Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new other than a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.

Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.

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Trivia is what Wikipedia does best; Wikipedia has become bigger than itself

Since the world already knows that Wikipedia is only a temporary social experiment, and not a reputable inclusion of actual human knowledge to the serious and deadly pursuit of organic survival values in a cold, remorseless universe of strange, complex, exciting, and inexplicable wonders, the fountain of trivia should continue unabated. The new and absurd signs indicating "This is trivia, Wikipedia discourages trivia" should make any seasoned viewer of Wikipedia laugh a speculative laugh. Wikipedia articles are written by unknown people with unknown credentials. Surely Wikipedia attracts self-aggrandizing "experts" in actual fields of study, who add and edit with care and zeal. But it is obviously run by people who have either nothing better to do with their lives than "edit" an encyclopedia, or by people who have time on their hands, for whatever reason -- be it disability, alcoholism, laziness, or inherited wealth. Since the world should not and does not and will not take Wikipedia seriously, it should continue to be a repository of unsubstantiable trivia. That's what makes it fun to read. There's a catagory page for "mysteries," which contains much speculation. Since this speculation is from "sources," does that make it authoritative ? Wikipedia should stop trying to represent itself as it would like to be seen and represent itself as what it has actually become. That will help to clarify to non-Wikipedians what it intends to be, whether or not it actually achieves what it sets out to be, which it has not, and cannot do. The hyper-emotionalized, utterly non-intellectual bickering evident on these talk pages simply runs counter to what it purports to be, but it serves as a source of comedy that these days I cannot live without. Acrimony is hilarious.

Wikipedia is a vast repository of human consciousness, the objects of the "Third World," the world of objective contents of thought (reference to the philosophy of Karl Popper). This is very important as a tool to brighten human future. A place to put stuff that others can access which libraries cannot catagorize, hold, or cross-reference. Angered by my tagline "Trivia is what Wikipedia does best ?" Well, I'm not surprised. Another non-intellectual reaction to purely intellectual issues. This unfortunate and ubiquitous overemotionalizing is the bane of humanity: the cause of wars, poor evaluations of actions and situations, inept interpretations, and policy-page acrimony. Read on, if you dare. I'm making an important point here, which is this: there has never been a place where humans across the intellectual spectrum could deposit and associate all the loose strands of accumulated knowledge that has been collecting dust on shelves across the planet for decades and centuries. Libraries cannot cross-reference nor even contain all this important detritus. Libraries, crucial as they may be, are at once repositories and filters. Yes, filters. Because only those knowledge sets and nuggets deemed important or relevant are contained therein. Seemingly useless lists and uncatagorizable (Dewey Decimal style) knowledge chunks fall to the wayside due to the physical limitations of the space, as well as the cost of human labor and materials, not to mention time. Wikipedia spreads all this out horizontally. Wikipedia must not be compromised by overzealous editing. The exclusion of trivia will eliminate so much future cross-referencing as to render it a simple encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not merely an encyclopedia. Those who purport to possess the vision and power to state unequivocally that Wikipedia is merely an encyclopedia are perpetrating a grave injustice not just to Wikipedia itself, but to human consciousness past, present, and future. Wikipedia has become a PROCESS, not just an accumulation of facts. Wikipedia is bigger than its stated goals. Wikipedia has transcended its own identity. Wikipedians must now embrace what Wikipedia means to the future of human consciousness. Kreepy krawly 01:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Not to sound insulting, but all that is quite unappealing to read, much less for the simple point of allowing trivia. Also, please place new posts at the bottom. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, I see you've posted a shorter version of this already. Just because no one responded doesn't mean you should post it again and again. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, it's a good example of the sort of "essay" that articles would be full of if we didn't have policies to help guide our editing. Dicklyon 01:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I've been called a proponent of trivia in Wikipedia, and even I found this to be a rather unappealing rant. The bulk of this is just flowery embellishment of a point that can be summed up in a couple of sentences, and it's furthermore a point that many have brought up before. The counterpoint is that despite what some people think it "ought to be", Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That's what it was created for and that's what its purpose continues to be. If you want to argue about what might belong in an encyclopedia, that's a different issue entirely ;)

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

20:39, September 12, 2007

Interesting. Sorry my essay/rant is so unappealing. Actually, I'm not sorry at all. Perhaps as this string continues ad infinitum, Wikipedians will find some ability to respond to my future pithy statements on the matter in a way that creates a dialogue. I'm not at all surprised to discover "attitudes" in place of "thoughts" in response to my well-intentioned points. The non-Wikipedians whom this essay is also directed toward will delight in the confirmation of one or more of my theories. Here's the short end of my sharp stick, in truncated form: Wikipedia encyclopedia more than because future require horizontally decentralized freedom thoughts experiment continue forever necessity invention. Hope that is appealing enough. Perhaps we should write articles in this fashion, with only predicates and predicate modifiers. That should speed things up, and remove and prevent the flowers from growing.Kreepy krawly 03:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Deliberate foolishness in regards to criticism will no more prove your point than your preceding rant. Moreover, it hardly helps your credibility. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 03:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

So based on this logic, attempts at improvement are not only futile but stupid? Does this mean rehab centers should not exist because drug addicts should just accept what they have become? Mr.Z-man 03:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

break for section edit 1

(unindent)Drug addicts are recognised for what they are; Wikipedia maintains that it is an encyclopedia and only a few have pretended it is anything else. However, if you see that Wikipedia is evolving into something other why don't you take advantage of the free software and nurture this new lifeform. Take what you need from here and invite others to be midwifes and nursemaids. The rest of us can continue to contribute here. LessHeard vanU 13:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Your main point, Kreepy, is that Wikipedia has grown past being an encyclopedia, and you think it would be of more use to the public as such, and so we should just give in to that. That's the sentence you should've written, if you indeed wanted to make a serious attempt as condensing this. This isn't a good a good argument though, because it has such an obvious answer -- and that answer is no, this is an encyclopedia, as is stated many times over in many different locations. The goal of this place is not to aid humanity through whatever means necessary. Rather it is simply to make an encyclopedia. A BETTER argument, which I tried to allude to in my first response, is that trivia doesn't necessarily need to be excluded from a work titled an encyclopedia. But whatever you do, don't try to say this isn't or shouldn't be an encyclopedia. That's the worst thing you could possibly say, because it simply isn't true. It was intended to be an encyclopedia and continues to be intended as such, by its founders and by the people who maintain it. You simply won't find too many people who agree that we are, or should be, getting away from that intent.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

04:09, September 13, 2007

Again, fascinating. I'm fascinated by the tone of this forum. And the viewers of my writing have reiterated their unending fascination with the tone of this forum. My point being proven manyfold, which is vitriol is more entertaining than thought, I will allow another elucidation for your edification, but introductions always come first. The name is Kreepy krawly, to be exact. Wikipedia can continue to "improve" itself, but not via the attitudes of a frustrated mob lacking future vision. Ahhhhh, trivia is the seed of this string, but the larger issues loom: I make no attempt to prove any such credibility as mentioned, as it is futile and unnecessary. Yes drug addicts should accept addiction and let that sword fall where it may, as destiny draws the poet to danger in a dry gulch. A hummingbird drinks from the flower that fits its beak. We are driven by our nature and the limitations of our environment to unpredictable worlds. Wikipedia is indeed an encyclopedia; my thought on this matter involves systems theory, dynamical and chaotic systems, self-describing systems, complex systems. Systems: their origins, processes, utilities, and outcomes. Stars are born and stars die. And new stars are born. And from the cauldron of these ashes emerges a galaxy, which could not exist without creation and destruction. And were there a "god" controlling the system, only a spiral wonder no more complex than an image painted by a house cat could exist. Wikipedia cannot be controlled, only curtailed by well-intentioned, if somewhat misdirected, editors. It appears that Wikipedians are meer traffic cops, keeping the vandals at bay. These traffic cops are like weather men trying to rid Kansas of tornados with sorcery and card tricks. But they will and must persist with their traffic duties. Wikipedia has generated more information about bickering than this bickering has generated useful information. Should a word count be commenced to determine exactly what the ratio of encyclopedic data compared to bickering is within Wikipedia ? So. My point here is that Wikipedia, as a dynamical system like any other, will continue to become other than what it is described to be. Like it or not. Intelligence designs, creates, and unleashes a complex system into the world. Intelligence tries to control the system. The rate of change of the system increases. Intelligence can no longer use original definitions to describe the system. Intelligence becomes frustrated. The system cannot notice the designer, it keeps right on changing. Intelligence takes a back seat. So embrace that process, its inevitibilities, and that is how Wikipedia will be "improved." And embracing trivia, encouraging trivia, hyperlinking trivia, will yield intellectual rewards unforseen. What is futile is trying to stop the stars from being born, and trying to keep them alive forever. Because eventually, in every system, the diffuse clouds of randomness coalesce into something they never knew they could be. Let me know if you'd like a real email, real name, and telephone number, so you can tell me what you really think. And friends, let's be colleagues on a mission of truth and common values rather than opponents in a ring of fire. The world is hellish enough without smartish simians running around banging heads with bones. I like imagery, as it encapsulates meaning in potent ways. Logic is a subset of possible thought, and not the primary system of cognition. I'm waiting for Wikipedians to decide on unborn or nascent civility and enter the slipstream of optimal enhancement. I can show you how if you wish. Kreepy krawly 07:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC) 07:52, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you serious? Gwinva 08:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Whilst the writing, punctuation and use of white-space are p!ss poor there are a couple of legitimate points there. Using trivia as a vehicle is pointless IMHO as well.

WP governance needs to grow up, to recognise where the project is now, not where the aspiration was several years ago. Until that time, it'll remain of marginal value as an information repository and of more interest as an experiement in gateless, collaborative, knowledge management.

