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How about: Sectioning off of/possible banning of Fictional Universe articles

Information is, in general, good. But not all of it is really valuable.

And I, like many people, enjoy some computer/video games/science fiction/fantasy stories/worlds. But think about this: How much do articles like "Star Forge," "Luccia," or "Sarah Kerrigan" really add to our knowledge of the world?

I propose that there should be a separate "Fictional Universes" wiki. We know that games/movies like Star Wars, Final Fantasy and Lord of the Rings have influenced world pop culture, and that they often have huge amounts of detail, but with the goal of Wikipedia being useful knowledge, too much information about those things begins to seem frivolous.

Put another way, I don't think Wikipedia needs to be a competitor to Gamefaqs, or starwars.com, or battle.net.

I just think that Wikipedia, assuming it is an encyclopedia, might be best limited to at least real information about completely real things.

Please criticize/respond. --Zaorish 21:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• I am strongly opposed to this idea. First of all, we are an encyclopedia- and, as such, we need to contain encyclopediac information. Time and the Rani is perfectly encyclopediac. Second, anything that factions Wikipedia, as a community or an encylcopedia is a very, very, bad thing. So, again, I'm strongly opposed to this idea.--Sean|Black 22:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
• I support the idea to move this to a separate wiki. The information should not be lost, but it would be excellent to move it elsewhere. --Improv 22:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Ummm no. Mememory alpha is worrying enough. The articles are not doing any harm and tend to be fairly accuret. As long as thier minor characters lists don't suddenly tern into lots of stubs I don't see a problem.Geni 23:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I tend to adopt a mergist approach to these -- fewer larger articels are better than more smaller articles, particualrly stubs. I especially oppose the creation of stubs for minor fictional characters, adn will merge these with the appropriate article on the larger work. But fictional works are often of significant cultural importance and there is no simple way to draw the line between thsoe that are and those that are not. I do wish WP:FICT was more rigourously followed, however. DES ^(talk) 23:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Where would Sherlock Holmes, Horatio Hornblower, Elizabeth Bennet, Tarzan, and Sam Spade go? Dsmdgold 23:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I hate to discount you so lightly, but this is a perennial proposal and the subject of endless contention. See Wikipedia:Fancruft for example. This isn't changing overnight, and I personally favour the status quo. My policy is, if I see a topic about a fictional entity that is too obscure, I merge it with related entities into a summary/list article such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time characters. For what it's worth, I think Sarah Kerrigan is an excellent article consolidating plot information from diverse primary sources across many games (perhaps overdoing it a bit on the links). She may not be as notable as Link or Mario, but I hate to see good content obliterated. Deco 23:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

There is no problem with covering the subject matter of fictional characters on Wikipedia. The problem is instead how they are covered. It is mostly done with very little context—no attempt to firmly tie everything that is said to be true about the character to the works of fiction in which they are depicted. See Radioactive_Man_(Marvel_Comics) for an example of this flaw; excepting the word "fictional" in the intro sentence and the infobox details, the article is written as if the subject were real. No reference is made in the article text to a single writer, artist, or even comic book issue or title. See also the "character history" of Spider-Man, which starts with summarizing a plot about his parents having been spies that was not written until after over thirty years of publication history. These articles merely paraphrase fiction rather than describe it, and appear to be written from a fan perspective rather than a cultural historian.

Compare those with Captain Marvel, a recent featured article, or Superman. Both summarize the history of the characters in the real world, revealing the "facts" of fiction according to that framework. We need a very clear set of guidelines to make sure all articles about fictional characters are written in this manner. Postdlf 23:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, that's a problem, but that's what {{sofixit}} is for.--Sean|Black 23:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I think both fiction-oriented and real-world-oriented presentation orders are each appropriate in different circumstances, sometimes both in one article. Summarization of the plot of a fictional work in chronological order is an integral part of many articles on books, movies, and other fictional works. On the other hand, an article should never exclusively summarize the fiction, but should also talk about the entity's history, practical aspects of its creation (e.g. influence on gameplay), and cultural impact. Deco 23:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I just think that Wikipedia, assuming it is an encyclopedia, might be best limited to at least real information about completely real things. Someone better tell Brittanica that their article on Hamlet ain't encyclopedic. And I can't wait for the deletion wheel war on Jesus. android79 23:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: the interest in "fiction-oriented" presentation, I think the chronology we should be most concerned with is real-world. A story written later but "taking place" earlier should be described as such, but the publication order should dictate the structure of the article; fictional canons are not our concern, but instead how the character has been used at different times. A true history of the character will only get obscured if the present bleeds into the past. Why should a recent story lead the info given about a character that has a much older body of work depicting him? Summarizing the plot in an article about a book is necessary and appropriate. But in an article about a murder mystery novel, for example, you wouldn't start the summary by describing who done it and how even though the murder is what happens first in fictional chronology, if the book reveals the murderer's identity last. The order in which things are revealed to the audience, whether within one work or across a series, is of utmost importance.

But the lack of real-world context is not only a problem of academic integrity, but an issue of copyright infringement. Both of the major comic book companies, as well as the Star Wars, Star Trek, and other sci-fi franchises have officially published numerous encyclopedia-style books about their characters and associated fictional universes. I suspect that many of the cruftiest, context-less articles are mere paraphrases of these (or of video game manuals, role-playing games, etc.). Even those that aren't are still doing more than merely reporting facts—they are simply summarizing fiction without transforming it or adding new information to it. This arguably makes these articles mere derivative works of the original fiction.

