be to add these informations to the infobox, following the example of {{Template:Hdeity infobox}} (see Vishnu for instance). It should made be flexible enough to indicate both Hindi/Urdu and other scripts. BernardM 02:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My only beef is putting urdu where it's not supposed to be there. This is basically a core issue. It's firestarter. You can put the urdu on the a bengali movie star but if you put devangari on Sindh article, there's hell to pay. Bengali seems fine. No problems or when person is not mutli-ethic there seem to be no problem.--D-Boy 03:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Namaste D-Boy! I don't know if I've talked to you directly before but I just wanted to say thanks for your contributions and remarks. From my comments, I hope you understand why the Urdu script is relevant to Bollywood film and song articles. It seems like there is still a debate on what scripts to include in Indian Biography articles. There realy shouldn't be a problem with the Devanagari script on the Sindh article. Like Hindustani, Sindhi is written in both the Perso-Arabic and Devanagri scripts. I once added the Devanagari to the article as well. Thanks! AnupamTalk 04:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The last two comments above illustrate precisely the type of problems with the use of these scripts. Language such as 'fire-starter' and 'hell to pay' is what is causing the unproductive edit wars in the bio and Bollywood articles. More reason why we need to get rid of these pesky scripts! - Parthi talk/contribs 04:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Use of vernacular scripts in India bio articles - 2

I strongly agree with Parthi. This is the English-language Wikipedia. The native scripts can be used in special cases such as Satyameva Jayate. But using native scripts for every article (including Bollywood films is unnecessary). It only leads to stupid linguistic wars between Indian editors, and makes the intro look cluttered. In my personal opinion, all Indic scripts (except some cases such as Satyameva Jayate) should be removed. I wonder if we can have a poll/survey to solve this problem. utcursch | talk 05:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I must note here again: it is not the case that articles are being stuffed with non-English text. Rather, ONLY having the person's name in his/her native script is being questioned. (That's only two or three words at most). Next, the only dispute to arise here are *a few* bio articles. It would be wrong to remove script from thousands of biography articles just because of the edit dispute between a handful of users. I also want to note that Indian biography articles are not something *so special* that a different policy will apply to them. The same policy needs to apply to ALL biography articles, and again, it is totally wrong to remove the useful native language version of the names, *only* because of edit war in Bollywood related articles. Solutions to this problem should be to get a better policy at deciding what the script of choice would be (which is the point of disgreement here), rather than complete removal of native language names. Thanks. --Ragib 06:06, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is not just an India-bio problem. As I said previously, I'm starting to see scripts multiply in Islam-related articles. Look at the start of Mecca, for instance. Someone adds Arabic, someone else adds Persian, someone else adds Turkish ... As for the suggestion that we just need a policy to decide what the one "script of choice" will be -- that doesn't seem to me to be possible. I'm arguing, not for REMOVING the scripts, but moving them to a box where they don't interrupt the article, and having as criteria not ethnic group, religion, or nationality (all of which will involve us in vicious internicine conflicts), but the existence of an article in the matching wiki. Ragib, this will mean that editors can't add Bengali script unless there's a matching article in the Bengali wiki. They'll have to write an article! Wouldn't that be fine? Zora 06:48, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that sounds ok to me. What I understand of your proposal is that, the scripts are to be removed from the header to a box somewhere else in the page. Fine by me. As long as the name in the native script is there, it should be fine. BTW, isn't it something to be discussed in WP_Biography rather than here? --Ragib 06:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No. it's a stupid idea. The Bengali articles usually have no conflict or fierce edit wars over scripts. Plus, there will never a concensus to go all english and no scripts on wikipedia unless you get ton bots to remove them. Will the chinese like it if their script is removed from an edit war that has nothing to do with time. What about the Russians and the Greeks? I don't think so.--D-Boy 18:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As the Mecca example shows, this goes beyond biography. As soon as one script gets added to an article, people who feel that THEIR language is being excluded start adding their scripts. We need a policy that applies to all articles. As said above, there would be exceptions for quoting texts. It's standard in scholarship to quote a text in the original so that those who can read it can check the translation. Perhaps we'd also need exceptions for dead languages that don't have wikis? Are there any dead languages for which WP supports a script but doesn't have a wiki? We have Latin and Sanskrit WPs, but not a Hittite or Sumerian one ... though, gee, the idea of a Sumerian wiki is immediately appealing :) Zora 07:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why on earth is there turkish and farsi for an article such as Mecca? Islam was started by an arab in arabia. The sacred language the quran is arabic which is supposedly the truest way to read the scripture. Urdu shouldn't even be there. Maybe on articles such as Sufism they would have their native language from where it started.--D-Boy 18:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've said lot about this before and many people here know my views. So my 2 cents/some quick points -

  • Vernacular scripts to be avoided as far as possible.
  • Sneaking in Hindi/Devanagari script into every possible 'India-related' article is reprehensible.
  • Bollywood movies are Hindi movies, atleast thats the "official" line(Posters arent 'official', certifications by the 'official' censor body displayed at the start of every movie are). So Urdu script is superfluous on Bollywood articles.
  • Vernacular script can be used where the ethnicity is beyond question. For e.g., for Chola tamil script is understandable and for Maratha Empire Marathi script is understandable, Jana Gana Mana is a Bengali song, so Bengali script is justified etc.,. But even if there is a semblance of confusion or dispute, I would support NOT using the controversial scripts.(Note: On JGM for e.g., Bengali is beyond question, it is the Hindi script that is controversial. So Bengali script should be allowed and Hindi thrown out.)
  • Now, I know, that above examples cannot be used to generalise, so if the consensus is that vernacular scripts be banned altogether, I would support such a decision. Atleast that should stop people pushing Hindi on all India-related articles ridiculously in the garb of 'patriotism' or pushing 'Hindi' in the garb of 'Devanagari' on Sanskrit/Hindu related articles and such other random BS. Sarvagnya 19:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And what historic indic article that are located in pakistan? What scripts would we be able to add one those? Devangari? What about article like Sindh?--D-Boy 21:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I take it you meant "what about". Can you tell me why on earth we need Devanagari on Sindh? Devanagari is 'nothing' as far as Sindh is concerned. The only scripts justified on Sindh is the Sindhi script(first and foremost) and then may be... may be just Urdu script because, I believe Urdu is the national lang of Pak(even then, I am not sure that is a good enough reason). Sarvagnya 22:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But Sindhi as well as punjabi and kashmiri are also written in devangari for their written langauges.--D-Boy 00:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good, you may note that Hindi is one of two official central government languages in India (the other is english, which falls outside this discussion). Therefore, Hindi should be on every India related page. Of course using a logical argument like this makes me a "POV-pushing nationalist", "Hindutva bigot", "whitewasher" in the eyes of more than one user.Bakaman Bakatalk 03:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good, you may also note that Official language != National language. India has no national language. And it is for a reason that the govt., has chosen to call it merely 'official' language and not 'national' language. And did u notice the may be.... maybe just in my above message? And in any case, if it ever came to a vote, I'd never vote for using it on the concerned country's pages and you know it. It is as ridiculous as, say, plastering an image of the peacock and the tiger on every Indian wildlife page simply because they are the national animals. huh. Sarvagnya 06:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't understand why these scripts are so necessary here in English Wikipedia. Editors putting theirs views on Bollywood songs and film names suggest that it is for exact pronunciation. If it is mentioned only for accurate pronunciation, what purpose does it serve if most users can't read that script? I can't read and understand any script other than English, Tamil and basic Hindi. I can't understand if Rabindranath Tagore is pronounced as such or otherwise in Bengali. So are many other scripts for many other situations. If accurate pronunciation is to be specified, let us use standard IPA. I think every one can learn a single pronunciation format (if needed) than 100 other scripts from all parts of the world. This situation may seem specific to articles related to Indian languages as of now, but this is Wikipedia-wide issue. As mentioned above, local scripts do nothing more than appearing as gibberish to non-local readers. Believe me, people don't care much about exact pronunciation because of their inherent incapability to pronounce other languages so well. No matter how we try, foreign language speakers can nowhere be close to pronunciation level of native speakers. So let us just get rid of those scripts completely! -- Chez (Discuss / Email) 04:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this will help you pronouce it: Wikipedia:Indic transliteration scheme. I son't know tamil but it's interesting seeing the script of Chola dynasty in tamil script. Seein the script exposes you to different writing systems.--D-Boy 08:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By that logic, people should start inserting all kinds of scripts in all the articles -- that'll expose readers to all kinds of writing systems. This is simply unnecessary. It doesn't serve any purpose and leads to stupid edit wars among overly fanatic linguistic patriots. I'm not opposed to vernacular scripts because of edit wars. I'm opposed to them because I feel they do not serve any purpose (except in cases such as Satyameva Jayate). They also make an article less readable. Look for example, at the intro of Rajnikanth article. The Marathi/Kannada/Tamil scripts are not there to make the article useful, they are present simply because of fanatic Marathi/Kannada/Tamil linguistic patriots. Why do we need a person's name in his/her native script (Indian or otherwise)? Why do we need a place's name in the native script? This is English Wikipedia. User:Chezhiyan has pointed out rightly -- they're certainly not useful for pronunciation. If people are willing to learn, they'll learn IPA instead. Like Zora has suggested, we need a policy on this. I think it will be nice to put different proposals and then have a voting (like Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Sidebar redesign/Final draft vote). utcursch | talk 08:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Utcursch, that's a useful link. I think I can write up my policy proposal, but coming up with a sample infobox will challenge my feeble coding skills. Anyone willing to work with me on designing an infobox template? I think the other proposals have been to eliminate all scripts (no infobox) and to keep one script, which is to be the script most closely associated with the subject of the article (how "most closely associated" is determined should be defined, otherwise the edit wars will continue). Is there anyone at all in favor of the present policy -- anyone can put any script anywhere and then we have an edit war? Zora 18:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then why is important to Vladir putin's name in Russian or Mao Zedong's name in CHinese by that same logic? Or have Mecca in Arabic? If you're going to go all english, then you should do it for eery single article. Also you should write your policy at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Indic-related articles), if you're going to make one. Maybe people should have input on it and a concensus should be reached. Voting is not what wikipedia is about. Also, the Koreans have a really good infobox for their hangul scripts.--D-Boy 18:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we need a policy that applies to every single article, not just the South Asia or India articles. Zora 19:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My 0.02 pence.... Firstly i couldnt care less if scripts are there or not. I'd support removal of vernacular scripts ONLY if all non-English scripts are removed simultaneously. Indian articles shouldnt be held to different standards. Re:Bollywood it is really idiotic to add Urdu to Bollywood articles ad hoc, more so for Bollowood bios (Kajol article for example had Urdu but no Marathi!). Unless the said movie uses stresses on Urdu (as understood in post-1947 context) i see no point in adding urdu script to articles like say Lage Raho. File:England flag large.png अमेय आर्यन DaBroodey 18:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd propose removing all scripts to an infobox. Your declaration that no change should be allowed unless all articles can amended simultaneously ignores reality: we can't amend a substantial portion of 1.5 million articles simultaneously. It's going to take time to educate editors to use the infobox for new articles and to revise the old ones. If the proposal to use an infobox passes, let's first have a period just for moving scripts; we don't apply the criterion (is there an article in the matching wiki) immediately. However, unmatched scripts should show up as red links. We have a year during which any scripts can be added to the infobox and none deleted. At the end of that year, we start deleting the redlinked ones. We should give ample time for editors to create matching articles. Zora 19:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an example of the korean's infobox: Template:Koreanname