Standing by for some messenger shooting

ALR 12:22, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

(←) These unappealing rants—which most likely owe much of their length to wiktionary—need more cowbell. LaraLove 12:00, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Ha! :)

Equazcion • argue/contribs • 16:07, 09/13/2007

I am serious about my message. My writing is bad ? Oh, I see. And I never consulted any outside sources during the composition of this message. What is Wiktionary ? I doesn't matter. Apparently Wikipedians, as expected, are unable and/or unwilling to engage in serious dialogue. And the facile late-night skit show reference accomplishes what ? Again, acrimony is hilarious. When again I restate this string, I shall do so in a more efficient manner, so as not to, hopefully, welcome such pathetic acrimony. Kreepy krawly 16:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Serious conversation is impossible with such ridiculous embellishment, especially when several different poeple have told you as much. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 20:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

(←) Kreepy Krawly is in no way serious. I burst out laughing when I got to his third or fourth post and it was a giant wall of rant. You don't do that when you're actually trying to make a point. He's giggling his little head off on his side of the screen.-BillDeanCarter 20:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. But it provides me with some amusement too...not seen such wonderful (!) purple prose in ages. Gwinva 21:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Still no serious discussion. I've noticed comments about the words, and not the message. I've also noticed a disproportionate emphasis on the person, rather than the message. Is this the manner Wikipedia demonstrates its professionalism to the world ? How can serious people take Wikipedia seriously with this level of dialogue ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kreepy krawly (talk • contribs) 22:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I've addressed your message rather satisfactorily. My comments on your wording were a mere side issue.

Equazcion • argue/contribs • 20:10, 09/14/2007

Section Edit Break 2

Cover Judgment...Move On

Aside from the abrasive delivery, there were actually some decent points in the first wall. This is a social experiment. Maybe it neutralizes the arguments if the results don't take into account that the population involved sought to alter the experiment. Maybe the experiments have more to tell you.

What if the mouse looked up at you from his little maze and said, "Look, this would be a lot more fun if you added some ramps and slides. I'm tired of the same old landscape."

Imagine a similar revelation.

I realize this gives Gamers a lot of leeway in the policy. But skip ahead through the common sense sector of Wikipedia. Policy and enforcement should dictate the guidelines that enable communication, but otherwise its purpose should be to keep the experiment from destroying itself.

On another note, we should realize that everyone here has a right to an equal voice. Yes, voice, not vote. This thread was started because one individual has a different idea about what wikipedia could become. We each reshape this document with every word we write. Realize that the purpose of his outburst was not to whine about why this experiment should be his way. The purpose of his comments was to start a discussion on this particular topic.

To summarize:
1. We all have different ideas about the value of information(whether you name it trivia or knowledge), but it can be agreed that we all value it. No one's idea should be unrecognized because of its poor presentation.
2. Maybe some of the ideas in the original paragraphs need to be discussed.
This page should be taken into account: Wikipedia:Be_bold
Nonbankfiddle 20:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Such is exactly my point. We all value information, just not the same information, and who is to decide what information is valuable and what information is useless. Useless information indeed exists in any complex system. And the Wikipedia guidelines are well-functioning limiting factors. There are extensions to my original thread that I will bring up in the future, and I will restate some of my original points in a more concise form. I appreciate my esteemed colleague Nonbankfiddles comment above immensely, as it diffused a growing angst, and provided at least some vindication of my efforts in this forum. I agree my rant was an outburst; thank you for declaring that I was not whining and I didn't want it my way. Exactly true. What I was attempting to do, and what I will continue to do in the future, is to open up a kind of Wikipedia-specific metacognition thread, of which more topics than the ones expressed here are valid discussion points. This is also in relation to complex system theories about informational systems describing themselves, and Godel's Theorem. Users may or may not be interested in the background intentions or psychomemetic, epistemological, semiotic, or semantic mechanics of my threads, but there is a higher purpose than even this mere encyclopedia. Yet this encyclopedia represents something, as stated, bigger than itself, and a recognition of this may aid in attracting more talent to the project. The project is only as good as its contributors. The project will continue, and we all agree the project should continue to improve, not just because we put alot of time into it, nor because its got lots of ramps and slides (it does !), but because by making Wikipedia a better place, we are making the future a better future. Wikipedia has become important to human evolution. Kreepy krawly 22:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in. There may be others with better stuff to post on this thread. But, I guess, I couldn't resist myself. Well, from what I read so far I think this discussion contains the following points (even if not in so many words) - (1) we should encourage trivia, not discourage it; (2) the definition of trivia may be those pieces of information that doesn't fit anywhere else; (3) this should be done because no other system of reference does it; (4) Wikipedia is has grown beyond its original purpose to accommodate this inclusion; (5) the policies need a review; (6) because we all have different views on the value of information; (7) the other way to this is to start a similar project founded on the values of trivia; (8) but, such proposals should be written in precise and concise form as opposed to flowery prose; (9) because flowery prose is not taken seriously... There may be more, but this would do, I guess, for now. Now for my two cents - how do we accommodate an indefinite number of uncategorizable information? Or have we forgotten that Wikipedia runs on a category system (or category systems - in plural) of its own? Not even Wikipedia has indefinite shelf space. As for an indefinite amount of randomized trivia, google already serves us fine. With all the forums and blogs and whatever floating around, and a google search engine to bind all that in a structure, why do we need Wikipedia to serve that purpose? Well... better brains are at work. I shouldn't worry too much. Cheers. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 17:56, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

You keep going on about how serious you are. It's funny how someone who has to continuously state they are "serious" usually means most people just scroll on by or stay to watch for entertainment value. You talk about how "bickering" on Wikipedia is such a source of entertainment for you. But I wonder if it ever occurred to you that by making a self-righteous, insulting post, you're just becoming a "wanker" and not a "wankee"? By participating here, you make yourself just as acrimonious as anyone else who might participate. Laerwen 19:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Who are insulting here, my dear? Poor old me (it comes right after my post, you know)? Or, Kreepy krawly (since KK made the original post)? Whoever it is, please, don't do this. Comments like this are very detrimental to discussion and consensus. If you don't like a thread, you can always ignore it. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 17:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

:::actually the intended value is the part highlighting wikipedia as a rough paradigm of what could be a vast collection of human consciousness...a way to acheive a global democracy, almost...can you imagine a site such as this that automatically translates everything into your chosen language? we could communicate with anyone in the world, see their points of view...it could be an incredible thing or it could be a failure...but best of all, it could be a place where all people have an equal voice...

so what KK was trying to say, is wikipedia is just informational right now, but it could be a model for something greater...Common Sense, Thomas Paine.

Nonbankfiddle 18:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I actually searched this out just to post how dissatisfied I was personally with Wikipedia attempting to eliminate the trivia section. This is what made Wikipedia great. It was an internet resource not only full of pertinent information, but also some nice random facts about the subject. Removing trivia sections will not increase Wikipedia's credibility, but is more likely to just bring more actual disdain of Wikipedia.

~IH ThekolIH@gmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.7.129 (talk) 04:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, some of us think that the trivia actually enhances WP, as suggested by KK. But, how do you profitably organize the indefinite amount of trivia coherently into the project? Will it be less random than a Google search? If yes, how so? If no, why bother? Random information organized randomly should be a function of serch engines, not an encyclopedia (or something resembling an encyclopedia). The the flow of human consciousness is an epistemoligcal problem still beyond any hope of organization, why dump it on a few million hapless editors most of whom are even unaware of the heap load of philosophizing that goes along the very word consciousness. Ummmm... never mind. It just doesn't seem to be a workable soultion. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 12:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

As is often stated else where : WP is not a paper encyclopaedia and therefore can provided new possibilities for the organisation of data. I think what is being discussed here might be more conveniently termed as orders of importance. Back in the early 1960s when my farther purchased the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it was not that it had more detail on each subject that impressed me (I was expecting that) but that it had articles about things -I hither too- did not think important enough to be in any encyclopaedia. However, these extra article were very helpful -in as much- that they made some of the articles on other topics easier to understand, because they provided knowledge about the world and it workings -which that at that time- I lacked totally. Off the top of my head here is a rough possible brake down:

Section Edit Break 3

Orders of IMPORTANCE

1)Those articles which provide prime knowledge about subjects which one would need to be aware of if one was to be considered to have a well rounded education (example: say mathematics and forms a part of 'general' knowledge).
2)Those articles which expand on the knowledge in the prime articles by concentrating on a sub speciality (say for example calculus which forms part of 'specialised' knowledge.
3)Articles which foster insight and understanding.
4)Articles which are not of global importance but are of importance :
a) Locally.
b) Culturally.
c) Linguistically.
d) Etc.,
5)Articles of odd details and passing ephemera, which on their own and individually, maybe of little importance, but their sum presence provides the real world context to all the above. In other words: These are the small things that a Martian would have to know about before s/he or it could make sense of our world from our written and illustrated text alone.

This is already beginning to happen in part by the grading articles by importance for the CD version. See: Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Assessment. What is needed -I think- is a proposed policy which outline where the dividing lines could be, in order that both 'information in articles' and individual articles can be placed into the most appropriate classification of importance rather than just deleted because Britannica would not included such mundane detail or trivia. It might also help clarify what is truly unwanted moronic banal trivia. 'Useful' collections of knowledge are so, because they are organised, rather than any policy of what a library might accept or refuse. Example: the British Library which takes in every thing published in the UK. It is not about making WP into something other that an encyclopaedia, it is about how to develop it to its full potential. This requires a creative vision which is not always easy to state clearly and often beyond the intellectual grasp of others. So a few words from dissenters is to be expected. Stick to your guns KK.--Aspro 14:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting a separate set of articles for trivia (like we have for, say, portals)? Portals already make all articles kind of passing ephemera, as they keep changing, and there is no good going back to a portal for easy access to an article or whatever. Or are you suggesting a separate wikimedia project like the Wiktionary? Or may be just random inclusion of trivia wherever an editor fancies? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 14:12, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Not quite. I will put it another way:

'Trivia' is often in the mind of the beholder. For instance: At my side I have a local history book with 31 pages devoted just to fragments of Roman pottery. On one page picked at random there are 16 fragments drawn and described, and similar numbers (depending on relative size of pots) on the other 30 pages. To some editors views, to included that amount of potsherds (plus plans showing where each was found) is un-needed trivia - if all you want to know is 'were the Romans here?' BUT if they (the editors) where interested only in Idie Bands, then they might think that every album and every track by a certain globally unknown BUT LOCAL band is important enough to put on WP - to 'me' that is trivia BUT to everybody that follows that band it might be the only interesting info in WP. To a social anthropologist, they my find the Indi Band track titles interesting; as an indication of the type of issues today's youth is concious of. For this reason they might not consider it trivia either.