This is a systemic problem probably because the ones most driven to write about certain fictional characters are fans who are mostly concerned with "knowing" the complete and "true" story of the fictional universe. We need a guideline page (something like Wikipedia:Writing about fictional characters) that sets out the principles I've described above, with an accompanying template that will label and categorize an article about fictional characters as lacking that context (the trick is finding the right concise language). We have Template:Fiction, but it needs to be made clear that inserting a "this character is fictional" disclaimer in the introductory sentence of a ten paragraph article is not enough. I lack the time to solve this problem on my own, but I will definitely assist anyone else who wishes to contribute to solving it. Postdlf 00:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I would favor soemthing of the sort Postdif suggests here. DES ^(talk) 00:31, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Uncle G/Describe this universe might be a worthwhile starting point. —Charles P. (Mirv) 14:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the examples of good and bad writing that Uncle G used make it clear that he's getting at the same point that I am. Postdlf 15:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

We do have the ability to create interwiki links to many, many other wiki projects, like those over at Wikicities (I'd like to see these become more transparent, but excepting MΑ and Wookiepedia, there's not much completeness over there). I'd like to see some of the cruft trimmed, true (and am working on it with The Wheel of Time series), but if it helps our regular editors to do a [Star Wars]] article or three before jumping back into quantum physics, it does little harm. -- nae'blis _(talk) 00:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I'm impressed that this 'perennial proposal' caused so much controversy. Looking over the responses, it seems that Consolidation of those articles might be best--ie, an article about "Star Wars," then maybe an article on "Minor Star Wars Characters" and not an article about every single Jedi and their favorite ice cream flavor. In the future I'll try to generally put this into practice, by suggesting merges.

It's true, assuming Wikipedia has unlimited space, then articles about fictional universes could/should indeed be unlimited, because there is no harm in posting them. I was just taking into account the fact that Wikipedia is nonprofit and that more space/server power costs significant amounts of money.

And obviously Jesus and Sherlock Holmes are more important than something like Star Forge. Your argument, friends android and Dsmdgold, is something called reductio ad absurdum.

Postdlf: Your idea on a new fictional character template could be valuable, to put fictional concepts/characters in their cultural context before delving into obscure details.

And thank you all for your (generally) well-reasoned responses. ; 3 --Zaorish 14:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm checking back. I found this article: StarCraft Secret Missions. It's literally a /verbatim/ transcript of a few levels from a computer game. I personally would move to delete it. Any objections? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.216.217.174 (talk • contribs)

What an awful article. The text forgets that it's describing a video game and instead tells a story. I can't even tell who the player is supposed to be, what the player controls, what events are mere contingencies, or what events are actually experienced in game play versus read about or seen in movies. This is not an article. Postdlf 15:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose such an idea. Fictional universes are an important part of our culture. I would possibly support the merge/removal of fictional stubs, but content which can make a decent article should be kept. -- Astrokey44|talk 15:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree. Wikipedia is not paper and to make restrictions of this sort on content would, IMO, open the door for further content restrictions to the point where Wikipedia will become nothing but a bunch of articles on nuclear physics and Shakespeare (and even then, banning an article on, say Mr. Spock means you'd have to ban articles on Shakespeare's characters, right?) and that's not what this place is about. I've already seen some people grumbling about banning articles based on film and TV shows, for example. I've nothing against guidelines, but creating a separate wiki for this would be a mistake. The priority should be on improving articles if substandard ones arise. 23skidoo 15:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Two points:
  1. Wikipedia is not infinite, but we are specifically advised by WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia not to worry about space limitations. Our concern should always be only on the encyclopedic nature of the topic and the quality of the article.
  2. I think the real problem is not so much that there are all these fictional-universe articles, it's that so many Wikipedia editors lavish so much attention on them rather than the more mundane topics like "Gary, Indiana" or "Container Security Initiative". But there are many dimensions of perceived imbalance in Wikipedia, like "not enough people articles" or "too many stubs" or "not enough cleanup being done" or "too much focus on the manual of style". We must remember that the whole project operates on the assumption that a worldwide community of freelance editors will eventually get around to working on any perceived deficiencies — and do them justice as well. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • • As a sub-point to this one, I thought I should mention that although Wikipedia's space is unlimited a lot of people still think that the effort spent on editing stuff is zero-sum - ie, that if someone spends an hour working on a Star Trek article, then that's an hour they didn't spend working on something of "real importance." I think this is not the case, personally, and eliminating the "unimportant" articles would have the opposite effect; people who come here to tinker around with Star Trek articles and every once in a while toss something useful into one of the real science articles would just leave altogether. They almost certainly wouldn't turn all the energy they spend refining articles on their favourite fictions toward topics they aren't interested in, these are all volunteers here. Bryan 16:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose this idea, but also empathise. I think a compromise is good. A lot of Fictional Universe articles and all their linked sub-articles have too many sub-articles. For instance, you probably don't need a sub-article for a character that appeared once on a show. Or in Stargate Atlantis, for instance, you probably don't need an article for the minor few-episodes character Bob (Wraith). So scrap the stubs and unneeded articles, but certainly keep the main bulk. Fiction like Stargate, Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and so on are massive cultural influences and have shaped both our history and television/cinema's history. And to be honest, I feel that most of the articles under these are concise whilst being detailed, informative, without POV or fancruft, and ultimately also useful. -- Alfakim --  talk  16:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This proposal is hopelessly bad, IMO. But if it does make any progress towards being implemented, by some chance, I insist that we also include sports-related articles under its umbrella. There are thousands of articles in Wikipedia about trivial unimportant sportsmen who play trivial unimportant games that have nothing to do with curing cancer or military battles or whatever it is that're supposed to be "serious" subjects. Since I have no interest in sport, there's obviously no value in having articles about it and it's just a waste of everyone's time writing them. (The preceeding opinion is only a semi-parody :) Bryan 16:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. Templates are always a good idea, though. --Happylobster 18:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, deja vu all over again.  :) I well remember the contretemps at Talk:Mithril, lo these over three years ago.  :) User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Ultra-extreme oppose This is an incredably bad idea. Here is why:
  • Some articles provide practical information, like where to watch TV shows, or backround info to unconfuse new fans. An example of this is: List of Stargate SG-1 episodes
  • Many fictional articles are about classics and are naturaly part of history.
  • Many are so largely know, like Harry Potter that it would be stupid not to have an article on them.
  • Fictional articles on video games act as a guide for players to do better in the game.
  • The whole reason I contribute to wikipedia is that wikipedias vision is having all of humankinds knowlage in one place is an achiveable goal, which I try to work towards. If we start exporting info, this goal will be lost, and many users who follow this vision will stop contributing. Tobyk777 01:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose - I disagree with the idea that we should delete articles on fictional places / concepts / characters &c. I do however agree that it should be clear in the opening paragraph that the subject is fictional and what particular fictional universe it relates to. As for having lots of stub articles, surely this was why the Wikipedia:Fiction guideline was written? -- Lochaber 15:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
• I generally agree with what User:Sean Black said above. Articles on fiction need to be presented in that context. They exist in a fictional universe but were created by someone real and the article needs to convey that connection to reality. These fiction articles on popular culture draw in a lot of potential editors who can (theoretically) practice their wiki-skills on these and satisfy their fanboy urges before moving on to real-world articles. Also, as User:Nae'blis mentioned above there are wikis dedicated to each show, like Wookieepedia and StargateWiki. --maclean25 05:04, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