The article Kalarippayattu also has good info box although it's not parameterized.--D-Boy 20:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in favour of moving all scripts from the lead to an infobox placed at the bottom of the article. This will certainly improve the readability of the article. However these silly ethnic edit wars will continue in the infobox area. Parthi talk/contribs 21:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really see the need for an additional infobox. I think most of us agree that the scripts add nothing significant to an article, especially for the millions who don't read that script. I say, just get rid of them altogether. IPA/ITRANS is all we need. Gamesmaster G-9 23:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, this discussion has gone on for ages. I think we should attempt to reach a consensus now. It would help if everyone wrote down their exact position on the issue in one line. Gamesmaster G-9 23:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it within the rules of the "game" for Dangerous-Boy to be posting messages on the talk pages of people whom he believes might support him, asking them to come vote here? See:
Technically, no it is not. Wikipedia:Spam#Canvassing.--Bobblehead 02:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Most of those people were involved in the discussion. Just making sure they get there input in.--D-Boy 02:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is generally poor etiquette to notify only your side of the argument (which I'm not saying you're doing), even if they were all involved in the discussion. It tends to skew consensus in a certain direction. If you feel the need to canvas you should hit the proponents for all sides of the disagreement or make a single post on an article that they all are involved in. Rampant vote stacking can be considered a disruption and can get you an involuntary wikibreak. --Bobblehead 02:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed...>_>--D-Boy 02:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Votes

YES

  1. Yes for (only) the native script, in the lead or at least somewhere else in the page. (lead/box/wherever). --Ragib 00:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Yes for (only) the native script, in the lead or at least somewhere else in the page. (lead/box/wherever).--D-Boy 01:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Yes for relevant scripts, in the lead of the page.--AnupamTalk 01:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Yes for (only) the native script, in the lead or at least somewhere else in the page. (lead/box/wherever). Hindu stuff (unless purely non-Sanskrit) always in Nagari, and bios in the person's ethnicity.Bakaman Bakatalk 03:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Yes - as far as the stuff I know something about - I would like Sanskrit and Pali in Buddhist articles. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Yes I strongly dislike IPA/ITRANS for correct pronunciation, so I prefer the native scripts to stay. GizzaChat © 05:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Yes Native Scripts should be there for Bios. Most other common stuff should have Nagari script. --NRS | T/M\B 06:44, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. YES for native script. 'relevant' scripts should be added only after consensus. Sarvabhaum 11:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Yes for (only) the native script (the language in which the word or its native equivalent is most often used). For example, if its "Krishna", the term should be in sanskrit, and if its "thambi", the language should be tamil; for acchan, the language should be malayalam and so on. ­ If its going to be more than one script, my vote is "no" ॐ Kris (☎ talk | contribs) 14:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Yes for the inclusion of only appropriate scripts in the article.-Bharatveer 14:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NO

  1. No vernacular scripts in the lead. Parthi talk/contribs 00:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. No vernacular scripts anywhere for biographical pages. Only IPA/ITRANS. Gamesmaster G-9 00:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. No scripts for bios. Is too devisive. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I don't think we should vote on this as an India-only issue because as people said it affects Chinese and all other languages. I think we should make a proper proposal like somebody suggested and discuss it in the context of all languages and scripts. It is unfair to have different rules for India and different rules for other countries. Also I don't understand why you say we should use ITRANS. I think ISO 15919 or IAST are the proper things to use. Nobody uses ITRANS in serious articles outside email or places where you only can use ASCII. -- Ponnampalam 01:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I recommended ITRANS over IAST, because I felt it would be convenient for other scripts (Gurmukhi, Gujarati) as well. I have no specific bias in its favour. Gamesmaster G-9 02:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry to not have read the entire discussion and place my opinion. Probably the problem is due to abuse of regional scripts. Anything that is good and helpful would not be objected by any except by ill-motivated editor. My feeling is 1) Any regional script should be allowed within limits. 2) With Muslim's Jihad movement, there remains a scope of continuous abuse of a policy so there must be a body of editors/admins to monitor. If, the official body finds abuse of policy, the members should have tools to change and protect the page. 3) My feeling is use of national language in limits will be advantageous. 4) I disagree that since other encyclopedias do not use regional scripts, Wikipedia should also not use the same. 5) The policy not to include regional language would also be abused by objecting to necessary inclusions. 6) The grievances are going to remain, instead why not have a body who would concentrate in preventing abuse particularly between hostile societies? Pl. bear with me, if I am wrong. swadhyayee 05:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: I feel this voting is being done in a hurry. This issue spans a large variety of articles. We should first make an effort to atleast broadly classify articles and then vote for each type one at a time. Bios certainly are a different class from say geography/history related articles. I dont see any harm using native scripts on articles like, say, Chola, Hoysala etc.,. There is no scope for any disputes on these articles. The disputes are really mostly on the articles where Hindi-pushers want Hindi scripts or the Hindi-pushers themselves run into Urdu-script supporters. On bios, I support using the script with which the person is most widely associated. Rajnikanth for example, should have only Tamil because that is what he's most widely seen as being associated with. Hindu/Sanskrit articles belong equally to whole of India and historically(until fairly recently), devanagari was never the script for Sanskrit. So, on these articles, we should just do with IPA. More later. Sarvagnya 06:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Comment: And yet, if the pro-vernacular people have their way, then Rajnikanth would have his name written in Devanagri because his ethnicity is Marathi. Then someone else will add Kannada because he lived in Bangalore. And lets not forget the Hindi-fundamentalist who believe that Indian=Hindi. I have no doubts that people will indulge in non-stop linguistic one-upmanship. Gamesmaster G-9 07:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quoting people in articles

On the bipolar disorder page there's a 'personal descriptions' section, which currently just has two quotes from one medical researcher giving generalised clinical opinions as well as alluding to personal experiences. SHe is particularly well-known as professional and sufferer, and the quotes are from her bestseller, but does policy allow giving this direct POV to a person? If so how to determine who else might get quoted in a similar way? I've raised this there but no solutions as yet.

If it is OK to include people's personal experience descriptions, would it be OK to use a representative range of short quotes from personal stories published on a website? How would they need to be credited (anonymously quoted and just a link to the site, or need specific link to the story and the name/nick of author?). EverSince 07:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NPOV requires that the article itself be neutral, but it is neither appropriate nor wise to extrapolate an expectation that every quote or source reflect the same neutrality. The article as a whole should be balanced. Per WP:V and WP:RS, random statements from non-notable nonexperts who happen to be published on someone's private website would not be encyclopedic - nor would they be even remotely on a par with quotes from a bestselling book by a well-known medical researcher who also has firsthand experience with the ailment. If two quotes from this author appear to make the article non-neutral, then add citations to comparably notable and reliable experts. DurovaCharge! 16:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Durova, appreciate your time. I will try to add other notable published personal desriptions for balance.