So I am saying: if we can accept trivia as just another level of knowledge, we can not only include it in WP but also organise the information in a way that has not been done before in an encyclopaedia. The advantage would be that: if someone was just starting out on learning say European History, they could knowingly skip over low importance (trivia to some) sections or even whole low importance articles (these are articles that exist already), so that they can concentrate on getting a good overview first. A grading system (of existing content) will highlight the best articles to read first -as an introduction to the subject. The lower importance articles can be left until they are certified 'anoraks'. This is not suggesting 'trivia' be added on purpose! Rather that where trivia occurs it is identified as such, and in proper relationship to the other information.

Acceptance, would also remove the excuse some editors have, of removing perfectly good content just because it is outside their particular sphere of interests, in the very narrow world, which they themselves inhabit... Do the underlined bits above answer your question?--Aspro 16:20, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Section Edit Break 4

Final thoughts on Trivia.
To use an analogy. For augments sake, liken the present 'paper encyclopaedias' to the early museums -all you saw was all there was. Now, today, museums have more artefacts in the back-rooms than on public display. It may seem to some people to be pointless to have row upon row of draws full of even more bones and things, best examples of which are already on display. Yet this is were the new discoveries are made; new patterns found; new connections formed; new insights gained. Large collections of bones can suggest the incidence of cannibalism, TB, leprosy, etc. WP like wise provides the opportunity for vast amounts of data to be stored and selectively retrieved and cross referenced. The semantic web is being designed to make this task easy but that is not a reason, not to explore what WP is capable of achieving. What I think needs to be formalised is a way of informing the “Readers” of WP : “Here is the public display cases of prime examples. If your thirst for knowledge runs deeper then the back- rooms are through there.” These divisions -I think- are important, because if one tries to take too much in one go when studying -it becomes too easy to make erroneous conclusions. BUT it is 'all potentially' important information - even that, which some editors consider to be in their eyes trivia. Trivia can -and often does- turn out to be very important; sometimes leading to new sciences. This is why I am being so pedantic.--Aspro 17:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

yar. since we're looking wikipedia possibly being a paradigm for something greater, why not relate it to history? it seems that empires, religions, political theories and pretty much any other feasible coalition of humans starts off with a vision, which then grows in popularity, but always eventually becomes corrupt, bureaucratic and functioning on the letter of the law rather than the spirit of its original creation. religions are probably the best example of this... positively spreading the enlightenment of the founder in order to enhance people's spiritual outlooks eventually turns into institutionalized regimes that ignorantly function on irrelevant customs and beliefs. it is safe to assume that wikipedia has or will at some point reach this turning point. but its policies of consensus and democracy are some of the greatest in history; if it were a country it would be close to a utopia. so why not see what happens when some human-made thing reaches this point but DOESN'T fall burning to the ground? in order to proceed where everything else has fallen, adaptation must become a priority. i'm not exactly sure where i'm going... i didn't get enough sleep last night... does this make any sense? (also just trying to keep this discussion alive. it's very interesting. Lord mortekai 02:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Aspro's grading proposition sounds like a good idea, and the only proposal so far that makes KK's original proposal possible. Now that the alleged rant has started to make more sense, like a proposing a scheme to grade articles to separate the main course from the appetizers and deserts, I think I have started to like it better. This scheme may prove to be a heavy additional burden on the already gargantuan backlogs, but I am sure Wikipedia itself seemed like a pretty impossible task when it started. At the rate the project is going, nothing is too impossible to give a trial. Right? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 20:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer it not to be thought of as an additional burden. Rather, a redirection of the existing burden which many editors seem to feel, as they attempt to bring into line the contributions of other editors; who themselves are trying to create an encyclopaedia that conforms to their own idealisation of an encyclopaedia. Thus, we have -at present on Wikipedia- a never ending series of revolving edits. Very often with the quality slowly spiralling downwards, as the 'expert' editors tire and give up one by one; leaving it to the collage kids to over-simplify, until the article no longer conforms to (printed) encyclopaedic standards.

Therefore the existing burden -I would like to think- is redirected into creating the first 'true' e- Encyclopaedia.

In short, the future reader would be able to look something up on WP and see it in a form that suits the 'purposes' behind making 'that' enquiry. Even a collage professor is not going to need to look at the highly intellectualised area if his only reason for looking on Wikipedia (on this hypothetical occasion) is simply to help solve a clue in a crossword puzzle (which may involve a subject he has no idea about and may have no desire to take an interest in -ever again).

The biggest obstacle as I see it, is getting sufficient mover & shakers within WP to stand back far enough from existing notions, in order to be able to conceptualise this for themselves, and so see how an e- Encyclopaedia would look and work in practice.--Aspro 10:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Further: I think a lot of editors have something like this brewing in the back of their minds but when they come to try and articulate it, it comes out sounding like a rant as you described it above.--Aspro 10:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Aspro's "Final Thoughts on trivia" was pretty optimistic. Do you really think this discussion is nearing its end?

I would like to suggest a technological solution, which could constitute a compromise between the trivs and antitrivs, and could also offer a solution to other policy issues bedeviling us wikipedians. Currently there is an Article page, where the article is, and a discussion page, for talk about the article. Hows about adding a blog page, for talk about the subject of the article. It could be a place for putting all the obiter dicta that was not pompous enough to be encyclopedic, but was still worth preserving. It could also be a place for original research. Here is a case in point: in my work on the article Music of Israel I wrote a section on Israeli Arab music. In that section several musicians are quoted as saying that their music is an expression of their Palestinian identity. I then spoke to Taiseer Elias, who is one of the most important of Arab Israeli musicians. He said that he does not consider himself Palestinian, but "Israeli Arab." Furthermore, he denies the existence of "Palestinian music" and contends that the only really original music produced by his community is the result of Arab and Jewish Israelis working together to create a new fusion style. Important thoughts, no? Unfortunately, I cannot use them in the article, because my conversation with him would constitute OR. But if there were a "blog page" attached to the article, I could post it there. I could maintain the encyclopedic purity of the article while still allowing this important view to be aired.

The blog page would be the ideal place to publish a list of all the Hollywood versions of Romeo and Juliet, to discuss the use of the Rites of Spring in Fantasia, and to immortalize the saxophone performance of Beethoven's fifth at the Sandusky county fair. When a college student wanted to write a paper on the commercial uses of the Mona Lisa, Google would give him a place to start his search on the Mona Lisa blog page. Snooty editors who felt that these factoids cluttered their otherwise pristine articles could move them to the blog pages - no information would be lost, and everyone would win.

I would like to suggest that such a technological solution would also serve the heretical but, to my mind, fascinating view of Kreepy krawly - that the Wikipedia is no longer an encyclopedia, but a process. Willy-nilly, the Wikipedia will evolve far beyond the poor power of policies to add or detract. Instead of looking, like Lilliputians, for pitiful little stakes and strings to tie down this towering Gulliver, let us build new structures to let the giant lead us to where he will. It will be a far more interesting place than we can imagine on our own. --Ravpapa 16:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day seems to be controversial, but popular with some admins and thus a sacred cow. Is this an essay or a guideline? Reading through the talk pages leads me to believe that this has never had the support necessary to demonstrate consensus. Most recently it has been re-tagged as a guideline without broad support, but today’s effort has both established the guideline tag and had the page protected. Please join the discussion. --Kevin Murray 08:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I merely see it as further explaining WP:NOT#OTHOUGHT. So it should have at least guideline status. --Farix (Talk) 11:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

That's almost exactly why I don't think there is any need for it to be a guideline. To me, that's a perfect essay - it doesn't add anything new to Wikipedia's rules, it just explains some concepts with reference to established policies and guidelines. In my view, saying that everything that further explains a policy or guideline has to also be a policy or guideline is the road to instruction creep. TSP 11:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I hate to see instruction creep cited, but I have to agree with the remainder of TSP's reasoning. This should be an essay that explains the rationale behind the policy/guideline, and nothing more. That is the perfect use of essays when they relate to section policies/guidelines such as those found in WP:NOT. Adrian M. H. 15:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:Per to understand what refering to things like this means. It is not "This should not exist because it is written in stone that wikipedia does not allow this." It means "I believe that Wikipedia should not have this article for the same reason that this policy/guideline/essay/other editor has said". Wikipedia has only 3 unbreakable rules; everything else is open to consensus. When someone says: Delete per Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day, they DO NOT MEAN that that page should be accepted as official policy. Rather what they are saying is that they agree with the opinion expressed by that page; when a preponderance of other editors likewise agree with the same opinions, that is called consensus. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why there should be a controversy over what tag is put on something that is just a matter of common sense, and is really just an example of how the policies on verifiability and original research are applied. And it's not instruction creep, because over time many people have created articles about things that obviously were made up one day in school, or at work, or in a bar, so there is a need to spell this out. 6SJ7 04:07, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with 6SJ7. We need separate guidelines to tell us not to post unsourced information we hear at bars, via spam email, or from stories told by grandparents. Yes that was a bit of sarcasm to illustrate a point. The root of the problem is already dealt with via verifiability. Guidelines dealing with examples of verifiability problems are not required. To me this seems like people getting really lazy about citing reasons for removal of information. We could have 50 guidelines citing examples of violation of verifiability, or a single guideline with those 50 examples included, so that when a verifiability problem comes up we can direct someone the guideline without offering any argument whatsoever -- OR, we COULD just use our goddamn BRAINS and make actual ARGUMENTS, saying things like, "This information is unsourced and seems to be original resaearch. I am removing it for now. If you have a source for this information please feel free to repost it along with a proper reference. Thank you." Say no to laziness.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 04:22, 09/28/2007

I just saw this comment. Equazcion, I don't think you agree with what I was actually trying to say. I guess I was being too subtle. I see nothing wrong with this being a guideline. 6SJ7 23:55, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

In what way is it controversial? Do you think we should have articles about things made up in school one day? Corvus cornix 21:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a rather obvious consensus for the fact that Wikipedia indeed is not for TMUISOD. Have you seen anybody recently who argued that Wikipedia is, or should be, for TMUISOD? Because I haven't. That means that it is, de facto, a guideline, regardless of whether people think it "doesn't need to be one" or "should be called something else".