As part of this (perennial) discussion, I'd just like to briefly discuss a retort to the classic Wikipedia is Not Paper argument. It is true that we have an unlimited capacity for topics, and I frankly don't buy the "articles use resources" argument (the total sum of all articles ever deleted is unlikely to exceed a few megabytes in disk space and network bandwidth). However, topics on obscure fictional entities can be disruptive for several reasons:

• Each article must independently establish the context of the universe, leading to a great deal of redundant content which is difficult to maintain.
• These articles can be very difficult to expand. In the real world we can always derive new information about real people, places, and things. In fiction, we know only what the creator tells us; if a character appears in only one chapter of a book, it's quite unlikely that after proper summarization we'll be able to say more than a paragraph about the character, ever. Articles this short are not particularly useful, spending more time establishing context than describing the subject.
• Attempting to learn about the universe as a whole involves a difficult, unorganized navigation between many small articles, each different in its style and assumptions, that can frustrate readers.

This is why I recommend that groups of related articles about obscure fictional entities be merged into a single summary or list article, or into a "parent" article: the context need only be established once, all together they have enough detail to fill out an article, relationships can be established between entities by direct reference instead of cumbersome links, and the order of presentation can be controlled for maximum brevity and clarity. In fact, I recommend this approach for any group of strongly related small articles - if one of them later outgrows the list article, it can easily be moved back out, as occurred for example with Agahnim. Deco 05:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of using sub-pages, e.g., Stargate/Daniel Jackson instead of Daniel Jackson, and having big colorful templates at the top of all the fiction-based articles clearly indicating that they are fiction-based with the name of the source work (book, show, etc.) and genre, to aid the many clueless wikisurfers out there. James S. 10:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Subpages in the main namespace were deprecated long ago, and with good cause. Should Daniel Jackson be a subpage of Stargate, or a subpage of Fictional character, or a subpage of Michael Shanks? As a subpage it can only be under one of these, and I hate to imagine the many pointless and time-consuming arguments all over Wikipedia about which articles should be subpages of which other articles. This is the sort of thing that categories are for instead. Bryan 20:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose: I've heard this argument many times and I always have a few unanswered questions.
  • I never understand why people want to move this information to other wikis. Why not have it here? It still uses 'resources' if it is hosted on a separate wiki. Considering how articles should have their sources cited, most of the information that is available on Wikipedia is indeed available elsewhere. Instead of having a (mostly) pointless article about Still Sick... Urine Trouble (which was the first article forthcoming from the Random Article link), why not just tell our browsers to go to another site? Is that not what hosting on another wiki would do? I thought that one of the goals of Wikipedia was to consolidate knowledge so that people do not have to search around on multiple websites.
  • If you do move such information to another wiki, what's to stop users from recreating the articles? Would a "crime" that be treated as innocent ignorance (we do, after all, encourage new users to try the wiki out) or as something more serious, like vandalism? I'm sure those editors will want to return after they receive a friendly warning not to edit "like that" again.
  • As well, I've never understood why fictional information is targeted. Why not also move everything that is mathematical to another math-related wiki, as Bryan has said? Or sports? Where do we stop? Where do we draw the line? Before we can decide exactly what constitutes "irrelevant and over-obsessive fancruft" and what is "actual fact belonging in an encyclopedia", we should not remove anything.
  • I’m also worried about estranging users by moving/removing information. Certainly there are those who only contribute to fiction-based articles such as these, but others help out in other areas as well. I'm proof of that, for I've touched up a Jedi article or two while also restructuring the ringette article at the same time (not yet done, btw). What message are we sending to potential editors if the "global encyclopedia" does not allow information of one of their many preferred subjects?
  • However, I do have to agree with what others have said before me about quality. There are certainly articles that are unwikied, unclear and unintelligent. Every article that fits that description should be deleted. Some articles do not have enough information to justify their existence and that is the nature of fiction: we can only document what the creator gives us. I still would like to see articles of high quality created and maintained, and some of these fiction-based stubs have merit. While a few/some/most articles should definitely be merged and combined, others have potential and should be expanded upon, not banned. Maybe we cansystematically check every What Links Here section as potential critera for what can be merged? Take the HoloNet article, for example (a Star Wars one; I followed links for a stub, trolling for an example to use here). I initially thought that it could be merged into a larger article, but with twelve "real" (i.e. non-user) articles citing it, I don't think that moving it/removing it would be a simple task, especially if you consider all the articles that a major sweep would entail.
  • In short, I don't see the point of moving/removing articles resulting from fictional universes. Moving them still uses resources, while removing them detracts from Wikipedia's main goals. Both need clear and precise guidelines; else, everything will eventually be sectioned off into other wikis or even deleted entirely. And both moving to another wiki or deletion will alienate editors who bear knowledge; a precious commodity. I vote that we keep all articles derived from fictional universes. –Aeolien 04:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Seriously Very Strongly Absolutely Agree and am Willing to Killl People to Make it Happen. I say we get rid of all the fictitious crap in Wikipedia. Dumb fictitious stories and twerps who write nothing but crap they make up, based only some-what on the truth. Who needs any of it? I know I could've done without it during my life-time... *ahem* Sorry, the urge to comment was overwhelming. Heavy dose of sarcasm. 203.173.22.63 08:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose: Many have rebutted the motion in general terms, Let me answer the direct question asked by the original poster of this topic.