It seems a shame in a way that Wikipedia can't display the sorts of descriptions that 'regular people' give of their own experiences of a widespread condition. I see that WP:V and WP:RS do suggest that, when it comes to a person talking about themselves rather than as a third party expert, the usual restrictions might not apply - but that they would still have to be a notable person. Yet when it comes to chronic mental disorders or 'disabilities', personal descriptions by those who have become notable would seem to be inevitably unrepresentative of the typical case, and to have no more authority in describing a personal experience then anyone else who has had that personal experience. EverSince 17:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I suppose some 'regular-people-quotes' could be included if a published work included a collection of them? And you would cite just the book? Or would you need to know exactly who the pople were and reference them? EverSince 18:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you found a particularly compelling quote in a source that satisfies WP:RS, try proposing it on the article talk page and see what the other editors think. DurovaCharge! 18:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The self-help section of the bookstores are replete with books that contain such material. The problem I see is that anecdotes are often selected for effect, rather than for being representative of the population. A collection gathered by Dear Abby might be questionable, but one edited by (say) Philip Zimbardo would probably be taken as authoritative. Robert A.West (Talk) 11:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Screen Resolution consideration for photo contributions

It has been brought to my attention that multiple photos can cause formatting problems with low screen resolution viewing. I believe about 5% of all wikipedians use less than 1024 resolution and that number is continually shrinking. I know that the <gallery> function still formats for 800 wide resolution. Should all page formatting still be done to facilitate 800 wide resolution viewing? TonyTheTiger 21:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page formatting shouldn't be done at all. HTML and Wiki markup are good for logical markup, not for typesetting. We do not know with which tools users access Wikipedia, and nor should we care. --Stephan Schulz 21:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Wikipedians" are our few thousand contributors, not our tens - hundreds! - of millions of passing readers. We can get some vague figures on the former, and next to nothing on the latter. But we should never forget our audience is broader than those closely involved with the project. Shimgray | talk | 22:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just keep it simple and do not assume any specific browser or computer platform. Wikipedia is accessed from PDAs, phones with web access, "old" computers with 640 x 480 resolution, etc. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is an underlying assumption here that the problem only exists for people with low-res displays - there is a similar problem for people at high resolution - a 200px image is a tiny postage stamp on a 3000x2000 display. Yeah - those aren't common now - but they will be one day. The human eye can easily see 4000 pixels across the 50 degree-ish field of view that you can take in with one glance. It's not at all unreasonable to expect to find 4000+ pixel displays showing up. SteveBaker 00:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I should offer a specific example. Although wikipedia encourages photo contributions that add perspective, I have been told that the multiple photos on Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) were particularly hard to view a few edits ago. I am sure they remain so at 640x480, but since I view at 1600x1200, I don't always notice such issues. When contributing photos to such a page, how much should I consider viewers configuration or platform. TonyTheTiger 23:37, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can get away without explicitly specifying a size for photos - just use "|thumb|" rather than "|thumb|200px|" or the like. Viewers will then see a (hopefully appropriate) default scaling. Indeed, this is probably best practice - avoid applying specific formatting details within the article. Shimgray | talk | 23:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I would suggest to use common sense. I think the gallery at the end of the article in question is fine, but overall the relationship between numbers of images and text is a bit off at that article. Also, what does your screen's physical resolution have to do with the way you view an article? My screen is 1280x852, but my browser window is maybe 960x800 or so. Web browsers can and do dynamically reformat pages. --Stephan Schulz 23:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Because I've posted about this elsewhere, there are also users who browse at very high resolutions for whom 'fixed' layouts appear messy. I use 1920x1200 and run into image crowding all the time on image-dense articles without enough text between the images to separate them. Not something worth making a policy over, but something worth keeping in mind, especially when doing any sort of complex table formatting or combining tables with images. Opabinia regalis 05:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is no optimal solution, but maybe the best one would be to size thumbnails automatically relative to the size of the browsers viewport, and not in absolute pixels. I think CSS can achieve this, but I do not know enough to actually attempt it. I also don't know if this can be handled by embedding HTML/CSS in the image macros, or wether it requires a change in the actual Wikipedia engine...--Stephan Schulz 07:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Stephen, In order to understand various complainants, I have gone to my desktop properties and changed my setting from 1600x1200 to 1280x1024, 1024x768 and 800x600 to understand what other people are seeing. Is this the wrong way to determine what other wikipedians are seeing when they view pages you create? TonyTheTiger 21:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
First, I don't know many people who browse in fullscreen mode. Thus, the browser will usually be smaller than the actual screen allows (this also means you do not have to change the physical screen resolution to approximate what others see, of course). Testing with many different resolutions is not bad per se, but it is not the right thing either. How exactly a page is rendered depends on too many variables - different browsers (Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE, lynx, ...), different configurations (e.g. font sizes!), different local CSS, and so on. That's why the very idea of HTML is logical markup. "This is an image with a caption, this is a headline...", and let the browser make the best from this structure. Of course, the browsers actual layout algorithm is of limited capability, and CSS allows us to give it hints about how to render the page. --Stephan Schulz 21:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kostas Tournas

I came across the article Kostas Tournas. It is borderline db-spam, and borderline db-bio. The only thing that kept me from nuking it was that he's Greek, which means I might not know him. Any thoughts? Feel free to place a db or prod on the article. -Patstuart(talk)(contribs) 05:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted articles

I would like to know what articles I've edited have disappeared. I know Kate's tool used to do this job. But may be for privacy reasons, it no longer works. I understand privacy is important, but I just want to know only myself's deleted edits. I always suddenly found some of my edits disappear and nobody (the one who deleted it) tells me before. Special:Contributions without a username specified is not used at this time, so how about make this special page show the current users' full edit history including deleted ones? I've submitted a request at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8017 . Yao Ziyuan 10:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please give us specific examples. You should check out wikipedia's guidelines for speedy deletion and wikipedia's guidelines for proposed deletions and wikipedia's articles for deletion discusions. Of the 3, only speedy deletion generally happens without your knowledges. PRODS and AFDS (the other 2 deletion methods) all leave tags on the page for a minimum of 5 days, meaning that you should have the opportunity to correct them. Speedy Deletes are done only in a very narrowly defined set of examples. Please read the speedy deletion guidelines I put above; even speedy deletes generally take a day or so to happen, so as long as you check into Wikipedia once every few days, you should find them and be able to stop or comment on the. In addition, you can contact the admin that deleted your article, or you can request a deletion review to overturn any deletion. Hope that helps... Again, please give us specific examples of the articles you found deleted, so we can comment perhaps on why they were? --Jayron32 18:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it would be helpful for deleted edits to show up in a user's contribution history, not just so users can see for themselves, but without that contribution history visible talk page warnings are often inexplicable and vandalism histories undocumented. How possible is it to implement this change? Postdlf 18:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the problem with that is in deciding what constitutes a 'deleted edit'. A literal revert of the article might be easy to detect - but if someone deletes an entire paragraph except for a couple of words - then writes an entire new paragraph using those words in a completely different way - then they effectively deleted your edit - but it would be hard for automated software to figure out the difference between that and a simple typo/spelling/grammar correction. Personally, I think setting up your preferences so that every article you edit is automatically watched - then patrolling your 'my watchlist' is the best you can do. SteveBaker 19:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, by "deleted edits" I mean edits that are made to articles that are subsequently deleted. When an article is deleted, none of the edits made to that article show up in user contribution histories. Postdlf 19:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh man, I'd love to see this feature. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:38, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if the edits should necessarily be visible (except to admins), but it would be quite helpful to know that they existed. --Improv 21:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The content of the edits themselves shouldn't be visible to everyone, but the fact that the edits were made should be. Think of all the times you delete nonsense such as profanity or an attack page and treat it as a "test" due to the user's lack of prior contributions, when the deleted history would show that it's actually persistent, reposted vandalism? Postdlf 00:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per Postdlf's comment, I agree that the contents of deleted edits shouldn't be visible to everyone. In fact, I'd go one further and suggest that the other details of the deleted edits should remain hidden except from admins—one of the most common reasons for deletion of a page revision is that it contains personal information or gross libels; sometimes that information is in the edit summary, or even in a deliberately offensive username.
If we could have something that pops up on an editors Special:Contributions page when an admin visits, that would be ideal. Right now when I visit an article that has deleted revisions in its history, I see a View or restore 3 deleted edits? message above the rest of the article's history. I'd be thrilled to have something similar that appeared (to admins) on editors' Contributions pages: View this editor's 168 deleted edits... or similar. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There was a tool for this here, but it is toolserver dependent, and the toolserver isn't currently working for the English Wikipedia. Prodego talk 02:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, this is the email that used to be linked from River(Kate)'s archived-contributions counter. Now that we have oversight though, I've been wondering if there's a chance that deleted edit summaries, etc. might be visible again, on-wiki? --Interiot 02:34, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the edit summaries should be available, but it does seem like it would be worthwhile to see a placeholder in a user's contribution history for deleted edits that listed the date, the page and minor edit flag. —Doug Bell talk 19:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Userspace abuse

I've drafted a new proposal to take on abuse of Wikipedia resources in the userspace. Current speedy deletion criteria only focus on such material in articles. Please take a look and comment. - Mgm|(talk) 12:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be OK to say: "My name is XXX and I work for [YYY]". Which means that right there you have one commercial link. Actually, I think this is to be encouraged because it gives other readers a better idea of who this person is and (in some cases) shows up sources who might be heavily biassed or perhaps who have useful specialised knowledge. But if someone sets up a user page here as if it were a free webhosting service - then we should have some way to fix that. SteveBaker 15:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not a good idea, and definitely not to be encouraged. You never know what nutcase down the road may decide to stalk you or just to call your place of business to complain to you boss over some innocent disagreement on Wikipedia. And this is not hypothetical, it happens frequently. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On exceedingly rare birds

I've been thinking about the issue of newly discovered, or highly inaccessible species for which the only available images are copyrighted ones taken by nongovernment scientists, explorers, journalists, etc. I don't actually know how common this is a problem, but it's a frequent hypothetical raised in fair use discussions. As only the expression contained within a photograph is copyrighted, but not the information it provides about the species' appearance, I wonder if it is possible to instead create a drawn illustration of the animal that can source its information to such a photograph, but that does not constitute a derivative of it because it does not use any copyrighted expressive elements (i.e., does not use the composition and angle, etc. of the photograph). A body outline "template" (in the visual sense, not the Wikipedia sense) may be possible to create for usage whenever the species' form is of a general type, such that all that would be necessary would be the filling in of coloration or other superficial structures to show that species' particular varations from the general type. The only problem I see with this is ensuring the accuracy of the illustration, and ensuring that it is not such an extrapolation from the photographs as to constitute OR; I guess this would depend upon how informative the available photographs are. Thoughts? Postdlf 15:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC) (note: this was cross-posted to Wikipedia talk:Fair use)[reply]

An original drawing would be fine. A fair use photo might be better. Trollderella 13:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Peer-reviewed sources and controversial claims

It seems good sense that when someone wants to include spurious or controversial claims in the content of an article, even if there is a secondary source for that content, that we require the source to be peer-reviewed. How do we determine whether something is controversial? Well, good question, but the idea has been around academic circles for quite some time. Here is an example: imagine we are writing an article on WWII (I haven't looked at wiki's article, I'm just using it as an example) and an editor wants to contribute the following content:

If Hitler hadn't invaded Russia, Germany would have taken over the World.