Looking at it from a practical point of view (do try running NP patrol for awhile, people!) there are novice editors who make TMUISOD articles; would it be best to (a) tell them we delete those articles according to our guidelines, or (b) tell them that "some editors have the opinion that such articles should not exist"? The former educates people, the latter causes people to argue. >Radiant< 09:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

So, Radiant, what you are saying is that in some cases, policies and guidelines should be prescriptive, rather than descriptive? I agree. 6SJ7 23:53, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is really controversial. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 00:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Cyber-bullying and misuse of historical diffs that never get deleted

Recently, someone did this to WP:NPOV. Someone reverted it, of course, but the vandalism is still in the history. Ironically, this historical edit can now still be used for Cyber-bullying. Even though the page was restored, the offending party still can link to the diff and e-mail it to someone as an attack, saying: "See! Even Wikipedia agrees with me! You suck nyaa-nyaa (so on and so forth)."

Of course, there is a function to totally obliterate edits from an article history, but that seems to be used in only rather extreme cases. What (if any) is the consensus viewpoint on dealing with not-so-extreme cases where vandalism remains in the edit history, potentially satisfying the objectives of the vandal through edit-history links? dr.ef.tymac 21:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the big red warning box at the top, saying "This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Tielzebob2 (Talk | contribs) at 19:46, 2 October 2007. It may differ significantly from the current revision." goes a long way towards mitigating this. It makes it pretty clear that the content isn't in any way endorsed by Wikipedia, and if one simply wants to type some crap on a website and link to it, it would be much easier to use a pastebin. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I understand your points, but WP is open-source, and pretty "high profile" ... not to mention the fact that it is relatively trivial to doctor the page so that a specific "target" would not be able to see the warning box. It just doesn't seem to quite pass the "smell test" ... that the vandal may have actually gotten exactly what he wanted, because now the content is (for all practical purposes) permanently viewable by anyone, notwithstanding the huge "warning box".

But your points are well-taken. Mostly I was just wondering if this has been discussed before, and if so, where. dr.ef.tymac 21:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Why not let admins delete edits. They can do it now, but have to delete the article and restore selected edits. Why not just have them delete one edit, like oversight does (I think), except the ones deleted by admins would be viewable by other admins. Sasha Callahan 21:58, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that would be a useful power, not only because of this issue, but because it would prevent vandal edits from completely clogging up an article's edit history. As we now have the ability to view deleted edits as part of a user's contribution history, I don't see any reason not to implement this if it is feasible. Postdlf 23:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Quick thoughts - "yesno no". I'm not sure that this is a primary reason for modifying page handling. But if it can be done without degradation to the project, then it's harmless and courteous. The main problem I see is this:

According to policy and practice, the difference between editors and administrators is little except tool access. Editors are expected to be free to undertake dispute resolution, and related matters, every bit as much as anyone else, and on equal footing. A proposal like this elevates administrators, because it would mean that a regular user contemplating a dispute resolution case and collating evidence would be unable to see precisely those edits they might most need to. It would greatly impede non-administrators' ability to undertake dispute resolution, if the diffs they needed were selectively likely to be removed from their sight. That to me is a terminal problem. A better solution would be to change the header for old pages, if this is a concern. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:57, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that it's a good idea - provided that there are guidelines for its use. I think this should only be done for major copyvios, personnal attacks and cases where there is evidence of Cyber-bullying. Od Mishehu 08:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Child Editors

What are the policies, if any, regarding editors who are children (i.e. under 16). I've run into a few recently, and have discovered just how frustrating it can be dealing with a kid who couldn't care less about policy. It made me wonder why children are even allowed to edit (certainly before 13, few children would be capable of producing quality content, I'd think). I was also rather disturbed to see that their user info pages contain so much personal info that anyone who wanted could very easily find them in real life. I seem to remember seeing that Wikipedia isn't beholden to the laws about collecting info on kids, so I'm curious if there are any policies about them at all? Collectonian 06:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any specific policies on this. There's no age limitation here, and I'd be against such a limit. If you encounter a child editor who uses poor judgment in editing articles, you frankly just need to deal with it, the same way you might deal with a sub-par/bad-intentioned adult editor. There are poor editors who are adults too, and conversely, I've come across some kids who could give the average adult a run for the money in the intelligence department. Age limits wouldn't solve anything. However, if there is potentially dangerous info on an underage user's page, you might want to inform an admin (perhaps via email for discretion) so that the user can be warned/advised on a change to that page.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 06:18, 10/5/2007

It was proposed once, but rejected. The discussion, however, did yield us Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy, but places no limitation on editing privileges. -- Ned Scott 06:47, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

It is easy to lie about your age on the Internet so an age limit would be unnecessary and incompatible with the idea of unregistered editors. Jeltz talk 10:46, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all of the above. There are, and should be, no age restrictions on editing. Wikipedia benefits from contributors of all backgrounds, and our younger editors have given much to the project both in terms of writing content and in other ways (vandalism patrolling, etc.). For that matter, we have administrators who self-identify as young as age 12, and many of them are doing quite a good job. On the other hand, it has also happened that a younger editor chronically violates policy and is asked to leave Wikipedia for awhile. (Of course, this is equally true of adult editors.)

If you are having a problem with a particular editor, of any age, and are unable to resolve the problem directly with him or her, you can post to WP:ANI or follow the steps in Wikipedia:dispute resolution, or contact an individual administrator.

The problem of younger editors posting too much personal information is something that more experienced editors and admins do keep a lookout for. Such users are advised to reduce the information provided, and in serious cases it is deleted by admins. The last remedy provision in the ArbCom decision in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy addresses this issue. Newyorkbrad 12:11, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. It looks like the user names of the two I've seen with school, family names, location, etc. should be posted to the admin noticeboard so someone can work with them to not have so much personal info out there. Otherwise, just continue to keep an eye on their edits and try to correct and encourage to follow proper policies and guidelines when editing. :) Collectonian 15:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I have always removed such personal information from such pages--how much I remove depends upon the age of the person--and it is not necessary to be an admin to do it. I then post to their user page explaining in very general terms that it is unwise, and also giving them some information on how to contribute usefully, such as WP:CTW. If it seems that they might not understand, I add something like, "if you don't understand why this is not a good idea, please ask your parent or teacher." I don't want to spell out the dangers. And be aware that it is a common technique of sexual predators to pose as children. Someone saying they are 12 and giving a phone number might be much older. I'd never say this of course on a user page, but be aware of the possibility. If anyone is uncomfortable giving such advice personally, I'll help. I'm a parent and a teacher, and a librarian, and I've done it many times. I know about true child abuse, but I'm not paranoid about it. DGG (talk) 00:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I ended up bringing it to [the Admin notice board]. The user pages in question were completely deleted, because they were also apparently violating some other policies and the admins agreed they had way too much personal info on there. Deleting makes sure it doesn't stay in the history. See the full discussion for more on why they felt deletion is better than editing. Collectonian 01:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Academic disclaimer

After reading yet another "complaint" I turned the Wikipedia:Academic use article into Wikipedia:Academic disclaimer. Now I need consensus on the issue of adding the Wikipedia:Academic disclaimer article into the permanently protected Template:Disclaimer-header. Who is for, who is against?

Another issue is how should we line up the disclaimers in the Template:Disclaimer-header. In alphabetical order or in order of importance. If we chose the latter option how do we classify the dissclaimers? Mieciu K 10:11, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with this change. There is an academic use for wikipedia--it is merely that wikipedia can not be used for all academic purposes. I am reverting the change, pending discussion on the talk page there. DGG (talk) 00:14, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion for general pronounciation guide policy

I'm new here and not sure how to make a suggestion for a policy change (or whatever this idea is thought to be at the Wiki)...anyway, I would like Wikipedia, in addition to the scholarly method used to show the pronounciation of a word, also include a much more accessable pronounciation guide that even an average person can use...for example, this is from the NY Times and shows their method for helping a reader pronounce a word: "Mr. Contois (pronounced con-TOYZ) undertook a campaign to improve safety awareness."

Now can't the Wikipedia request that contributors to articles, in addition to the method for showing pronounciation now used that only scholars understand, also use this NY Times technique so that regular folks, including kids, are able to easily figure out how to say a word correctly??

Just a suggestion, but would someone put this in the right place on your web site, if this is not the right forum, where this proposal can be properly considered by the Wikipedia community??

Thanks,

12.208.203.25 15:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)Martin A.

Sadly, Wikipedia has coalesced around the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) which is generally well understood by linguists but completely inaccessible to the vast majority of the general public. See WP:PRON and the discussion at WT:PRON. 1of3 21:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem with ad-hoc pronunciation schemes is that they assume a specific regional accent. The NY Times example you give, for instance, assumes a midwestern US accent. --Carnildo 00:31, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

There are alternatives which have been around far longer than the IPA, and with which the vast majority of English speakers are far better acquainted. 1of3 01:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

While it's true that ad hoc pronunciation schemes may assume regional accents, we have contributors from many regions who can edit things to avoid that. For example, if someone writes that troff is pronounced "tee-rawf", they probably have the father-bother merger; but someone else can correct that to "tee-roff"... problem solved. A bigger problem is that there are some sounds that can't be clearly represented this way; for example, since neither of the two sounds of "th" in English has any other spelling, there's no good way to distinguish them. I still feel that non-IPA pronunciations are of value and should not be discouraged. -- 207.176.159.90 01:25, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. IPA is perfectly accessible if you click on the link, and is actually quite intuitive. I make no claims to being a linguist, but I find it easy to use. A problem wth non-IPA pronounciations is that, even if there is standardization, some people may not realize this and crreate nonstandard spellings. ¿SFGiДnts! ^{¿Complain! ¿Analyze! ¿Review!} 01:56, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

What is "intuitive" about symbols which to most people are not associated with any sound? 1of3 02:14, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, any scheme, ad hoc or the IPA, must choose a specific accent when there is a choice between pronunciations. There is nothing magical about the IPA which rescues it from that dilemma. 1of3 02:17, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Links to mirrors that do not follow the GFDL

Do we have any guideline or policy that says anything about mirrors which use Wikipedia content without being compliant with the GFDL? If an external site is using information from Wikipedia, obviously it can't be reliable, but if they have additional information, is it appropriate to link to it?