How much do articles like "Star Forge," "Luccia," or "Sarah Kerrigan" really add to our knowledge of the world?

• • When I hear or read one of these terms and I have no idea what it is, so I look them up in wikipedia. It tells me first off that they are Fictional devices or characters. The some basics about them so I can understand the reference to the character location or item without having read the original fiction. If I am then interested in this particular fiction it then gives me the reference (i.e. the original books/games/movies/etc) where I can see/learn experinece more about this fictional item/character and/or location.
  • It is true that anyone particular article on a fictional thing is not likely to be relevent to any particular person. But by the same token almost all articles on fictional things will be relevant to some person at some point when they come across something which they may or may not realise is a reference to a fictional thing.

Waza 04:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This is the worst idea ever strongly oppose -- Truth is, we don't even know if Moses is real -- should we get rid of the article? After all, he's probably just a character in some really old book. What about god? Just because these ideas may be fictional doesn't mean they shouldn't be included. Same goes for all of these other notable works of fiction as well -- I love that Wikipedia has an article on chewbacca and pikachu. -Quasipalm 04:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY OPPOSE for reasons stated above. The Wookieepedian 01:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY AGREE I have seen poets, authors, socially relevant people, events and historical articles, all deleted in this Wikipedia, all while Pokemon and other such articles survive? No doubt Pokemon (and Star Wars) are of interest to people, but you have to wonder what their roll is here. Take Star Wars for example, Star Wars was socially significant in the 70’s, 80’s and made a comeback in the 90’s. But in the big picture of humanity (and Wikipedia), it merits recognition in its proper context. It does not merit having every bit of its minutia trivia recorded here, and there has to be some limit. A separate Wikipedia (with reasonable policies) for subjects like this would enable those interested in recording the minutia of perhaps socially interesting but not socially significant things would have that forum. When Pokemon is displacing real life people and events, our priorities have become skewed. (Incidentally, I LOVE LOTR, however would count it in the same category as Star Wars. Interesting, worthy of note perhaps, but should not consume, monopolize or displace more relevant articles. LinuxDude 08:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY GROK like I get really tired of seeing the fictional stuff when I plunk Random Article, and I would LOVE to have a choice, a check box, where I could tune my Randoms (this idea could be expanded further) ... And would anybody really mind having a different color background on ALL of the fictional stuff? (let's argue about the color for a few weeks, but would you believe "#CCFFFF" light cyan? ;Bear 02:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Whilst I agree in principle with the concept of readily identifying articles about fictional things, this is a slippery slope because there will then be lots of argument over what is fictional. This will include almost all religious articles. And where does a technical article about, say, a fictional film film go? (BTW1, I think the fictional artciles should be in the main wiki, but fewer larger ones is best.) -- SGBailey 08:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Wait a minute, I sort of get what you're saying, Bear, but what's that grok word mean? I know, I'll look it up on the Wikipedia. Hmmm, "...was coined by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where it is part of the fictional Martian language..." Oops, it's about fiction. I better go and nominate it for deletion now. Anville 15:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

A word can be sourced from fiction and yet become part of real-life usage. Grok is one such, muggle another. (If you don't consider muggle to be a valid word as you consider wizrads to be fictional, then try Geo-muggle which relates to Geocaching. -- SGBailey 08:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Conditionally Oppose: I see Zaorish's point, however the hundreds of hours already put into such articles would seriously discourage those people to come back and contribute elsewhere. I agree however that these articles need to be tightened. Stubs should be avoided and, when found, quickly merged with the appropriate main or more substansive article. Lady Aleena | Talk 09:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Meh-style conditional support. Yes, the argument to compile all human knowledge at Wikipedia is a good one, but a list of every television episode of shows like Dilbert and Stargate SG-1 isn't helpful to achieving this goal. Maybe start another Wiki, call it something like "WikiSeries," and transwiki all of those articles there. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule (Memory Alpha being a good example) where the wiki's contents make it near manditory to keep lists of that sort of thing, and synopses and all that, but Wikipedia should not be TV Guide. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 04:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose The effects fiction has on reality has been well documented such as Star Trek communicators, making way for the cell phones. --Masssiveego 18:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree A project such as Wikiseries exists. It focus only on TV series. I think it's a good idea to have a short article on Wikipedia, and an interwiki link on a more specialized Wiki such as http://www.wikiseries.org (build by a TV series fan, only a french speaking version). This TV wiki needs some help yet. Anonymous guy 14:00 GMT+1 2 February 2006.