Now, regardless of whether the source actually makes this claim, it is a controversial one. Should we just allow this content because it has a source? My suggestion, as you might have guessed, is no. Claims like the above require much scholarly research and ceteris paribus assumptions about many things. An implication of this is that peer-reviewed sources should trump other sources (e.g. editorials, think-tank publishers) since being informed by a community of experts is a good thing.SFinside 18:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think that is the purpose of the policy on undue weight. If an opinion has little relevance to the topic, little support, little significance, then it does not need to be included; conversely, if an opinion is widely-accepted (or prominently associated with the topic for some other reason), it can be included and expanded upon. This should be decided on a case-by-case basis and the discussion should involve weighing the provenance of the sources, so a peer-reviewed source will often be considered more reliable or more important. For WW2, for instance, there is an abundance of scholarly research on the topic and thus no need to include views of 'laymen' (unless there's a special reason to do so). But this won't be the case for more esoteric issues. That's how I would view it. Trebor 19:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chat-only accounts

Just came across these accounts: Make mi fall 4 u (talk · contribs), Wfg100 (talk · contribs), Twdtriplethreat (talk · contribs), Ghsovertime22 (talk · contribs). All of them have been doing nothing on Wikipedia but chatting with each other on their talkpages. What do we do with WP:NOT-accounts like this? Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Warn them with the relevant NOT section. If they contine, report it in WP:ANI and suggest they be blocked. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 19:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I'd do. ----Power level(Dragon Ball)Stacy's Mom 19:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Defense against policy violations

Some official policies appear to allow violations, eg:

  • Assume good faith - This policy does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of evidence to the contrary.

Some official policies do not allow violations, eg:

What about the official policies on Civility and No personal attacks? Can anyone envisage any exceptions to the rule? --Iantresman 19:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's always the occasional slip, but I can't think of any consistent way to correctly violate those. As an example, maybe, but then you're reachin for WP:POINT. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 19:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]


:: That's not a "violation" of AGF - that's a simple common sense approach and an aspect of the actual policy that says AGF does not apply if the evidence presented means that policy does not apply. That's like saying reverting the same vandalism (for example "Famous person likes anal sex with dogs") 5 times in a row is a violation of 3RR. --Charlesknight 19:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Ignore all rules is also policy, which allows exceptions to any other policy. If those exceptions are not defensible, they will be overturned eventually. GRBerry 20:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Surname dab page policy

I am not sure if there is a prefered policy on surname dab pages when a given name has multiple articles that are parenthetically disambiguated. Two different schools exist. Johnson lists either the most prominent article for a given name or the dab page. Young seems to list all articles. Is there a preferred policy on this matter? TonyTheTiger 21:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Johnson is an article, rather than a disambiguation page. So it is written as an article with a see also for the disambiguation page. I think it is a very poor article that should be turned into a disambiguation page, but that is just my opinion. Young is a disambiguation page, so lists everything. I think the latter format is more useful, but don't have a strong policy/process page pointer for you. Sorry. GRBerry 21:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have created a Johnson merger proposal after thinking about your clear thoughts on the topic. Feel free to comment comment. TonyTheTiger 21:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Business navigational box categories

It seems that the vast majority of Business navigational boxes only have one category: Village pump (policy). I am attempting to go back and make my contributions conform to the wiki norms. I feel it is odd that categories like the additional ones I have added to Template:Wrigley are not more common in other nav boxes. What is standard policy? TonyTheTiger 21:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Policy clarification re: shopping malls

I am back commenting on policy/guidelines regarding articles on individual shopping centers. I posted some comments on the talk page of WP:CORP arguing for a policy to be set for such articles. Using guidelines from several different places, alone, as guidance on the part of editors and admins seems too vague for a subject that is so controversial. In my opinion a policy needs to be developed that acknowledges the inherent notability of the individual mall (in many but not all cases) on cultural, social and economic grounds, yet prevents spam and abuse of Wikipedia. I'm repeating some of these comments here.

In the interest of preventing advertising, part of the policy should state that a minimum number of outside non-trivial reliable sources (maybe 3-5) be used in a mall article, and that sources from the mall owner/developer be limited to an external links section, not a "references" section. The article should follow a suggested standardized format in which there is some discussion of the mall's cultural, social and economic impact on the local market area, as supported by these outside sources. Newspapers and magazine articles count as reliable secondary sources based on my understanding of the guidelines for notability.

Any mall article not meeting these standards should be candidates for the AfD process, but not speedy deleted unless, after careful review of the page and its history, intent can clearly be deduced to spam, advertise, vandalize or otherwise committ major violations of policy. In the case of a speedy delete, the article should be immediately placed in DRV by the deleting admin and the last editor notified on his/her talk page and given a chance to argue his/her case and/or rewrite/resubmit the article. If the article is not so argued within a set amount of days the delete is made permanent. If an unrelated editor recreates the page, a tag should be placed on the page saying the page was deleted and will be gone within 72 hours, with the new editor given a chance to argue the case on the talk page of the article itself. If speedied, repeat the automatic appeal process as just described.

I am not an admin and this proposal may not be workable, but I'm trying my best to generate a solution to this dilemma since it seems to be a recurring issue. Does this sound like a good start? Would it be better as an addendum to WP:CORP?--Msr69er 22:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The mall deletions that happened recently were mainly of sub-stub articles that weren't well-referenced. Though I think one could take issue with some of them being deleted, if the articles had had a couple of sources, and had been clearly more than a list of stores, then it would have been much less likely that they would have been deleted.
Again, I'm not saying that articles that are lacking necessarily deserve to be deleted (though it's being considered, see Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles). However, I've seen borderline articles go from everyone voting delete in an AfD to everyone voting keep once someone added a number of independent reliable sources to the article.
Along the same lines, I don't think the mall deletions meant to state that the specific malls weren't notable enough... simply that the existing text didn't provide much encyclopedic content, and it wouldn't be the end of the world if the text were rewritten at a later point with more encyclopedic content and more sources. --Interiot 00:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is discussion at WP:MALL as to what guidelines should be used for retaining articles about shopping malls. There is also discussion of putting them under WP:LOCAL. Edison 21:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is Wikipedia User friendly?

Personally, and I'm fairly new around here, I don't think it is. Ever tried to put together a piece of furniture made in China? Or your once-a-year tax return yourself? Or filed something in court as a pro se? Or invested on Wall Street without help? Or built a house? Some are well explained and some are not. Wiki is not. Whenever a procedure is explained by a professional (an admin - hereinafter "pro"), they are the last people to explain highly complex convention to newbies. They helped write the rules, and stay fresh most every day. The newbies get to check something out once in a while, and have to re-educate themselves every time.

Wiki rules: It should not be necessary to spend hours searching for something. My examples: I needed to find out why a subject wasn't accepting a link. I couldn't find the answer, until a pro figured it out; the page heading used the wrong apostrophe. Another example: I wanted to use a tag to move an article to merge into another. I needed to quickly find the right tag. But "tags" are listed as "templates". I needed to find the right listing of sample tags. Took me an hour of re-education to find out don't "move" without permission, but "merge into" is OK. And why are "discussion" sections on the article page ALWAYS referred to as "talk", when the term talk is used in other ways? Why not just say to use the discussion page, since that is what it is called? And what is a "dab", still don't know, haven't looked? And when I have a question, why can't I click on something that will let me search for the answer the way I can search for an article? Am I just to be treated as dumb, and then be patronized by a pro who will give me an answer, pointing out by inference that I haven't checked carefully to see it wasn't answered somewhere in several help and editing pages?

Please don't get me wrong. I am second to none in my admiration of Wikipedia, what it does and what it can do. I would like to think that the culture will spread through the world and make it a better place. Especially I like the NPOV mandate, a concept foreign to all human nature, yet a sine qua non if the human race is to survive beyond the next generation. It can be taught and learned. At the moment Wikipedia is off-putting to inquirers and it needn't be. It is so much more than an Encyclopedia, although I suspect that there are pros who disagree and I think that the founder would agree.

So, I propose that a newby help page be devised for newcomers, and for vets short of time for review every day. No, it is not the current "simplified cheat sheet" in its present form, because it would be much longer, and hold a multitude of sections with every type of listed example. It would be full of cross references and would be kept all in one place. And it would be devised by non pros, evaluated by non-pros, but with the help of pros. Another possibility is that the current cheat sheet be filled with blue links to lists of examples, and the lists would be blue linked to explanations. I would bet that it will be the first place most people will go. Oh sure, I will be told that somewhere it's already being done, a project page perhaps, and I didn't notice. JohnClarknew 23:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:New contributors' help page links to various places new users can get questions answered quickly. Personally, I find IRC to be a great place to get quick answers.
"Dab" is a disambiguation page. Sometimes it's used in edit summaries to indicate that an ambiguous link is being fixed. Wikipedia:Edit summary legend lists other terms that are often seen in edit summaries.
I've pondered the "discussion"/"talk" issue before... I assume it comes down to the fact that namespaces should be as short as possible, especially "Talk", because it gets tacked onto everything (eg. "Category talk:", "Wikipedia talk:", "Template talk:", ...) On the other hand, it's not really for random forum-like chit-chat, it's for discussion of improvement of the article, so the external face gets the word "discussion". That's what I assume, anyway.
Generally, if you need help, just ask somebody. It's true that there are a ton of things to learn, so it makes it difficult to point to a single page that will answer all your questions. --Interiot 00:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that there are a lot of inconvenient "conventions" that have grown up over time. The tag that says "discussion" does indeed lead to discussions - but it's called "talk" by most users because that's what it always used to be called before it was decided that "discussion" was more friendly. Sadly - the result of trying to make something more friendly and less confusing actually made matters worse! That's a real problem in lots of areas. It took me forever to realise that an edit summary "dab" meant "disambiguate" - there is nothing in Wikipedia software that makes things be that way - it's just a common convention that saves people a lot of typing. Most of the problems you list are not due to Wikipedia policies - or the software behind MediaWiki - they are simply due to the fact that there are about 10,000 human beings here - and when humans get together like that they invent jargon - develop unspoken rules - that just how people are. Attempting to document those quirks, conventions, recommendations, policies and downright RULES is an ongoing process - but like everything else around here, that's a community effort too. Whilst it would be highly desirable to fix it somehow, that's a hard problem because we have to fix humans - and we don't know how to do that! It's also a moving target. Having said that, we're all adaptable - and a vast majority of contributors rapidly adapt and 'fit in'. Take heart in the fact that a couple of million articles have been written despite the quirks and weirdnesses. SteveBaker 03:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • A few well-placed redirects should help solve the tag issue you described and some others. The problem is that a lot of new users fail to look for information in the right place and if we don't know where they are looking instead, we can't make sure they are shown to the right spot. - Mgm|(talk) 10:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Whenever you get lost, stick a {{helpme}} tag on your User Talk page, and hopefully, an old hand will come by to help you. User:Zoe|(talk) 17:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can't find rules