I'm asking this after investigating some copyvio issues at John S. McCain, Sr.. This article was originally taken from a pd usgov website. Additions were made by Wikipedia editors over the course of a few years. In late 2006, http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/ seems to have copied our article and added it to an existing page on their website, without complying with the GFDL. Our article was later mistakenly deleted as a copyright violation, but I restored the deleted revisions today. As it turns out, arlingtoncemetery.net is used as an external link or a source on quite a lot of pages. The site has some content that may be original, and they've got some pretty pictures, but as stated above, they also have at least once copied from Wikipedia without attribution. Should we be linking to this site at all? --- RockMFR 22:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:EL#Restrictions_on_linking says that we should not link to sites which violate Copyright. Corvus cornix 22:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Well yes, there is that, but in practice it has been used to remove links to individual pages that violate copyright (such as on YouTube), but leaving links that do not violate copyright on the same website. What I'm asking is - should we blacklist mirrors of Wikipedia who do not comply on some pages? Our guidelines right now are rather ambiguous in regards to whether they refer to web sites ("site" meaning "domain" here) or web pages. --- RockMFR 23:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:EL is a style guideline, not policy. Interpret it in the way that assists the purpose of WP, the provision of information. If we want to proceed against them for violating our copyright, that's a separate process. Removing them is the extreme of wikilawyering and over-scrupulousness. DGG (talk) 00:14, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest discussing the matter on Wikipedia talk:External links. Corvus cornix 01:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

We should not blacklist sites which have pages that violate copyright. The blacklist is for spam, and in exceptionally rare cases, harassment. Think of the implications if we blocked sites with problems. Discussing those sites would be a chore. 1of3 01:09, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Again, take this up at Wikipedia talk:External links. As it now stands, WP:EL says not to do it. Corvus cornix 17:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Overlistification

I see that this proposed, and possibly unfinished page has been worked on by basically a single editor, who contributed extensively in June, not so much in July, and whose last contribution was 2 months ago. I also see a fair amount of recent opposes by established editors on its talk page. Has the time come for a final discussion on whether to accept, reject, or amend this proposal? Users are welcome to comment. Thanks. - Mtmelendez ^{(Talk|UB|Home)} 12:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't really see the point, given listcruft et al. That said, these lists would lose any value that they currently have if we just had a decent way to correlate categories and subcats. The Jewish Publishers example, for instance, could be just as easily be automatically generated if we had a tool that was capable of crawling Category:Jews and Category:Publishers. Do we? If not, can one be written that just works off an offsite cache? MrZaius^talk 13:08, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Look at how Wikinews works; browse by topic and look at the code for one of the topics. It's inserting a list of items by cat. I don't know the options and limits of that option. (SEWilco 16:54, 6 October 2007 (UTC))

What to do with administrators that repeatedly and knowingly go against policy?

Ok, here's a conundrum: What should we do with administrators that repeatedly and knowingly act against written policy, like misapplying CSDs? I know some will say "it's just a small thing to speedy something that would (probably) have only sat there prodded for a week" and "WP:DRV can fix it" but what should we do with the administrators that just go and violate the same policy again even though we know they should know better? I am well aware of WP:IAR but most often they keep doing what they were doing even after being overturned several times (which - to me - violates the spirit of IAR). Are admins truly above us normal mortals without the "Bit" in this aspect. Are they permitted to do things with impunity, for which we would be warned and blocked for? Or what should they do with those administrators, their infractions might be minor, even if they sometimes cause surprisingly much wikidrama, but should they not be our rolemodels? So what should we do in those cases? CharonX/talk 16:31, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Is there a specific example that you're talking about? It's harder to talk about vague issues without some sort of example to work from. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:34, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I intentionally kept the issue vague, as to avoid the discussion devolving into "is doing X - even if in violation of policy - right or wrong" but rather to keep it focused on "if admin Y does X, gets overturned, but keeps doing X anyway - what to do?" CharonX/talk 16:55, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, the basic problem is that it's easy to make a bad deletion and walk away, it takes a lot of vigilance to deal with such deletions. But it can be done... DRV of truly bad deletions does tend to result in a sound defeat for those who make the deletions. And I notice that the ones who keep getting overturned again and again eventually just give up. So the system does tend to work... if people are vigilant enough to see it through. Other than a few well-connected admins, if someone does keep making terrible deletions, you should be able to successfully take them to ArbCom for de-sysopping if you are patient enough. But the basic inequality is there... it takes 5 seconds to make a bad deletion, it can take days or even months to really fix it, if the admin is uncooperative. I'm not confident there's much chance of changing that. --W.marsh 16:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

What should we do with administrators that repeatedly and knowingly act against written policy, like misapplying CSDs?

It depends on how bad they are misapplying it.

What should we do with the administrators that just go and violate the same policy again even though we know they should know better?

Have you tried asking on their talk pages?

Are admins truly above us normal mortals without the "Bit" in this aspect?

No

Are they permitted to do things with impunity, for which we would be warned and blocked for?

No, but generally no one has to go through process simply for the sake of process either - that's what WP:IAR is for.

Or what should they do with those administrators, their infractions might be minor, even if they sometimes cause surprisingly much wikidrama, but should they not be our rolemodels?

Any time an admin messes up (on purpose or not) it causes some drama. Remember also to assume good faith. Admins are not supposed to be "rolemodels" anymore than any other editor is - they are regular editors with a few extra tools.

So what should we do in those cases?

Every case is different: this is where specifics help. Mr.Z-man 16:57, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Admins should delete any page they find that should be deleted. It takes some experience and discretion to know which pages those are. Not every page that should be deleted meets a CSD criterion, and not every page that meets a CSD criterion should be deleted. The idea that admins may, or should, only delete pages after satisfying some proceess requirement isn't correct. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:17, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Citation needed... WP:CSD exists for a reason, so does WP:AFD. Many speedy deletions that don't meet CSD are contestable... admins who don't care if editors in good standing object to their deletions, really are probably willfully ignoring the fact that it might not have been a good deletion after all. Sometimes discussion is needed... it's not "process for the sake of process", it's process for the sake of not making bad decisions. No one's infallible. --W.marsh 17:52, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

As I said, admins need to have discretion and experience, which is the theoretical goal of RFA. Bad deletion decisions can be remedied easily enough, as can every other sort of bad decision an editor might make. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not really easy, though. Making strong arguments in a DRV takes exponentially more time than an admin making an uninformed deletion and giving no good reason. In theory, yeah, RFA weeds out people who are going to make bad decisions with respect to articles... but that's just theory. We've seen many examples of candidates who can say the right things at RFA, then do a 180 once they've gotten their adminship. --W.marsh 18:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Gather up diffs of every example you see of mis-use of tools in a central location. Then e-mail it to me. Can't say that will solve the matter, but it will result in more eyes on things. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 17:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Again, without specifics to go on, this sounds like an unactionable complaint. Without any evidence to decide if the problem is really happening, how can anyone decide what action needs to be taken, if any? Vague complaints like this don't really provide us with any means to enact new policy in any meaningful way... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 00:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

If specific details are so urgently needed, I will attempt to compile a list of them and either post it here or mail/post/give it to interested parties (to avoid said degeneration into a meta-debate). The admins in question are - as I firmly believe - far from applying the CSD malignly, they basically do what they believe in their best faith is right, and while this had been a hotly contested issue and a significant minority of users will most likely agree with their reasoning, the general consensus that was found points in the opposite direction, explicitly so. As it is 2.40 AM right now here and I'm rather tired, so I'll finish the compilation tomorrow. CharonX/talk 00:43, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

search engine test and notability

Can a search engine test establish notability on itself? Is a Google hit count enough? I would say that this cannot be seen apart from other WP policies and guidelines, especially WP:V and WP:RS. Intangible2.0 03:07, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Search engine test --W.marsh 03:11, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

That's what I thought, too bad people in the particular AFD do not. Intangible2.0 13:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

That's the very least of the problems with that article. It's a complete mess, and the AFD isn't going to help anything.Wikidemo 15:04, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The article may be a mess, but content or style issues are not handled via deletion. Internal to the article itself are several reliable sources, certainly enough to establish notability of the subject. Deletion is about whether or not the article has a right to exist at Wikipedia. Crappily written articles need clean up, not deletion. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Wrongful systematic translation of Québec place names

My mind has just registered that ALL many Québec place names are unapproved translations. I have double checked with government sites "Office québécois de la langue française", and the Commission de la toponymie du Québec[1] and the Government of Québec has a very clear policy on name translations, it is not done (except for name places overlapping borders, where use of actual French name may be accompanied by an English equivalent. This is not a new policy.

How is it then that all the place names got translated? To be sure, I checked on France's place names, no problem there, all proper names have been kept in French. English name places have not been translated to French Salton Sea. I can't even begin to imagine why this has come to be... Some of you may think, hmm, bilingual Canada... but names places and bilingualism status are provincial jurisdictions and not federal. Québec is officially French only.

I haven't brought this up over there on those pages as debate is already heated enough with Nation issues, and this is completely aside. I'm certain no Wikipedia policy may override local governments... Certainly there is some model, banner, tag, request page, where this issue can be handled outside of individual pages. Yours truly, Tracy--Tallard 08:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)(--Tallard 7 octobre 2007 à 06:04 (CEST))

PS, If this debate has already taken place, and I imagine it may have many years ago, please direct me to the archive, that would be a start to correct this huge mistake.