Oppose According to the sister wiki Wiktionary, an encyclopedia is supposed to be comprehensive[[1]]. That means everything is fair game. Part of the allure of Wikipedia is that you can theoretically enter just about anything and find something on the topic...and if not, you can write about it! Applejuicefool 22:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose Many people spent hours of work only to create articles about ficitonal people, technology, episodes of a series, etc. If we would get rid of them, many people would be angry for doing so much work for nothing. Also I think as an encyclopedia Wikipedia doesn't have any borders about which should be added or not. And as mentioned above what is fictional and what not. The borders are too fuzzy. Diabound00 16:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Strongly oppose this idea. Fictional universes doesn't mean that they're unencyclopedic. If one is against the creation of an article, a compromise definitely could be reached. As of writing there's nothing wrong with the inclusion of the above mentioned universes. --Andylkl ^{[ talk! | c ]} 10:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Strongly oppose again for reasons that have already been cited. Wikipedia is unique as an encyclopedia that can truly be kept completely updated through collaboration from users worldwide. There is now harm in having fictional characters listed here because most people will be searching for specific articles anyway and so will not ordinarily encounter them unless they are looking for them. I agree however that there needs to be proper NPOV maintained to avoid fans from changing these articles into little more than resounding endorsements of their favourite shows/books etc.! Chrisblore 23:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. While I largely detest articles that treat fictional characters or objects as real, and while some of these articles are often subject to a lot of POV by fans, many are still of good quality and are well-researched. Perhaps the articles in question could do with a quick NPOV lookover from time to time from neutral editors, as long as those doing the checking are aware that they are likely to get quite knocked around by the fanboys doing regular edits on these articles and who won't take any criticism of their favorite character :-) Jamyskis Whisper, Contribs 09:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Strongest possible oppose. Wikipedia is not paper. There's no reason to fork our content or delete articles about fictional things as long as those fictional things are named as such early in the article. The best reason I've seen for putting the brakes on fiction is that someone clicking on "random article" may get the wrong idea when all they get are articles on Pokemon. But that's not a compelling argument in my opinion. Let the fans have their fun, too. — BrianSmithson 18:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Articles on fictional subjects seem to make up about 2.5% of Wikipedia, with the articles split about evenly between biographies of fictional characters, and articles about other fictional subjects. --Carnildo 06:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose Per all the above reasons, although we do need more uniform rules about what constitutes cruft. JoshuaZ 22:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

OPPOSE: This is a bad idea. Wikipedia is a great resource for "fictonal universes" and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be. We would lose thousands of editors if we banned such articles. I think Wikipedia should cover the full spectrum of human knowledge because that's one of Wikipedia's strengths! You can find information about virtually everything here. SpNeo 14:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose, but I completely understand and have major concerns with the present order. I do believe that we should include as much (accurate and sourced) information on the WP as possible, and I don't believe it hurts anything to include these articles. My concern is that, first, we promote bias by covering certain issues in a deeper, better way than others. I think it's great that The Secret of NIMH has a good, long article; I just find it difficult to believe that it is more worthy than the National Institute of Mental Health (the real NIMH) itself. Second, I think that deleting articles because of concerns with notability is one of the really unfair aspects of the way Wikipedia is handled. It's baffling to me to see real people's articles deleted because of notability issues when, say, Greedo gets to keep his article. So I don't like some of the issues surrounding this, but I do think the articles should stay, so oppose. Freddie deBoer 05:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. Eliminating these entries would make sense only if they were crowding out more serious articles, but that would only be the case if Wikipedia's resources and file space were strictly limited. Effectively, they are not. RGTraynor 19:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article

I came to the problem with national alphabet letters in article name. They are commonly used but I have found no mention about them in naming coventions (WP:NAME). The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people. National alphabet is widely used in wikipedia. Examples are Luís de Camões Auguste and Louis Lumière or Karel Čapek. There are redirects from english spelling (Camoes, Lumiere, Capek).

On the other hand, wikiproject ice hockey WP:HOCKEY states rule for ice hockey players that their names should be written in English spelling. Currently some articles are being moved from Czech spelling to the english spelling (for example Patrik Eliáš to Patrick Elias). I object to this as I do not see genaral consensus and it will only lead to moving back and forth. WP:HOCKEY is not wikipedia policy nor guideline. In addition I do not see any reason why ice hockey players should be treated differently than other people.

There is a mention about using the most recognized name in the naming conventions policy. But this does not help in the case of many ice hockey players. It is very likely that for American and Canadian NHL fans the most recognised versions are Jagr, Hasek or Patrick ELias. But these people also played for the Czech republic in the Olympics and there they are known like Jágr, Hašek or Patrik Eliáš.