I'm trying to put together an argument to get a page undeleted. Scanning other, similar arguments, I see others citing rules Wikipedia has concerning the posting of articles that are very specific, i.e. "Rule #6 on articles about musicians." Where do I find these more specific rules? Paperman299 00:17, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A good place to start is probably WP:POLICY. The article itself is a start, then move on to the links in the box on the right. --Milo H Minderbinder 00:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's a rather large number of such pages, and it depends on the specific content. WP:MUSIC is probably what you mentioned as an example; WP:BIO, WP:BLP, and WP:CORP are also oft-cited guidelines. Doc Tropics 00:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think the awards for most cited go to WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NOT personally. If you're arguing about notability though, the policy you want is Wikipedia:Notability and its related pages. --tjstrf talk 00:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The numbered rules are most likely Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, which can be used to delete an article without going through Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. You should make sure the article doesn't meet any of the criteria here (note though, that this is not an exhaustive list of why articles can be deleted -- see Wikipedia:Deletion policy). Fagstein 09:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, there is a complex maze of Wikipedia policies. Probably, all you need to keep in mind is that articles must be verifiable in reliable published souces. If there are highly reliable sources on a subject, there should be no problem keeping an article on it. Unless it is a copyright infringement. —Centrx→talk • 09:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Or it's on a company and the wrong person sees it and you forgot to explicitly put "x is a NOTABLE corporation" in the first sentence. --tjstrf talk 10:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If an article cites reliable sources, that's not likely to happen. —Centrx→talk • 10:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Optimum size of film synopsis

I'd like to know if there is an acceptable optimum size for a film synopsis. I've noted that *most* are OK; say, a few paragraphs long, but some are almost as long as the original screenplay, with lots of basically irrelevant details! Any opinions please? --Robert Fraser 01:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strong opinions. Long synopses are bad. They're impossible to read and frequently confusing. They're written by editors who have done no research beyond watching the movie and don't understand that articles are written to be READ. I have now spent years trying to prune Bollywood synopses and have in return reaped a rich harvest of revert wars and angry talk page messages. "Attack my boring prose and you're attacking ME!" A general policy re synopses of films, plays, novels, etc. would be useful in curbing editor garrulity.
Perhaps a guideline such as: synopses not to exceed one screen's worth of material? You should not have to scroll to read? What is that in words? Zora 01:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Limiting the synopses to a single screen is problematic because of the difference in screen size. My largest monitor lets me view most articles on a single page and most of our longest articles on 3 pages (It's like, 1800xsomething) while my old laptop can only do 800x640 and needs to scroll for anything longer than a stub. --tjstrf talk 02:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. OK, I'm shot down :) What would be a reasonable number of words to set as the upper bound? Zora 03:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Three comments. 1) To Zora: Editors should be directed to WP:OWN. If they continue to revert the edits without reasonable justfication beyond "This is my article, you may not touch it", report to WP:ANI or other venues for triple revert violations. Also, if their original synposes are unreferenced, then you can delete them without prejudice as violating WP:V. 2) Extensive synopses can be seen as original research. A film synopsis here should be referenced to a source INDEPENDANT OF THE FILM. As such, we can only reference synopses done by reliable, third party sources. Long synopses which only reference the film itself can be removed with justification via WP:OR, WP:V or WP:NN. 3) Wikipedia's Manual of Style sets a practical upper limit for articles at 32 kB. Synopses can be pared down so the whole article is under 32 kB. I am under the unqualified opinion that a synopsis should be no longer than the rest of the article combined. If the synopsis is more than ~50% of the article, it should be reduced. --Jayron32 06:43, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Jayron's point 2 is key. Alot of "synopses" do fall into the realm of original research especially with the excessive details and fancruft. Most reliable sources (like movie reviews and write ups) are written under there own style and length guideline (because they ARE meant to be read) and if you are citing one of those reliable sources then you already have a limit to how long the synopsis will be. If we are strict about asking for referencing then you will have an internal helping hand to limit the length of those sections. Agne 20:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Referencing isn't necessary in a plot synopsis, since the original work serves as the primary source. As long as the synopsis just summarizes the work and doesn't draw any conclusions, they can be written by wp editors and don't need to be brought in from elsewhere. Style and length guidelines are the key. --Milo H Minderbinder 20:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:MALL, a proposed notability guideline

User Edison gave me a suggestion for notability guidelines for shopping centers based on one he knows of, WP:CONG, for religious congregations. I used that as a template to write Wikipedia:Notability (shopping malls), based on Edison's direct suggestion, and added some of my ideas and referenced WP:NOT, WP:CORP, WP:NOTE and WP:RS. Thanks, Edison and I hope this is a good next step in the shopping mall discussion. I look forward to everyone's ideas, edits, rewrites and comments.--Msr69er 01:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why is a separate subguideline necessary? —Centrx→talk • 02:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The issue I am going to raise with this is the same one I have raised with the numerous other individualised notability guidelines: Malls do not have special issues that cannot be resolved via the Primary Notability Guideline(multiple, nontrivial references from reliable sources). Several mall AfDs have been handled poorly IMHO (such as mass-listing all malls rather than individually listing those that fail the PNC). However, there does not appear to be a "special problem" that makes shopping malls inherently harder to apply the PNC too. Either reliable sources (and newspapers ARE RELIABLE SOURCES) exist from which we can populate the article with verifiable, non-trivial facts, or they don't. If we can't get notable information from reliable sources, it fauls the PNC, and thus should be deleted, even if it is a mall. The places where guidelines exist that extend notability beyond the PNC (such as WP:CORP) contain secondary criteria ONLY in very narrowly defined areas, and ONLY to address a specific-problem which cannot be adequately solved by the PNC. I see no compelling evidence that malls are special in any way vis-a-vis their notability, and so I see no reason why the guideline should not contain one criteria only: A shopping mall is notable if it has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the mall itself. Period. Full stop. If it does not meet this criteria, we have no means to expand the article, and thus it must be deleted. --Jayron32 05:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to add to that previous comment that I have seen quite a few mall AfD debates (and I started a couple) where defenders come in and say "Aha! Sources have been found, see new improvements on the article". Most often these sources turn out to be local news article stating either "Yesterday, a man got arrested in the X shopping mall", "Yesterday, Santa Claus arrived at shopping mall X" or "Starbucks opens in shopping mall X". I think it's important to realize that these are not the kind of sources we are looking for as they have absolutely no relation to the content of the articles. As we all know, the content is always "Shopping mall X is at the corner of Maple & Elmwood and has a JC Penney". That makes us the Yellow Pages and, deservedly so, a laughing stock as an encyclopedia. Pascal.Tesson 06:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent points, but none of these are problems unique to malls. Trivial information still cannot be used to establish notability. It still doesn't speak to any special necessity to this (or any of the other NUMEROUS) individualized guidelines. The PNC still squashes these sources, and can still be used to refute these sources as trivial. --Jayron32 06:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm all for using the PNC for malls as well as most other things. I just want to point out that the keep argument used in most AfDs is the "malls are inherently notable" blanket. "Notability" as is (or should be) used in AfD debates is not a measure of the worthiness of malls as institutions in a community but the confirmed or at the very least suspected existence of meaningful reliable sources supporting the content. And if the only meaningful verifiable content we have is a list of stores then this should go per WP:NOT. Pascal.Tesson 06:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And those comments should meet with the response: "Nothing is inherently notable. If you wish to prove notability, provide sources per WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:NN. Otherwise, I think we are in complete agreement. --Jayron32 06:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually there are things that are inherently notable: US presidents, Olympic Games, etc, etc. The key point is whether there's enough information available to make a solid article. There are still people who have no clue what type of information belongs in an article, so a guideline that explains it, as notability guidelines tend to do, would be quite helpful. - Mgm|(talk) 10:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Malls are not quite the same as corporations; they are venues where corporations rent space for stores. It is like trying to judge concert halls under guidelines for bands. A possible specific guideline for malls would be, for instance, to find an industry organization defining a regional mall as onwe with 1,000,000 square feet of leasable space, and using that to avoid endless debate over a smaller mall having an article if it has no other historic or architectural claim to fame. They do not quite fit in as local places WP:LOCAL either, since they may draw from a large area. A guideline lets the debating get done and perhaps a consensus arrived at in one forum rather than be repeated starting fresh in 1000 AfDs. I like to have some bright-line guides to quickly allow me to decide whether an article should be kept or deleted, so more time can be spent researching the borderine cases. Same for schools, professors, etc. Edison 21:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Malls are not quite the same as corporations or places of local interest, but they're close enough. We shouldn't create guidelines with this narrowly specific application. I'd suggest a subheading in WP:CORP and/or WP:LOCAL. (Radiant) 11:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Elimination of Fair Use Rationale in Promotional Photos of Living People

So, it's been talked about, hinted at, and finally, appears to have happened -- a group of editors have decided that there should be NO "fair use" rationale for promotional photos of living people.