This is the English Wikipedia. If a place has a common name in English, that name is used for the article, even if it isn't an "approved" translation. --Carnildo 08:24, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

This is absolutely erroneous, France's name places are NOT translated to English and British/Australian/New Zealand names places are NOT translated to French. --Tallard 08:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Please direct me to the wikipedia policy allowing Wikipedia to override local government. Thank you--Tallard 09:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

As soon as you provide a link to the Canadian or Quebecoise legislation that gives it jurisdiction over Wikipedia and its contributors. Merci. LessHeard vanU 10:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

What I suggest, (hopefully some kind of Bot or template) is a massive redirect campaign, which would affect approximately 90% a great deal of Québec name places (non border), so users entering whatever informal translated form they choose to use will be redirect to the properly named place. In France, Brussels and Switzerland (as far as I've come) even accents are preserved, exception being a very few major cities such as Geneva.--Tallard 09:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy can 'overrule' any local law it wants; it is subject only to the laws of the United States of America and the state of Florida. Quebec has no jurisdiction. --Golbez 10:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Put another way, if we had to follow every law passed by every jurisdiction in the world, what's to stop some town (or large asian communist nation) from declaring Wikipedia illegal? --Golbez 10:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Tallard, I am an Italian, but when I read and edit the English-language Wikipedia I accept that it is written in English, to the point that Italy is not called "Italia", Rome is not called "Roma", Naples is not called "Napoli" and so on. As I see it, it is not a question of linguistic policy or overriding anything: it is just that Italian-speking people say "Roma" and "mela", while English-speking people say "Rome" and "apple". Or am I missing something? Happy editing, Goochelaar 10:43, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

"...I checked on France's place names, no problem there, all proper names have been kept in French..." Which would be because place names of France (apart from France itself) do not normally have English translations or equivalents. Many Latin and other names do, however, hence Goochelaar's point about Italian place names. See Kiev, for example. Where possible, when a common-use equivalent exists, we use English names. Adrian M. H. 12:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I realise of course it's English Wikipedia, and I am not saying to eliminate it completely, only to create redirects. Other than legal reasons, there are practical online reasons for this. Take for example the Bay of Chaleurs (Eastern Quebec, where I grew up). If a reader goes to that page knowing only that name and then tries to find it's equivalent government page or official site, it does not exist. This page (and many many others) mislead the reader into believing that Chaleur Bay has the same weight as the not even linked Baie des Chaleurs. The other problem with this lax treatment of proper nouns is that not all speakers write Chaleur Bay, many write Bay of Chaleur or Bay of Chaleurs, some even say Heat Bay, and many Québec anglophones even use Baie des Chaleurs. By accepting that the ARTICLE NAME may be anything, it misleads the reader. Given the 5 options, selecting one of them is UNVERIFIALBE. By redirecting from miscellaneous translations to one properly named article, readers then access better information. My brother's name is Michael, and it would not be acceptable to call him Michel. I realise this did happen with Michael Angelo, (and most historical information) but is that not an issue of old colonial views where people kept changing names around between languages, just because they were too righteous to use the person's actual name? In modern Québec, the government's openness to using proper historical names has resulted in many First Nations communities reverting their place names back to their own language. I just think Wikipedia's stance on this is intellectually lackadaisical. By creating redirects instead of improper names, there is nothing lost to readers and everything to be gained--Tallard 17:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Should it not at least be a policy that non official translations MUST BE ACCOMPANIED by proper official name, as the Commission de toponymie states?--Tallard 17:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You are not going to get a policy out of this. At best, you may get a MoS guideline. See all the country-specific MoS guidelines for comparison. Any such guideline would only be able to recommend that articles start with the same system that you see in the Kiev example, but we routinely do that anyway because it is already mentioned elsewhere in the MoS pages. Adrian M. H. 18:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

See WP:PLACES for the current naming convention. Since place names are often hotly debated, this topic has been legislated in some detail. In general the name that is most commonly seen in English usage is the one preferred. Sometimes it is not obvious which one that is. In the case you mentioned above, we have an article Chaleur Bay and there is a redirect to it called Baie des Chaleurs. That seems reasonable to me, though I personally would be more likely to look it up under the French name. If there are other dual-named places in Québec, it is reasonable that the French version should always be at least a redirect. Somehow I imagine that Wikipedia:WikiProject Quebec would have discussed this somewhere already. If there are any places that don't at least have French redirects, they should be added, in my opinion. EdJohnston 18:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The basic priniple is still, do English sources, outside of Wikipedia commonly use the name in question. Each name should be taken of its own accord, and not based on some regionally-specific policy. Each name should be tested agains this basic principle. We have had cases which go both ways: In the positive, Bombay(English name) redirects to Mumbai(Marathi name), largely because most major English sources (such as the Associated Press) made the change themselves to calling the city Mumbai. In the negative, Nürnberg(German name) redirects to Nuremburg(English name), because most reliable English sources use the name Nuremburg. In the former case, we have evidence in reliable sources that English usage has changed to adopt the local name and abandon the former English name(Peking/Beijing underwent a similar shift about a century ago). In the second case, we have a situation where the local name is not used in English, so we use the English name at Wikipedia. If you wish to see the Quebecois French name used at Wikipedia, then you need to find where the majority of reliable English sources use the local French version, and that said version is accepted by a majority of reliable sources. If the location is more commonly referred to by an English name when speaking in English, then the article should be located under said name. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Jayron32, you make the strongest pacifying point against my outrage. I will definitely research as you say percentages of common English usage. But having lived 17 years in th Gaspésie, in the Baie des Chaleurs, with English as a mother tongue, I know English names were more popular years ago, as was the funny concept of «La belle province» when the Canadian Anglos held complete dominion over Québec politics. In fact as you state for other place names, things have changed in Québec since the Quiet revolution, anglo population has decreased and the anglos having stuck with Québec through the 70s tend to be less colonial in their attitude, and so tend to agree to the use of actual French names instead of the anglicised ones, as has happened with native names. I will start gathering numbers. Thank you.--Tallard 02:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not necessarily numbers, Tallard, so please take care with how you make your case. For example, the vast majority of availible English sources probably use Bombay by the raw numbers, since the change in the English lexicon happened relatively recently. If you REALLY want to make your case, you should see that some large and reputable organization that publishes frequently has made the official change, for example The Associated Press, or perhaps more relevently, the some national canadian Press organization, such as the CBC or some such. Such organizations often have official style guides that mandate usages. This is different from a government organization declaring an official name; since Wikipedia needs to reflect what exists in reliable published sources, we need to look at how those published sources handle the situation. At issue is not how often a name has been used, but what is established practice within reliable sources today. If an oft-used English name exists, Wikipedia usually defaults to that name, using non-English names only for places where a common English name does not exist. For Candiana, it will be hard to prove that any place in Quebec does not have a commonly used English name. Always remember when proposing or making your changes: Wikipedia does not MAKE any changes to the lexicon, it only REFLECTS changes as they happen. Good luck with this, but I am not sure you will get very far.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:19, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your measured words. You have great writing talent :) I think I already had that in mind idea after reading your previous post but you have certainly clarified it nicely for me. I will take them along with me.--Tallard 04:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:NC(S)

I have created another proposal for a guideline of naming conventions for school articles. The original proposal became inactive and consensus was not established. This new proposal simplifies things a little, I would like some input at WT:NC(S). Camaron1 | Chris 17:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

American Regionalism

I have noted in a very large range of articles that there appears to be an almost offensive attitude by many american contributors when writing about issues which affect the whole of the english speaking community or whole of the world. What I mean can be summariesd in a number of examples:

1) International standards Vs regional ones.

On an number of pages I have noted that references are made to american standards such as the ASTM or ANSI without specifying what the standard is or what country it originates from, in some cases completely failing to mention the existance of other countries standards, and especially when there is a divergant ISO standard. (The USA often seems to feel no need to adhere to ISO standards, even when they contribute strongly to such standards). One recient example of this was on an article on sound insulation created by (I assume) an american contributor, which provided a clear and detailed article on the american stnadards for design and measurement of this are, but completely failed to mention that the standards referenced are specific to the USA, and differ in significant ways from the ISO standards followed by much of the rest of the world). I created a draft article on the ISO and UK approach to this topic, and cross referenced it to the original articel. I sublequently found that my cross-references and notes about "in the USA" had been removed from the original artical. (a subsequent edit was left in place)

2) Reference to national and international organisations

Today I was reading articles on Ulcers and Gangerene, and I noticed that there were references to the Center for Desease Control (CDC). Once again this is the name of a major American (US) establishment, but the article failed to state wheather it was refereing to this organisation or to the english language name of another countries organisation (reference was made to Austrialian medical research projects), or possibly to a WHO organisation.

These are just two examples.

I would ask / propose that anyone contributing to an article should ensure that unless it is clearly intended to be country specific that references to standards and organisations should be clearly identified indicating what country or organisiation they are refering to.

Just some food for thought

Anruari 14:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

You're offended by an article on sound insulation? Interesting. Presumably, if someone links to the Centers for Disease Control you can figure out which country it is in by following the link. Articles emanating from the UK and Australia make similar references without stating the country. I don't see what the problem is. We're always striving to be more international in scope, so if you see something that could be improved why not do so? Wikidemo 14:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I should think that a great many of my mainspace edit summaries include the words "Add Nation...". The assumption of knowledge on the part of a great many editors is breathtaking, and does appear to be more prevalent among US related subjects. Not only do I add in the name of the nation, but I often find myself expanding the names of States from the abv abbreviation; most of the editors who know which State MO is will often not see the need to expand it to Missouri in an article, but it is often not obvious to other non US readers - and I apply the same criteria when confronted with "Berks" and similar in UK related subjects. Indeed, after a couple of hours simply including basic information such as nationality or location to people and places my edit summaries can be so caustic that I have placed a general apology on my talkpage for anyone offended/irritated by my comments. All relevant information should be included in the article, and links are only there for people who wish to investigate or learn further - not just to get some idea where or what it is that the article is referring to. I think Anruari's comments very sensible. LessHeard vanU 20:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Links to YouTube

Hi there. I came across an article that includes a link to a youtube music video. Is that ok, or is there a rule against it? --84.167.211.29 19:10, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

This may help Wikipedia:External_links/YouTube--Aspro 19:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't see how a rejected proposal can be a valuable source of information. If there is no guideline (why not?), how would you generally treat a link to a music video on youtube in the article about the band? --84.167.211.29 19:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

It depends whether the copyrighted material has been verifiably posted to YouTube with permission (this is very unlikely). See WP:EL#Restrictions_on_linking and Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking_to_copyrighted_works. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Note also that if the YouTube account that posted the video is the official account of the band itself or its producer, it probably is reliable and not a copyright violation (since permission is not needed when one is the copyright owner). Gracenotes^T § 20:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Why should John Doe be responsible for deciding what's copyright infringed or not? As far as I'm concerned, the holder of the copyrights generally accept the opt-out policy of youtube. --84.167.211.29 20:25, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

We shouldn't waste time arguing "should"s here because the law is what it is on the issue of contributory infringement. If you know or should know that what you're linking to is a copyright infringement, don't link to it. Given the nature of YouTube, one should probably presume that any commercial content posted on it is an infringement absent information to the contrary. Postdlf 20:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks :) --84.167.211.29 21:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

"Real life emergencies" - Suggested policy

The project is periodically hit with "Real life emergency" type panic-button incidents (like people saying "I'm going to commit suicide") where a bunch of people call police and stress out about what's almost certainly a troll. The most recent example that I'm aware of is this one today on AN/I.