I would like to find out what is the current consensus about this. -- Jan Smolik 18:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The only convention related is to use English name, but it probable does not apply to the names of people - incorrect. "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things" - Wikipedia:Naming :conventions (common names). Raul654 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I mentioned this in the third article but it does not solve the problem. Americans are familiar with different spelling than Czechs. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, since this is the English Wikipedia, really we should use the name most familiar to English speakers. The policy doesn't say this explicitly, but I believe this is how it's usually interpreted. This is the form that English speakers will recognize most easily. Deco 19:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Well it is wikipedia in English but it is read and edited by people from the whole world. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

There was a straw poll about this with regard to place names: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)/Archive 3#Proposal and straw poll regarding place names with diacritical marks. The proposal was that "whenever the most common English spelling is simply the native spelling with diacritical marks omitted, the native spelling should be used". It was close, but those who supported the proposal had more votes. Since, articles like Yaoundé have remained in place with no uproar. I would support a similar convention with regard to personal names. — BrianSmithson 19:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm the user who initiated the WP:HOCKEY-based renaming with Alf. The project Player Pages Format Talk page has the discussion we had along with my reasoning, pasted below:

OK, team, it's simple. This is en-wiki. We don't have non-English characters on our keyboards, and people likely to come to en-wiki are mostly going to have ISO-EN keyboards, whether they're US, UK, or Aussie (to name a few) it doesn't matter. I set up a page at User:RasputinAXP/DMRwT for double move redirects with twist and started in on the Czech players that need to be reanglicized.

Myself and others interpret the policy just the same as Deco and BrianSmithson do: the familiar form in English is Jaromir Jagr, not Jaromír Jágr; we can't even type that. Attempting to avoid redirects is pretty tough as well. Is there a better way to build consensus regarding this? RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 19:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you misread my statement above. My stance is that if the native spelling of the name varies from the English spelling only in the use of diacritics, use the native spelling. Thus, the article title should be Yaoundé and not Yaounde. Likewise, use Jōchō, not Jocho. Redirection makes any arguments about accessibility moot, and not using the diacritics makes us look lazy or ignorant. — BrianSmithson 16:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Tentative overview (no cut-and-paste solutions, however):

• Article names for names of people: wikipedia:naming conventions (people) - there's nothing specific about diacritics there (just mentioning this guideline because it is a naming conventions guideline, while there are no "hockey" naming conventions mentioned at wikipedia:naming conventions).
• wikipedia:naming conventions (names and titles) is about royal & noble people: this is guideline, and *explicitly* mentions that wikipedia:naming conventions (common names) does NOT apply for these kind of people. But makes no difference: doesn't mention anything about diacritics.
• Wikipedia talk:naming conventions (Polish rulers): here we're trying to solve the issue for Polish monarchs (some of which have diacritics in their Polish name): but don't expect to find answers there yet, talks are still going on. Anyway we need to come to a conclusion there too, hopefully soon (but not rushing).
• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics), early stages of a guideline proposal, I started this on a "blue monday" about a week ago. No guideline yet: the page contains merely a "scope" definition, and a tentative "rationale" section. What the basic principles of the guideline proposal will become I don't know yet (sort of waiting till after the "Polish rulers" issue gets sorted out I suppose...). But if any of you feel like being able to contribute, ultimately it will answer Jan Smolik's question (but I'd definitely advise not to hold your breath on it yet).
• Other:
  • Some people articles with and without diacritics are mentioned at wikipedia talk:naming conventions (use English)#Diacritics, South Slavic languages - some of these after undergoing a WP:RM, but note that isolated examples are *not* the same as a guideline... (if I'd know a formulation of a guideline proposal that could be agreeable to the large majority of Wikipedians, I'd have written it down already...)
  • Talking about Lumiere/Lumière: there's a planet with that name: at a certain moment a few months ago it seemed as if the issue was settled to use the name with accent, but I don't know how that ended, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects, Andrewa said she was going to take the issue there. Didn't check whether they have a final conclusion yet.

Well, that's all I know about (unless you also want to involve non-standard characters, then there's still the wikipedia:naming conventions (þ) guideline proposal) --Francis Schonken 19:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Note that I do not believe no En article should contain diacritics in its title. There are topics for which most English speakers are used to names containing diacritics, such as El Niño. Then there are topics for which the name without diacritics is widely disseminated throughout the English speaking world, like Celine Dion (most English speakers would be confused or surprised to see the proper "Céline Dion"). (Ironically enough, the articles for these don't support my point very well.) Deco 20:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Sticking diacritics, particularly the Polish Ł is highly annoying, esp. when applied to Polish monarchs. It just gives editors much more work, and unless you're in Poland or know the code, you will be unable to type the name in the article. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 20:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Redirects make the issue of difficulty in visiting or linking to the article immaterial (I know we like to skip redirects, but as long as you watch out for double redirects you're fine). The limitations of our keyboards are not, by themselves, a good reason to exclude any article title. Deco 20:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Deco, I should rephrase what I said. I agree with you that some English articles do require diacritics, like El Niño. Articles like Jaromir Jagr that are lacking diacritics in their English spellings should remain without diacritics because you're only going to find the name printed in any English-speaking paper without diacritics. RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 21:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I checked articles about Czech people and in 90 % of cases (rough guess) they are with diacritics in the name of the article. This includes soccer players playing in England (like Vladimír Šmicer, Petr Čech, Milan Baroš). And no one actualy complains. So this seems to be a consensus. The only exception are extremely short stubs that did not receive much input. Articles with Czech diacritics are readable in English, you only need a redirect becouse of problems with typing. This is an international project written in English. It should not fulfill only needs of native English speakers but of all people of the world. --Jan Smolik 22:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Very many names need diacritics to make sense. Petr Cech instead of Petr Čech makes a different impression as a name, does not look half as Czech and is much more likely to be totally mispronounced when you see it. Names with diacritics are also not IMHO such a big problem to use for editors because you can usually go through the redirect in an extra tab and cut and paste the correct title. I also don't see a problem at all in linking through redirects (that's part of what they are there for). Leaving out diacritics only where they are "not particularly useful" would be rather inconsequent. Kusma (討論) 22:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, "Petr Sykora" and "Jaromir Jagr" are not alternate spellings; they are incorrect ones which are only used for technical reasons. Since all other articles about Czech people use proper Czech diacritics, I don't know of any justification for making an exception in case of hockey players. - Mike Rosoft 01:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Man, I feel like the bottom man in a dogpile. Reviewing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), there'sWhat word would the average user of the Wikipedia put into the search engine? Making the name of the article include diacritics goes against the Use English guideline. The most common input into the search box over here onthe left, for en-wiki, is going to be Jaromir Jagr. Yes, we're supposed to avoid redirects. Yes, in Czech it's not correct. In English, it is correct. I guess I'm done with the discussion. There's no consensus in either direction, but it's going to be pushed back to the diacritic version anyhow. Go ahead and switch them back. I'mnot dead-set against it, but I was trying to follow guidelines. RasputinAXP _{talk contribs} 15:48, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There are many names, and even words, in dominant English usage that use diacritics. Whether or not these will ever be typed in a search engine, they're still the proper title. However, if English language media presentations of a topic overwhelmingly omit diacritics, then clearly English speakers would be most familiar with the form without diacritics and it should be used as the title on this Wikipedia. This is just common sense, even if it goes against the ad hoc conventions that have arisen. Deco 18:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Czech names: almost all names with diacritics use it also in the title (and all of them have redirect). Adding missing diacritics is automatic behavior of Czech editors when they spot it. So for all practical purposes the policy is set de-facto (for Cz names) and you can't change it. Pavel Vozenilek 03:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech) --Francis Schonken 11:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