The short version: If an image is a press hand-out or other "for media use" image, and it depicts a living person, the image is deemed to be "unfree" (the horror!) and replaceable with a "free" image, usually one from a Flikr stream (and usually, an image without the subject's approval). Several hundred of these images have been deleted over the past week; many, without following the proper guidelines for image deletion.

Of course, there are a large number of people who feel this course of action is perhaps emphasizing the wrong word in the Wikipedia goal to "create a free encyclopedia" - valuing the "free" far more than the "encyclopedia." And, I have to say, I'm one of them -- If a promotional photo is distributed for wide media re-use, with the approval of the subject, photographer, and copyright holder, and the image is sourced and tagged appropriately, who am I to say the photo is not "copy-left" enough for Wikipedia? Instead, the previously sensible fair use criteria would seem to allow for such images, but the wording on this policy has been tweaked and shaved so as to be basically nonsensical, and entirely impracticable.

Please note: I am aware of Jimbo's feelings on this, and would encourage editors to refrain from the tired "But Jimbo says..." posting that even now, some editor is composing. I am more interested in OTHER EDITORS feelings about this. Should Wikipedia replace all professional promotional media images with images such as this? :Image:Kristen Bell.jpg Or should we hit the wayback machine a bit, and allow sensible fair use of copyrighted promotional photographs, such as was done until this most recent spasm of anti-promophoto editing? Jenolen 11:45, 29 November 2006 (UTC) [reply]

  • I couldn't agree with you more. A press photo is by law 100% usable for any purpose here on Wikipedia. and should not present an issue for us. It is nutty to think otherwise.--BenBurch 14:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. The massive deletion campaign that has gone on in recent weeks, eliminating thousands of properly tagged promotional photos (many of which are irreplaceable) is seriously damaging our project. The use of horrible photos such as the one you present above supports your argument that such personalities may wish to have no association with our encyclopedia after seeing such an image of themselves here. Badagnani 14:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Were they deleted from the Wiki, or just from where they were referenced?--BenBurch 15:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Deleted. I have a list of such images on my user page. Jenolen 21:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. At the very least, the amount of prior discussion with the parties involved should be proportional to the number of images affected. If you are going to delete one photo because you think it's wrong...fine, "Be Bold". If you plan on deleting ten of them for the same reason then you'd better talk with some other editors about it first. When you plan to delete hundreds to thousands - the entire community needs to be involved on a much larger scale discussion with full consensus before proceeding. Talk first, delete later. SteveBaker 14:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • People don't come to Wikipedia because the images are free, they come here because of the information. Never remove a (properly tagged) fair-use image in favor of a free one, if the fair-use image illustrates the subject better. -Freekee 15:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Partial support. Do replace fair use images with free ones; yes, even ones that are of slightly lower quality. (The example is too blurred to be useful, but anything better would qualify.) Promotional photos will always be of somewhat higher quality because they're taken by expensive photographers; fair use images will be taken by volunteer editors, very few of whom meet those qualifications. If we don't replace them, there will be no incentive to take truly free photos. However, don't remove fair uses images until free ones become available - it is unrealistic to expect volunteer editors to go to the lengths that paparazzi go to to snap photos. AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Concern. I am concerned that you might be misunderstanding – or worse, misrepresenting – the choices available to us. We are not forced to choose flatly whether to allow fair use or not. We have before us a more nuanced choice. If it is possible to replace a 'fair use' image with a genuinely 'free' one, we should definitely be doing that. Where no 'free' image exists, we should retain the promo photo until a free image becomes available; I think most people support retention of the 'fair use' images in that case.
If a 'free' image exists, it very seriously weakens any 'fair use' argument associated with a promo photo; it also weakens Wikipedia's claim to be a 'free' encyclopedia when we include non-free images in our articles. You ask rhetorically (I presume) "who am I to say the photo is not "copy-left" enough for Wikipedia?". I'm going to answer anyway—you're not required to decide or interpret. If the image hasn't been explicitly released under a free license (GFDL, CC, PD, etc.) then it's not copyleft enough, and we should seek a genuinely 'free' alternative. It's kind of a no-brainer.
Note also that it's not Wikipedia's responsibility to make stars look pretty. Their agents ought to be well aware of Wikipedia by now; if they want the promotional value of a pretty Wikipedia picture, they can provide us with one under an appropriate license. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Where no 'free' image exists, we should retain the promo photo until a free image becomes available; I think most people support retention of the 'fair use' images in that case. -- But this is not how the policy is being implemented. As has been noted, a "delete all promotional photos of living people immediately" campaign is already well underway. As for star agents/publicity people, they DO make their stars available for promtional photos all the time... it's just that the current system (stars pose for studio photographers, in character, for photos released by the copyright holder) seem to mandate "fair use." You're not going to convince the entire entertainment world to release to Wikipedia, alone, images that are in totality, "free/libre." There will ALWAYS be rights reserved by the copyright holder, which is why fair use MUST be used. But there are plenty of editors who would rather have NO IMAGE than a fair use image, and these editors have been especially vigorous in implementing this new "no promophotos of living people" ban. To me, that's counterproductive, and not making Wikipedia a better encyclopedia. Jenolen 21:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I mostly concur with TenOfAllTrades. I also note that a lot of the photos used are not actually promotional photos released as part of a press kit, and their use is questionable. I am also of the position that having an unfree image up tends to discourage people from taking free photographs: they see that something is already there and will not have the incentive to go out and do so. Unless the image is genuinely necessary to discuss in the article (Marilyn Monroe with her skirt blowing up is a classic example), where it is possible to get a free photo (i.e., the person isn't dead, retired, or otherwise out of public life) I would prefer to see nothing, in order to provide that incentive: promoting future value in the creation of new free content rather than going for the short-term quick-fix but worse solution. In most cases photos of celebrities are nice but not absolutely necessary for the value of an encyclopedia. There are plenty of reference materials on the web available at no cost to view; what makes Wikipedia different is its being free-as-in-speech rather than simply at no cost and we need to act to further that, our mission. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 16:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My main concern with the deletion is that too many mass image taggers are failing to consider what relevant information the photo actually provides relative to what a free alternative could actually provide. A current picture obviously could not replace a publicity photo taken many decades ago (though this is arguably relevant only if we're dealing with a celebrity whose specific appearance is important, as opposed to say a scientist), and a free picture could not substitute for an in-character publicity shot or screenshot from an actor's work (yet I have seen pictures of all of these natures inexplicably tagged as "replaceable"). "The subject is alive" is obviously not a catch-all justification for deleting any fair use photo without qualification. Our policies rightfully require that the replacement be able to "adequately present the same information" as the fair use image, and anyone tagging an image as replaceable should not do so if they don't understand what that information is. Postdlf 16:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Jenolen says, "Instead, the previously sensible fair use criteria would seem to allow for such images, but the wording on this policy has been tweaked and shaved so as to be basically nonsensical, and entirely impracticable." Well, no, it hasn't. The wording of the fair use criteria on this question has not changed since criterion 1 was first added in October 2005. The fair use criteria have always prohibited the use of unfree images where free images could be created -- not where free images already exist. Policy on this issue has not changed in the past few weeks. All that has changed is that people are finally starting to enforce the previously ignored criterion 1. There is simply no excuse whatsoever for using copyrighted images of living people who regularly appear in public. —Angr 17:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The best excuse in the world; If the picture makes the article better, and it is actually fair or permitted use of the material, then the BETTER picture is the one that ought to be in the article. We want to have the GREATEST encyclopedia, not simply the freest one. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Break the rules. Be Bold. And if you have looked, a lot of the replacement pictures SUCK. --BenBurch 18:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, we're about having the freest encyclopedia. Having a free encyclopedia means that our work here will outlive all of us, no matter what Jimbo or the board may do. It means that the encyclopedia can be spread to poor families in third world countries, whether whether it's spread solely by non-profits or by market-driven methods. --Interiot 18:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia grows by being a great source of information. Reducing the amount of information here by removing pictures, and replacing them with images that don't well illustrate the subject (or not replacing them at all) is counterproductive. I would have an easier time accepting this rule if someone could explain the harm in having fair-use and promotional pictures here. -Freekee 19:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We seem to be talking at cross-purposes here. You're discussing how Wikipedia grows—and certainly, nobody will dispute that adding non-free images and other content to Wikipedia will make it larger. The concern is the effect that non-free material will have on allowing Wikipedia to spread or to be distributed. Mixing free and non-free licensed content in our articles greatly complicates (and curtails) the ability of people or organizations to reprint, republish, mirror, or otherwise redistribute Wikipedia's content. For instance, having non-free images makes it difficult or impossible for an article to be included in a book – or, for that matter, a digital CD compilation – and sold.
I feel that the bigger and more helpful the encyclopedia is, the more it will be spread around, but your point is taken. What I don't understand is why we're more concerned about others passing on our information, than we are about having the best information available. And to TenOfAllTrades, just below, I wasn't suggesting we push the boundaries of "what we can get away with", I was questioning why it isn't within the boundaries in the first place. -Freekee 22:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Having a great deal of information here is only one part of what we do—we also have a responsibility (and specifically enumerated aim!) to make our content freely available to as many people as possible. Encumbering our work with images bearing restrictive licences hinders us in achieving that goal. Remember that we're building a free encyclopedia; we're not just assembling a large collection of whatever we think we might be able to get away with on this one particular web site. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Whoa. The whole damned point behind a press release photo is that you can, with attribution, us it in any publication whatsoever. The rights have been given. You'll have to come up with a better excuse to justify this Political Crunchiness than that.--BenBurch 21:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Even the ones where permission is granted for use, they're not free content. You do not unless explicitly granted have permission to modify them, to create other derivative works from them, or to sell them (though you may in many cases sell publications which include them). You might also get better responses by taking a less antagonistic tone. The "political crunchiness" of which you speak is on the part of the project, not on the part of the individual editors you're talking to. (Well, said editors may hold those views too, but that really doesn't matter. :-)) We aim to create content that is free for those uses, not just reprinting, and so content that we cannot do that to is a poor substitute. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 22:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me a non-sequitor that if mirrors and other reusers of Wikipedia content are unable to use fair use material for whatever reason, that Wikipedia should be unable as well. Fair use images are all tagged and categorized as such and so should be easy to filter out; why shouldn't it be up to mirrors to find "free" images to fill in the gaps left by the exclusion of fair use images, rather than Wikipedia removing what it has a legal right to use based on applicable U.S. copyright law?
Regarding "free encyclopedia," the repetition of this mantra does nothing to advance understanding, and suggests that it's an all-or-nothing prospect of a "free" encyclopedia "or" one that "gets away" (?) with fair use. I can understand wanting to minimize fair use, as 1) it makes sense legally to be more cautious than we think the law permits; and 2) there is no need to go out of our way to increase the burden on reusers to filter out fair use content. However, it should be acknowledged that Wikipedia cannot become devoid of fair use-reliant content and "free" without making far more drastic changes than deleting some images, such as the removal of all textual summaries of copyrighted fictional works and textual descriptions of copyrighted fictional characters, the removal of all quotes from copyrighted works... Postdlf 22:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If there are images that can't be included in a hard copy of wikipedia (or part of it), isn't the obvious solution just to omit those images in that version? Since wp is technology based, it should be possible to have images that are tagged as not being free identified and omitted automatically. And is there a reference to the "law" that says that publicity photos can't be used in a hard copy? --Milo H Minderbinder 22:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Angr says, "The wording of the fair use criteria on this question has not changed since criterion 1 was first added in October 2005. The fair use criteria have always prohibited the use of unfree images where free images could be created." That may well be; the change I was thinking of when I wrote that may have been in the {{promophoto}} template, which, until October 2006, had a more liberal wording with regards to that criteria.