I'd like to propose a formalized handling of these situations, and I know this will probably not be popular with some folks, but I hope this will spark some conversation that will allow us to be proactive instead of reactive.

Erase and block. - I propose that anytime someone posts some sort of thing like this (suicide threats, etc) that we treat it like a personal threat. Erase it, block the user indef (it's not infinite, but it forces them to use an unblock request to explain themselves) and deny them the soap box.

As far as I know there hasn't been a single non-trolling example of this so far. The preponderance of evidence indicates that this is a button that manipulative people can use to get attention on Wikipedia with no regard to the deep anguish and stress this causes their victim. A poster in the thread above mentioned that this has been a "very stressful day" because of this nonsense. By allowing these to stay, we're hurting the people who care and get sucked into these mind games.

We all want to be the person who saved Kitty Genovese, but instead, the people who take those posts seriously and act on them are becoming victims of emotionally manipulative narcissists.

Finally, none of us are qualified to determine the difference between real and fake threats, the same way we aren't qualified to determine legit legal threats. To protect ourselves and the well meaning editors who get caught up in these imbroglios, let's agree on straight forward way of handling all such situations that doesn't require special knowledge.

Regards,

CHAIRBOY (☎) 23:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I drafted a pretty straight forward common sense proposal at User:Jeffrey O. Gustafson/Threat - I've since deleted it, because the general consensus (on IRC in the cabal channel, at least) is that any attempts at drafting a proposal may cause more problems than solutions. The general feeling is that the Office should always be contacted first. Admins can take a gander at my proposal if they wish, and if anyone wanted to restore it so others may add to it because they think its worthwhile, they are free to. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 23:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Considering that your proposal is essentially 100% opposite of what I'm suggesting, I'm going to go ahead and gently disagree, heh. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 00:01, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that either formal policy is a good idea. On the one hand, we don't want to create a duty where none exists. On the other hand, we don't want to tie the hands of independent editors that want to intervene. -Chunky Rice 00:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

We had some proposed policies regarding this fairly recently actually, but there was a complete lack of consensus. See Wikipedia:Responding to suicidal individuals and Wikipedia:Helping suicidal individuals. --Ybbor^Talk 00:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• I agree with Chunky. This is not our business; we are in the business of writing and maintaining a reference tool. --Kevin Murray 01:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Revert and ignore sounds good to me. Friday (talk) 01:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm basically against writing this into the policy level because of WP:DFTT and WP:BEANS, but if anything does go up it ought to include contacting the proper authorities about suicide threats. Durova^Charge! 01:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't the procedure for handling a death threat and a suicide threat be pretty much the same? Not because both involve threat of death, but because both are serious threats that should be passed to the proper authorities, and the people making them should be blocked (per the general principle of "don't cause disruption by issuing threats"). Of course, it depends on whether you see such things as manipulative threats, or a plea for help. Carcharoth 01:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The target of a death threat can make the decision about whether to contact the authorities. And no, it absolutely does not matter whether some untrained Wikipedian thinks the threat is genuine or not. We aren't qualified to make that determination and if we open that door then sooner or later someone will get it dead wrong. Durova^Charge! 02:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I think we can figure out part of it at least: the choice of what to do with the threatening content and creator of the content on Wikipedia. I would modify Chairboy's suggestion to be: notify appropriate authorities based on IP location, erase, block, all with normal admin actions and not oversight. I do think it's important to take threats seriously, whether harm to self or other, but also to minimize disruption to other users. These shouldn't be mutually exclusive. Once the police have been informed, we can all go about our regular business as usual once the blanking and blocking have been accomplished. ~Eliz81^(C) 03:54, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Myspace gets about one real suicide note a year, and they don't do anything about them administratively.[2][3] It's a tough call. I once got a misaddressed e-mail death threat ("I am going to kill you tonight"), which reached me because I own a .com domain which matches a .co.uk domain belonging to a private boarding school in England. I called the school, and got the headmistress out of bed. Turned out to be some 12-year old sending a stupid message. --John Nagle 05:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

To do something about it would invite possible liability issues, for them at least. Not sure about that, of course, I'm no expert. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

This is my concern. I realize that such issues are probably best left to the foundation legal counsel, but as it stands, Wikipedia and we as editors owe absolutely no duty to anybody who posts about killing themselves. Even if we have verifiable proof that it's a genuine threat, we have no duty to act. On the other hand, if we create a policy that does compel us to act and we don't, that may create an opening for liability. -Chunky Rice 14:19, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

In some jurisdictions, bystanders who become aware of a life threatening situation do inherently have a legal obligation to notify authorities. 75.61.108.231 16:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The first step to dealing with these problems should be to request an urgent CheckUser. This gives information which would be essential in any further action, and also ensures that no editor is acting alone. Beyond that, I'm not sure that we can have any "one-size-fits-all" protocol. The Office should be informed, yes, but this can be done in many ways. Similarly for the Police: it doesn't have to be the Foundation which informs them directly, it could be an ISP or a Chapter member or a trusted indiviual in that jurisdiction (not every WP user lives in Florida!) Physchim62 (talk) 15:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

That concern had crossed my mind too- plenty of people are going to just revert such nonsense as trolling. It might make things look worse if this happens when we were "supposed" to notify someone. Friday (talk) 15:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

So this is a blank check for trollers, then? This approach does a massive disservice to the well intentioned suckers that fall for this, as evidenced in the threat I mentioned. This is causing serious stress for some of the people who are caught up in the artificial drama because of the "what if it's real?!?!?!" approach. If someone wrote "I'm going to sue Wikipedia into the ground, destroying the foundation" or something like that, it's a big threat, but we have a policy for how to deal with it. We're letting ourselves be puppets for emotionally manipulative mean spirited attention-whores, and the "what if it's real! What if it's real!" argument just gives them strength. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the same philosophy applies to both these situations. We have no duty to protect people from themselves. If an editor wants to intervene and get caught up in whatever drama there may be regarding a suicide threat, I don't think that there's much to be gained in trying to shield them from that. -Chunky Rice 17:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

(outdent)There is a relevant essay Wikipedia:Potentially Suicidal Users that follows similar logic to my recommendations (although it's not a policy or guideline), and WP:SUICIDE redirects there now too. ~Eliz81^(C) 02:15, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Does resizing photos protect your copyright

I have been thinking about uploading a photo to Wikipedia. The problem is that I don't want to give up my ownership rights to the photo as I worked hard to take it. However I might consider uploading a reduced quality version. My question is, If I resized a photo, uploaded the smaller version to Wikipedia and the larger version to my website, would I be giving up my copyright for only the smaller version or all version? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.54.200.212 (talk) 03:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Uploading the smaller version to Wikipedia only releases that smaller version under an open-source licence (which isn't giving up your ownership rights entirely). The larger version keeps whatever licence you put on your own website.-gadfium 04:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Whatever you upload, even if it identical to your original, is what you are releasing under an open-source license. The original (and other copies which you make) are separate from what you give to Wikipedia even if they are identical. Just as if you printed 100 copies of photo, gave away five, and sold the other 95 under some business contract; the copyright and license status of each copy is separate (unless the original was created under some restriction). There sometimes is confusion between images on the Internet as to whether a copy on Wikipedia has been taken from a web site; I try to label the descriptive text on the Wikipedia Image: page to make the origin clear. (SEWilco 05:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC))

Is Wikipedia a "Consumer Watchdog"

I've come across a couple of instances recently where pages appear to exist purely for the purpose of providing warnings to consumers etc about questionable business practices. Examples would include the now deleted "Alex Finch" and "Ayman Ahmed El-Difrawi" who were linked to Lou Pearlman. These pages often attract edit wars, which causes me to notice them through browsing recent changes.

I've now identified four similar articles, all about medical schools, all of which seem to focus on the lack of accreditation of qualifications granted by those schools, and in such a way that in all four cases I suspect that the articles concerned are basically attack pages. There is a possibility that in some cases the articles were originally intended as an advertisement of the "school" concerned, and there are often two factions attempting to edit each page, one of which insists that it is a bona fide medical school in good standing, the other insisting that it is a diploma mill. It appears that in such cases the truth may be somewhere between these viewpoints, although I'm not really qualified to assess the standing of such institutions myself.

However, it seems to me that there's no clear policy on such issues, and whilst I'm tempted to AfD all 4 articles as being non notable and inappropriate, I feel that some form of policy on the issue of being a consumer watchdog needs to be formulated. Alerting consumers to potential fraud is of course a praiseworthy objective, but I don't think it's the purpose of Wikipedia, and I don't think that Wikipedia should allow itself to be used for that purpose. Creating or using an article about an organisation, product or person as a means of warning that that person, organisation or product may involve some form of misrepresentation or fraud is as inappropriate to Wikipedia as creating or using such an article as an advertisement for some sort of goods or services.