and: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (hockey) --Francis Schonken 17:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

There are those among us trying to pull the ignorant North American card. I mentioned the following over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Player pages format...

Here's the Czech hockey team in English compliments of the Torino Italy Olympic Committee [2] Here they are in Italian: [3], French: [4]. Here are the rosters from the IIHF (INTERNATIONAL Ice Hockey Federation) based in Switzerland: [5].'

Those examples are straight from 2 international organizations (one based in Italy, one in Switzerland). I'm hard pressed to find any english publication that uses diacritics in hockey player names. I don't see why en.wiki should be setting a precedent otherwise. ccwaters 02:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Over at WP:HOCKEY we have/had 3 forces promoting non-English characters in en.wiki hockey articles: native Finns demanding native spellings of Finnish players, native Czechs demanding native spellings of Czech players, and American stalkers of certain Finnish goaltenders. I did a little research and here are my findings:

Here's a Finnish site profiling NHL players. Here's an "incorrectly" spelt Jagr, but the Finnish and German alphabets both happen to have umlauts so here's a "correct" Olaf Kölzig. Who is Aleksei Jashin?

Here's a Czech article about the recent Montreal-Philadelphia game [6] Good luck finding any Finnish players names spelt "correctly"... here's a snippet from the MON-PHI article:

Flyers však do utkání nastoupili značně oslabeni. K zraněným oporám Peteru Forsbergovi, Keithu Primeauovi, Ericu Desjardinsovi a Kimu Johnssonovi totiž po posledním zápase přibyli také Petr Nedvěd a zadák Chris Therrien.

Well...I recognize Petr Nedvěd, he was born in Czechoslovakia. Who did the Flyers have in goal??? Oh its the Finnish guy, "Antero Niitymakiho".

My point? Different languages spell name differently. I found those sites just by searching yahoo in the respective languages. I admit I don't speak either and therefore I couldn't search thoroughly. If someone with backgrounds in either language can demonstrate patterns of Finnish publications acknowledging Czech characters and visa versa than I may change my stance. ccwaters 03:45, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I support every word Ccwater said, albeit with not as much conviction. There is a reason why we have Wikipedia in different languages, and although there are few instances in the English uses some sort of extra-curricular lettering (i.e. café), most English speaking people do not use those. Croat Canuck 04:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I must make a strong point that seems to be over-looked: this is not the international English language wikipedia. It is the English language wikipedia. It just so happens that the international communty contributes. There is a reason that there are other language sections to wikipedia, and this is one of them. The finnish section of wikipedia should spell names the Finnish way and the English wikipedia should spell names the English way. The vast majority of english publications drop the foreign characters and diacritics. Why? because they aren't part of the English language, hence the term "foreign characters". Masterhatch 04:32, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree in every particular with Masterhatch. The NHL's own website and publications do not use diacriticals, nor does any other known English-language source. The absurdity of the racist card is breathtaking: in the same fashion as the Finnish and Czech language Wikipedias follow their own national conventions for nomenclature (the name of the country in which I live is called the "United States" on neither ... should I feel insulted?), the English language Wikipedia reflects the conventions of the various English-speaking nations. In none are diacriticals commonly used. I imagine the natives of the Finnish or Czech language Wikipedias would go berserk if some peeved Anglos barge in and demand they change their customary linguistic usages. I see no reason to change the English language to suit in a similar situation. RGTraynor 06:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized. I intentionaly wrote the names without diacritics. I accept the fact that foreigners do that because they cannot write those letters properly and use them correctly. There are also technical restrictions. I also accepted fact that my US social security card bears name Jan Smolik instead of Jan Smolík. I do not have problem with this. I even sign my posts Jan Smolik. But Wikipedia does not have technical restrictions. I can even type wierd letters as Æ. And it has plenty of editors who are able to write names with diacritics correctly. The name without diacritics is sufficient for normal information but I still think it is wrong. I think that removing diacritics is a step back. Anyway it is true that I am not able to use diacritics in Finish names. But somebody can fix that for me.