However, I think it's fair to say that the images I uploaded -- and worked with many admins to properly tweak and tag under the fair use policy when I uploaded them (mostly spring and summer, 2006) -- seemed to meet the criteria as they were being applied at the time. Admins I contacted to MAKE SURE my images were properly tagged and sourced agreed that they, in fact, were. And then, the log rolled. A whole new interpretation bubbled up - this "no promophotos of living people, at all" kick that many editors are currently on. I disagree with their interpretation of policy. I disagree with their implementation of the policy. And I'm glad to see some sensible discussion about it here! Jenolen 21:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Just my two cents; promotional images are used as such because (in theory) they are excellent samples of the subject (case in point: Image:Davidsedaris.jpg). In my opinion, it makes perfect sense for us to use such photos until a better photo can be found; to remove a photo just because the person is still alive is a poor concept that does more harm than good. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • And what of the idea that it discourages volunteer photographers from making the effort to find/take free pictures themselves? In the long term, I think that's more harmful, because we don't get anyone with the incentive to take these photos. (For example, does he ever do book tours and signings? If you knew a picture was already there, would you make much of an effort to go seek out one of these events?) If you can find a digital picture of the person to use as "fair use", anyone else can find it on the web too, and we can link to the official site which presumably has them; it's a small inconvenience but better furthers our long-term aims. Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 22:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't see what discourages people from taking their own pictures. If I take a decent quality picture of David Sedaris, I know it has a good chance of replacing that publicity photo on wikipedia because "free" photos are preferred if they are available. And for the record, I've met David Sedaris at a reading, and he's incredibly friendly and accessable - I'd be surprised if he didn't agree to having his picture taken. Now I wish I had brought a camera, but now that I think about it, I do have other pix that could be useful to wikipedia. --Milo H Minderbinder 22:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't buy that disincentive argument either. People are too competitive and prideful; they like to point to pictures they took of an article's subject (or maybe that's just me). Furthermore, all fair use pictures should be reduced in size so that they're no larger than needed to be legible; there will therefore always be the incentive to improve upon these fair use shots with a larger, high-res GFDL photo. Postdlf 23:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • The practical experience we've had, however, suggests very strongly that image removal does trigger replacement; already a number of fair use images that had been around for months or years have been replaced in very short times after being removed. I suspect this is largely a question of the need for an image becoming much more visible. --RobthTalk 23:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • If I had a digital camera, you bet your ass I'd take a picture of a celebrity that I meet and summarily check Wikipedia to see if I could replace a non-free image with the one I took. I think the only people who could be discouraged to replace a non-free image with their own are the same people who wouldn't think about uploading their own pictures in the first place. EVula // talk // ☯ // 23:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I haven't seen a real clear answer on this, and I'm hoping someone such as Postdlf will jump in, but let's say EVula DOES take a digital photo of a celebrity he/she meets. I understand that EVula can license his contribution under the GFDL, but how are the personality rights issues addressed? How are the rights of the person photographed handled? Remember - 28 states in the U.S. have 28 different laws; doesn't it make more sense to go the fair use route in this instance? So, and this is the crux of the matter, is EVula supposed to contact the person after the photo has been taken, and get THEM to sign off on it, too? Just because they're in public doesn't mean they've given up all rights to their image, of course... Jenolen 23:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • It is complicated, and will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and will depend greatly on the use. Making your own "merchandise" (e.g., t-shirts and posters) featuring your favorite celebrity in your own GFDL photograph is undoubtedly going to get you sued. Publishing and distributing a hard copy of Wikipedia articles with a full cover GFDL photo of a celebrity might as well. The most ironic thing is that the First Amendment protection in the United States that gives Wikipedia the right to make informative uses of celebrity likenesses in our own photographs to accompany articles is arguably as jurisdictionally limited and use-contingent as fair use. Postdlf 23:51, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lets have a simple study? So why do we want to remove promophotos from wiki? -Because it increases the amount of "Free" content. Why do we want to increase the amount of "Free" content? -Because it makes our work survive even if something happend with WMF, because it increases it usability and because it protects WMF from litigations. Right? Now lets consider each point.

Survival: We do not need freeness for our work to survive. We only need forkability. If an image was a fair use in the contest of a wikipedia article it is a fair use in the context of a fork. For the purposes of forking the fair use is as free as GFDL as far as the "Fair Use" laws in the USA and anological clauses in other countries are valid.

Usability: Wikipedia without images of models, actors, dancers, singers is less usable no questions about this. Most of these images would not be replaced by free images. On the other hand, the fair use image has more limited usage over the GFDL. Users can not use fair images in e.g. an open-source game or as a decoration of a website. In most cases both GFDL and Fair Use are equivalent: we cannot put a GFDL image on t-shirt (without providing the GFDL license and the list of contributors), it is impractical to put anything GFDL into the commercial software, etc. Does a small increase in the potential usage of some images compensate for the removal of many others? I do not think so.

Safety: The less fair use images we have the more we immune to the litigation over abuse of the fair use clause. Since our policy is already strict we are already quite immune to this. Is it the only danger? How about privacy laws? For the fair use images they are the problem of the copyright owner. For the GFDL it is owr problem. The ban on promophotos encourage users to claim copyrighted pictures as their own work. Do you see problem here? By posting images with free licenses we become responsible if the images will become used in an inappropriate way by others (on a website advertising condoms, for example, or in producing photoshopped pornography). Do you know who will be the subject of litigation from the angry selebrity? WMF will. In short I strongly doubt we are to become safer after we remove all the promophotos.