The four articles are St Christopher Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine, St Matthews University, University of Health Sciences Antigua, and Caribbean Medical University. I can't see any real assertion of notability on any of these pages either. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 09:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Can appreciate your sentiments on these articles. Think though, that the 'attack article' aspect (in these cases) is best left to individual editors to neutralise. After all, to AfD it for that reason alone, is almost an open invitation to every editor that dislikes an article, to turn it into an attack article to get it removed. The are plenty of negative articles like Criticisms of Microsoft etc., so I do not think that yet another policy needs to formulated as existing policies cover this. One just has to get used to the fact, that there are editors on WP who after working hard for their degree, feel that they do not receive the respect and deference that they had been expecting from those around them and thus feel obliged to attack any institution or person that they see as inferior.--Aspro 13:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

You miss my point I think. We already have a "no advertising" policy. Does that cover pages that are being used as "consumer watchdog" style pages? Is the use of Wikipedia as a consumer watchdog a good thing or a bad thing? Personally I don't think it's a good thing. Many of the contributions to such articles appear to fail NPOV, OR or No advertising (and I include anti-advertising in that). DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 17:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your general point here. I've no opinion on the articles you cite because I haven't looked at them, but I have seen this in other articles, in many cases to the point of using mostly WP:OR synthesis of unrelated sources to justify assertions. Existing policy addresses the OR, but discussions with other editors show that many are stuck on the idea that wikipedia's role is front line first as consumer watchdog, leading to all sorts of conflicts. Problems with WP:SOAP, WP:Undue Weight, WP:AGF, WP:OWN, WP:Legal etc. I think the problem would make for a good essay topic.Professor marginalia 17:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Neither do I think it is a good thing to have consumer watchdog type articles as WP is not a soapbox. As we have a Template:Advert already, it would be possible to have say a Template:Watchdog template for articles where it is blatant. BUT -looking around at other articles where these style templates have been liberally plastered, one discovers, they tell editors nothing that they are not aware of already. Moreover, these style templates (despite all the hype they are given) do not fix matters simple by their placement on the page. Looking at the talk pages of the above articles, it looks very much like editors are never the less trying to get the articles to conform to existing WP policy. Just coming up with yet more instructions will not rewrite the articles for us; instead it just becomes instruction creep. However, that is just my POV and I am sure that someone else knows of a policy to say I am wrong and we should clutter the pages up even more with unhelpful tags. ;-) It would be better to wade in and help sort out the articles yourself -if you feel upto it- or at least suggest improvements on the talk pages. --Aspro 18:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't considered instruction creep, you make very valid points, people using Wikipedia as a campaign media generally know that it is not an appropriate use, and don't really care if it is right or not as long as they perceive they're getting their message across. Perhaps we should just consider "consumer watchdogism / scam exposure" as another form of campaigning and deal with it similarly? DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 01:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I noticed WP:AGF was mentioned in passing above. Have you considered that whether or not a school is accredited or other nations/states accept their degrees is a relevant fact in an an article about the school and perhaps the writers aren't just here to push their POV about various medical schools? Mr.Z-man 02:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's relevant, but I don't think that half of the article (eg SCIMD-COM) should be dedicated to stating in great detail that the degree is not recognised by the UK and several US states, when you could state the same fact in two or three sentences eg like this. I'm quoting this as a current example. I believe the shorter version also benefits from being much more neutral in the way that it states facts and presents references. Also, wrt WP:AGF, when an author is adopting a similar position in multiple similar articles, it starts to look like he's campaigning, which brings us back to WP:SOAPBOX. DMcMPO11AAUK/Talk/Contribs 03:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I raised AGF violations because they frequently result when users edit away problem areas to bring watchdog "editorials" and OR loaded statements more in conformity with a true encyclopedia article. The motives of editors who try to correct such problems are often brought into question by the watchdogs who don't understand the distinction. For example, no article at wikipedia should contain information that isn't already published, and I've seen several articles at wikipedia where a school or college is identified as unaccredited - while the only source used as ref is simply a list of named educational institutions that are accredited, a list wherein the institution named in the article is absent. This is unallowed OR synthesis. Editors can't go this far, and if they do, they are acting as "consumer watchdog" reporters constructing new claims out of inference, etc, which are elsewise unpublished. As soon as editors confuse the difference, they are adding their own assertions rather than previously published assertions. The bare minimum requirement for determining if a fact claim is verifiable and noteworthy for the article is that it is already published somewhere. In the case of accreditation, that would mean the independently legit published source must first be found that states, as a noteworthy fact, "X school is not accredited by Y", or "the Degrees offered by X school are not recognized in Y or Z countries". I have found this is often not the case that such claims are suitably referenced. As I spot checked sourced claims in the SCIMD-COM article, I find it too is riddled with these problems.Professor marginalia 15:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

The above example of «accreditation in one or two lines» as «just another topic in an article» is highly insufficient. Institutions of higher learning (colleges, universities, institutes) are members of official worldwide networks. The accreditation statuts of an institution (and people generally pay good money to receive degrees from them), is fundamental to it's very definition on Wikipedia. I'd suggest that notability and accreditation be addressed in the Infobox models somewhere in the very first lines. The burden of proof to be an accredited institution of higher learning ought to be on the institution itself, not a few wikipedia readers.IMHO--Tallard 18:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Pages with no learning route for novices, like the one on eigendecomposition

Why can't mathematical symbols be linked to their relevant pages? Currently there is a "did you know" article which consists purely of an equation. It has something to do with eigenvalues and matrices. I have an interest in that because I'm doing some openGL programming, but the article might as well be written in another language since I can't click on any of the symbols to educate myself about them. There's even one I recognise (equivalent to a For loop) but I can't tell you its name because I can't click on it and find out. I hate it when I encounter one of these impenetrable pages that can tell me nothing (unless I guess at where I have to look for background information, which is a painfully slow process). Fix this oversight so I can learn to speak algebra. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.5.200 (talk) 23:23, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I know your pain, it's taken me considerable time to get even a vague understanding of set theory and stuff like that. I think your proposal is a very good idea. I think it would be best implimented if there was a mathematical notation's page that contained all the symbols used in mathematics and gave a through description of the meaning and use of it. A math-wiki 05:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe that WP:SOFIXIT applies here. If you see a shortcoming in an aspect of Wikipedia, please feel free to go ahead and fix it. 1) You can't break anything 2) This specific problem is probably a good idea to fix anyways 3) Just because it hasn't been done yet does not mean it isn't worthwhile. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 16:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Original Research on UserPage??

Hi, I'm a new wikipedian, and I'm curious if it's ok to post original research on ones userpage. I currently have started a section with some my mathematical work on it. I am aware of the GFDL and I am completely ok with what it entails in regards to my work. A math-wiki 05:02, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

User pages aren't article. Most article policies don't apply. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not offering free web hosting to you. You can explain briefly who you are on your userpage, and you can link to your own webpage. See Wikipedia:User page.-gadfium 05:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

New to Wikipedia ehrr? You poor fool... you can now say goodbye to any free time you may have enjoyed up to now!

Back to you query: You might like to have a look at some of WP's sister projects as well, as they might better suit your basic intentions.

Wikibooks is beginning to look favourably on original research. See their draft policy [4] (you could assist them in developing it -since your needs may be complimentary)

Also, take a look at the other project Wikiversity: [5] and [6]--Aspro 08:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Requiring reliable sources in media

User:Tgm1024 brings up an interesting point on Talk:Ejaculation. They wish to remove the video of a person ejaculating on the grounds that it is original research, and that there is no verifiable source that shows that it's an "average" or "normal" act of ejaculation. My objection to this is that we have, as far as I can tell, no policy that mandates this across the whole of Wikipedia, and attempting to formulate one would lead to, let us say, no pictures on Sheep which were taken by ordinary users and not veterinarians or biologists. Is there a policy? Should there be a policy? What is a good way to proceed? The Wednesday Island 22:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It is difficult to write serious answer to that.... But in short, no; we don't need a new policy for this issue. Without viewing it, we can probably assume that it is sufficiently average and normal for its intended purpose, whatever that may be. If they really want to make comparisons, I'm sure Google will oblige. Adrian M. H. 22:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The trouble is that they are threatening to delete content from the article unless this can be justified. "We can probably assume" probably won't convince them not to. The Wednesday Island 22:50, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Look, you just have to deal with it as you would any other source dispute. What statement or claim is it being used to verify? Or is the claim about the video itself (ie, "this is an average ejaculation")? If the latter is the case, just change the wording to remove "average" and it can no longer be argued with by any sane individual. Either way, given that it is visual evidence, I really think that they are being too pedantic about the OR angle. If they are that bothered about it, put it to them that they should find a viable alternative before removing any content. Adrian M. H. 22:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, will do. The Wednesday Island 23:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Legality of images other than for copyright reasons?

In the revisions of 11:33, 11 October 2007 for the Aswan Dam page (history), two links to images are removed (the images themselves have not been deleted), with the explanation:

taking pictures of the dam is against Egyptian law

What is the (English) Wikipedia policy on images that may be illegal for non-copyright reasons in various jurisdictions?

Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:List of policies#Legal and copyright only discuss copyright (and libel), and do not address this issue, and I can't find other policies.

Given that the English Wikipedia servers are located in the US, and that some jurisdictions have very restrictive laws (such as "no photographs of people"), I assume that Wikipedia follows US law.

Proposed resolution:

• Determine what Wikipedia policy is (if there is an existing one, could someone indicate it? If there isn't one, could it be discussed?)
• Wikipedia:List of policies#Legal and copyright should address this.
• If the above Aswan Dam photographs are acceptable by Wikipedia policy, their links should be restored;
• If they are not, the media files should be deleted suitably.

Nbarth 22:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Sexual orientation of non-heterosexual celebrities

Apparently, Wikipedia has a policy of mentioning the sexual orientation of celebrities who are known to be non-heterosexual. But celebrities known to be heterosexual/straight do not appear to have this information included.

While I can understand that heterosexuality is of little interest to anyone — what makes the other sexualities more interesting and more worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia?

There are many personal details about celebrities that most people would surely consider irrelevant to their public status, and unnecessary of inclusion in Wikipedia, such as their shoe size, hair colour, left-handedness, weight, race, etc. I don't see why their sexual preferences are any more relevant.

It may be relevant if the celebrity's sex life, or sexuality itself, are of particular relevance to their celebrity status or somehow feature in their work. In which case, the disclosure of their sexuality should surely be mentioned in relation to that, rather than in isolation.

So, rather than saying:

"Sarah is openly gay."

The article should say:

"Sarah is openly gay, her homosexuality playing a large part of her humour and often being the subject of public attention."

If the celebrity's homosexuality (or bisexuality) isn't actually relevant to their fame at all, it surely need not be specifically mentioned:

"Sarah has had numerous girlfriends, some of whom have appeared on the show with her." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grand Dizzy (talk • contribs) 22:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I've always found this interesting, especially since there are no categories for straight people, but there are GLBTs. Perhaps its because heterosexuality is deemed "the norm", and not being "normal" is notable enough to discuss. SashaCall ^(Sign!)/_(Talk!) 22:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree with that. How one perceives the whole issue aside, "I'm gay" simply carries more notability than "I'm straight" in most cases (a gay man suddenly saying the latter might be an exception). It might be a different story when the media dismisses it as commonplace. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 22:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)