If the deletion of promophotos (even if it is followed by the increased uploads of free images) does not increase our chances for survival, have questionable effect on usability and does not make us safer from litigation, then we do we do it? Alex Bakharev 01:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't consider the increase in usability of GFDL over fair use images as small as you think; some of the most prominent media in which Wikipedia content will hopefully be reused someday (such as commercially produced books) would be on much surer ground with GFDL images than they would be with fair use images (even promo images).
I'm not sure where you get the statement that "For the GFDL [privacy and other liability issues] is our problem." Wikipedia is no more liable for GFDL images that it hosts than it is for promotional or other fair use images; remember that the holder of copyright over an image retains that status even if they release it under a free license. --RobthTalk 02:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
GFDL require copy of the license and list of contributors. It is not very convenient for most book publishers. Fair use in the context of the Wiki will be in the most cases the fair use in the context of book. The difference between responsibility for the promophoto and the GFDL image is one is a product of a known and accountable person the second is a product of an anonymous uploader. When wikimedia accepted this product on its servers it surely accepted some reponsibility in the case it was a violation of privacy, libel, etc. I guess it could be an important point for the publisher of a book as well. Alex Bakharev 02:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If someone can find a Wikipedia article about a celebrity, it's very nearly certain that same individual is capable of using Google to find an image of that celebrity. (After all, that's more than likely how we got the promo picture in the first place.) For that matter, our article probably links to the celebrity's website. A handful of 'Wikipedia wouldn't be as pretty without this picture', combined with a dash of 'None of our editors can be arsed to get out and take a picture of this public figure', sprinkled lightly with 'It might take weeks or even months to get a picture, and we can't stand to have an incomplete article about my favourite celebrity for that long', baked at gas mark 7 for thirty minutes, does not a fair use soufflé make.
Regarding your point about 'safety', I would strongly recommend that you consult a genuine lawyer about...well, all of your legal assessments. I'm also a bit confused about the use of the term 'usability' in this context...? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, most of the information on Wiki can be found elsewhere if you spend some time doing googling or doing some research in a good library. In the best case the image is just one click away, sometimes the click goes to a dead link or to a foreign language site, sometimes the image shown on the celebrity's site is not exactly one needed for the text, but who cares about such small things, surely all the readers of wiki do not know what to do with their free time anyway. Alex Bakharev 06:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't seem to me that most of the promotional photos on Wiki have provided much encyclopedic information. An article about singer/actor X is going to stand or fall on the content of the text, not on whether the picture is pretty. What encyclopedic question is answered by saying "person X looks like this" ? In most cases, as far as I can see, none. Thus, although I respect the work that many people have put into finding, tagging and uploading these images, I can't say I'm sorry to see them go. I've noted an unhealthy image-focus in many new contributors, as well... If we treat our encyclopedia like a photo blog, we end up attracting users who think it *is* a photo blog. It's imperative that we keep focused on our goal which not just to create a great information resource, but to create a great free encyclopedia... things which divert energy from that are best done away with. -- Visviva 07:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Remember that guy? He was in Groundhog Day with Bill Murray? And I think he was in Memento, too? That guy? You know, he's got that thin kinda' face? Glasses? Damn... uh ... Stephen something? Stephen Tobolowsky! That's it! Yeah... What's he look like?" It seems to me that this is the kind of question that Wikipedia should easily be able to answer without breaking a sweat (or having a massive policy dispute). Promotional photos help answer these types of questions, and in no meaningful way affect the "free-ness" of Wikipedia content. Jenolen 08:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's the kind of question Google Images should easily be able to answer without breaking a sweat or having a massive policy dispute. Wikipedia is for providing encyclopedic information about him in the form of free content. —Angr 08:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Now that's an interesting line of thought. I'm fairly certain that you don't think an encyclopedia should be devoid of images. And there's quite a difference between a series of random Google Images results and a Wikipedia entry, I think we would both agree. I would even go so far as to argue that images, and the ability to actually illustrate an article, are what make an encyclopedia much more than just a dictionary on steroids. At the end of the day, I still have no idea why people are so supportive of content that is GDLF free, and so against promotional content that is, under reasonable fair use standards, equally free. It's just odd. Jenolen 09:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, of course an encyclopedia shouldn't be devoid of images. But a free content encyclopedia should be devoid of unfree images. In the absence of free images, images (which are secondary to encyclopedic content) should be left out altogether. This is what German Wikipedia does, and its quality as an encyclopedia does not suffer for it. —Angr 09:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But there are very important fair use images in the Wikipedia that are not secondary at all. Marilyn Monroe's skirt was cited above, Elian Gonzales and the INS most of us know, even I uploaded one, Gary Hart with Donna Rice. Those are all easily worth any other thousand words in their article, not just "what does X look like"? So we will always have some fair use images, as long as we try to completely cover the topic. Given that, the argument that we should exclude promotional shots to be completely free is invalid. AnonEMouse (squeak) 14:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The argument above what should be how is purely hypothetical as it is based on fairuse images banned from Wikipedia altogether. This is not the case. As such, the fairuse images should be based on existing policies. WP:FUC #1 states: "No free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information. " (in the specific context as any fairuse claim applies to a specific article.) --Irpen 10:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite heavyweight enough to address all the issues being discussed here, but I'd like to chime in that I think that the anti-fair-use crusaders are making a mountain out of a molehill. Outside of this little enclave, the distinction between fair use and free images is hardly noticeable. Promotional photos are provided for the purpose of public release, and I don't see why downstream use of Wikipedia's content wouldn't be acceptable under the fair use doctrine. So why is this an issue? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because one of the core tenets of Wikipedia is that it is a free content encyclopedia. That does not mean using everything we can get our hands with low likelihood of getting sued. —Angr 08:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I understand, as an intellectual matter, the difference between fair use and free content. However, as a practical matter, in the real world, is there any discernable difference, for the purposes of Wikipedia and its downstream uses? I'm not sure that there is.
I'm just worried that by making a fetish out of strict interpretation of "free content" we may be cutting off our nose to spite our face. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Over the last few weeks, I have noticed that there is a tendency for certain articles to be targets of links to outside commercial sites, or sites that are bordering on commercial activity. The articles I have noticed this for include "Way of St. James", "Santiago de Compostela", and "Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela". The number of outside books quoted, and outside links to guides etc seems to grow and grow and constantly need to be culled. I am not even sure that all the books and links that are currently listed are appropriate. Do people ever consider making a separate page to capture these links so as to not clog up the main articles? Or should they just be edited away aggressively?--Filll 19:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They're almost always edited away aggressively. WP:EL is a guideline that you can rely on when trimming links away. A "place all your spam here" page might be entertaining at first, but probably wouldn't be useful to our readers. If there really are quite a few useful links that aren't notable enough to deserve their own article, it's preferable that DMOZ handle the link organization instead.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam is a group of editors who focus on dealing with external link problems. There are several templates ({{Cleanup-spam}}, {{external links}}) that can be put on pages to warn spammers away, and to make sure the article is cleaned up at some point. --Interiot 19:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Naming convention proposal concerning controversial names

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#RfC new proposal regarding controversial names - a proposed addition to the naming conventions which discourages editors from editing for the sole purpose of changing between controversial names, and specifically allows multiple names to be used on wikipedia when there lacks consensus to support one over the other.

I am sick of seeing editors going through pages systematically changing one controversial name to another (such as BCE/CE to BC/AD, or removing or adding the word "Roman" when it is next to "Catholic Church"). A disclaimer arose from the last vote over at Talk:Roman Catholic Church on whether to change the name to CC or keep it RCC. There are editors who feel strongly that certain controversial names are better than other controversial names, and aren't scared to make wikipedia reflect their personal opinion. It seems like common sense to me, but I wanted to see something in writing that say "hey, some names are really controversial, and wikipedia has been unable to choose between them, so we allow both. So DON'T go around editing with the sole purpose of changing controversial names, ok?". So I have modified the disclaimer to be more inclusive, and posted a proposed text at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#RfC new proposal regarding controversial names. Are there more controversial names that we could list? Is this a good idea? Thanks for your imput.--Andrew c 00:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Citation needed question

i just removed some citationless trivia [50]. i suppose i could have tagged it as citation needed, but as i was editing it struck me that the statement was just suspect enough that it warranted a quick google search. finding nothing relevant, i removed it.

policy says to boldly edit, so i did (just as did the person who added the statement originally).

this seems like a fault prone procedure to decide whether or not to add a citation needed or delete the item. can anyone point me to official or suggested policy on this. 131.107.0.73 00:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The main policy that's relevant is Wikipedia:Verifiability which allows (and comes close to encourages) removal of uncited "facts". -- Rick Block (talk) 01:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The way I usually deal with such things is via harm minimisation and likelihood. If I strongly suspect something is false, I usually just delete it and mention this in the talk page. Similarly if I'm not sure but I feel it's too controversial to leave unsourced. However when I suspect something may be true and it isn't particularly controversial, I usually just tag it as citation needed. Of course, each editor is entitled to deal with such issues however they see fit. In this particular case, I probably would have done what you did Nil Einne 07:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tagging a commons image as unverified

What is the recommended way to deal with commons images that you have tagged for deletion? I tagged Image:Correa.c.jpg.gif for deletion on the commons here Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Correa.c.jpg.gif. However as I wished to inform people the image was up for deletion, I tagged it {{unverifiedimage}} on the Rafael Correa page. But this means it directs people to Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images so I had to include a comment there telling people to discuss it in the commons. Is this the best way to deal with such images or should I have just subst the template and then modified it to direct to the commons and/or not used a template? Nil Einne 07:32, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think the best thing would be to create a new template that links to commons, or add a parameter to the existing template to make it point to commons instead. People at WP:TR can help if you want. (Radiant) 11:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed change to Deletion Process

I would like to see WP:DELPRO changed slightly, particularly the Non-admins closing AfD's section. I would like to see non-admins permitted to speedy close deletion debates, particularly, but not limited to AfD's. Some non-admins have already done this once or twice ([1]). Clearly, in that example, there was a community consensus, and if it wasn't for this tiny little clause in this policy, I would have done it myself. Thanks!

This preceding statement in a nutshell:
I want the following to be ammended 
Non-administrators may not "speedy-close" deletion discussions. They must either express their view that
the debate should be "speedy-closed" in the normal procedure, or wait until the discussion has run the
full AfD period to close it as a "keep" if there is a concensus to do so.

to 

Non-administrators may "speedy-close" deletion discussions. In the event of a speedy keep, the non-admin
should close the discussion just as an admin would. For speedy delete, the non-admin should place {{db}
on the top of the article, citing the page of the AfD.

Thanks! — Deon555talkdesk 08:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would really be better to discuss this on WP:DELPRO and simply inform others of the debate here. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 09:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, that block of text was originally added by an anon on October 6 undiscussed, and contrary to guidelines WP:SNOW and Wikipedia:Speedy keep. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 09:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(after ec) Now normally it wouldn't be correct to just revert this out of the policy, but I draw your attention to this edit: [51] where that paticular clause was made by an anon. Should I just remove it? — Deon555talkdesk 09:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
edit: great minds... — Deon555talkdesk 09:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It seems the other editors liked his contribution, since they rewrote it almost completely. Through introduction it gained consensus. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 09:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Moved to WT:DELPRO by — Deon555talkdesk

I quite often end up in lists of people which have (red links) to non-existent articles. It seems to me that while I am there, I may as well delete them (the red links), as it's just clutter. E.g. Santosh. One could argue that a recently added name may be an article about to be created, but certainly names that have been there for a while are stale. Often they are the result of links to speedy deleted bios/self written resumes, in which case they should be deleted, but it's not always easy to know that. --ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 15:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:WikiProject Illustrated Wikipedia

WikiProject Illustrated Wikipedia apparently aims to "illustrate" our articles using cartoons, as can be seen on the project page. I have a number of problems with it:

  1. The images are just not right for encyclopedic articles, even just as links (they are cartoons after all).
  2. The template used to distribute the images is clearly a self reference.
  3. The whole idea seems very spammy/self promotion.
  4. The idea does seem to have been discussed at all.
  5. We already have too much template clutter as it is.

My solution would be to use these templates/images on talk pages, if we have to have them at all. For the time being I have removed, as have a number of other editors, the templates from articles. Martin 15:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&oldid=91164115"