I do not care which version will win. But I just felt there was not a clear consensus for the non-diacritics side and this discussion has proven me to be right. As for the notice of Czechs writing names incorectly. We use Inflection of names so that makes writing even more dificult (my name is Smolík but when you want to say we gave it to Smolík you will use form we gave it Smolíkovi). One last argument for diacritics, before I retire from this discussion as I think I said all I wanted to say. Without diacritics you cannot distinguish some names. For example Czech surnames Čapek and Cápek are both Capek. Anyway we also have language purists in the Czech republic. I am not one of them. --Jan Smolik 19:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized -Fine we'll use the spellings used by the IIHF, IOC, NHLPA, AHL, OHL, WHL, ESPN, TSN, The Hockey News, Sports Illustrated, etc, etc, etc.

This isn't about laziness. Its about using the alphabet afforded to the respective language. We don't refer to Алексей Яшин because the English language doesn't use the Cyrillic alphabet. So why should we subject language A to the version of the Latin alphabet used by language B? Especially when B modifies proper names from languages C & D.

My main beef here is that that the use of such characters in en.wiki is a precedent, and not a common practice. If you think the English hockey world should start spelling Czech names natively, than start a campaign amongst Czech hockey players demanding so. It may work: languages constantly infiltrate and influence each other. Wikipedia should take a passive role in such things, and not be an active forum for them. ccwaters 20:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

People like Jagr, Rucinsky or Elias are not only NHL players but also members of Czech team for winter olympics. Therefore I do not see any reason why spelling of their name in NHL publications should be prioritized Great, in which case for Czech Olympic pages, especially on the Czech Wikipedia, spell them as they are done in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, in the NHL-related articles, we'll spell them as per customary English-language usage. RGTraynor 08:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I wish I understood why User:ccwaters has to be rude in his posts on this subject. "Stalkers of Finnish goaltenders" isn't the way I'd describe a Wikipedia contributor. Also, since you asked, Aleksei Jashin is the Finnish translitteration of Alexei Yashin. Russian transliterates differently into Finnish than into English. Of course you must know this, since you have such a habit of lecturing to us on languages. As for diacritics, I object to the idea of dumbing down Wikipedia. There are no technical limitations that stop us from writing Antero Niittymäki instead of Antero Niittymaki. The reason so many hockey publications all over the world don't use Finnish-Scandinavian letters or diacritics is simple laziness, and Wikipedia can do much better. Besides, it isn't accepted translation practice to change the spelling of proper names if they can be easily reproduced and understood, so in my opinion it's simply wrong to do so. Since it seems to be obvious there isn't a consensus on this matter, I think a vote would be in order. Elrith 16:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Alas, a Finnish guy lecturing native English speakers on how they have to write Czech names in English (not to mention the lecturing regarding the laziness) is but a variation on the same theme of rudishness.

So, Elrith, or whomever reads this, if the lecturing is finished, could you maybe devote some attention to the Dvořák/Dvorak problem I mentioned below? I mean, whomever one asks this would not be problematic - but nobody volunteered thus far to get it solved. Am I the only one who experiences this as problematic inconsistency? --Francis Schonken 21:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

So is "Jagr" the Finnish transliteration of "Jágr"??? On that note, the Finnish "Ä" is not an "A" with "funny things" on top (that's an umlaut), its a completely separate letter nonexistent in the English language and is translated to "Æ". "Niittymaki" would be the English transliteration. "Nittymeki" or (more traditionally "Nittymӕki") would be the English transcription.

In the past I've said our friend's contributions were "thorough." I'll leave it at that. There will be nothing else about it from me unless asked. ccwaters 21:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

My opinion on the Dvořák/Dvorak issue is that his name is spelled Dvořák, and that's how the articles should be titled, along with redirects from Dvorak. Similarly, the article on Antero Niittymäki should be called just that, with a redirect from Niittymaki. You're right that it is a problematic inconsistency, and it needs to be fixed.

The only reason I may sound like I'm lecturing is that there are several people contributing to these discussions who don't understand the subject at all. Ccwaters's remarks on transliteration are

one example. It isn't customary or even acceptable to transliterate or transcribe Finnish letters into English; the accepted translation practice is to reproduce them, which is perfectly possible, for example, in Wikipedia. Niittymaki or anything else that isn't Niittymäki isn't a technically correct "translation". The reason North American, or for that matter, Finnish, hockey publications write Jagr instead of Jágr is ignorance and/or laziness. Wikipedia can do better that that.

However, since this discussion has, at least to me, established that there is no consensus on Wikipedia on diacritics and national letters, apart from a previous vote on diacritics, I'm going to continue my hockey edits and use Finnish/Scandinavian letters unless the matter is otherwise resolved. Elrith 04:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Elrith, your new batch of patronising declarations simply doesn't work. Your insights in language (and how language works) seem very limited, resuming all what you don't like about a language to "laziness" and "ignorance".

Seems like we might need an RfC on you, if you continue to oracle like this, especially when your technique seems to consist in calling anyone who doesn't agree with you incompetent.

Re. consensus, I think you would be surprised to see how much things have evolved since the archived poll you speak about. --Francis Schonken 23:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

My 2 cents:

1) This should NOT be setteld as a local consensus for hockey players, this is about how we name persons in the english wikipedia. It is wrong to have a local consensus for hockey players only.

2) I have tried to do some findings on how names are represented, it is wrong to say that since these names are spelled like this normally they should be spelled like this, many wrongs does not make it right. So I did a few checks,

If I look at the online version of Encyclopædia Britannica I get a hit on both Björn Borg and Bjorn Borg, but in the article it is spelled with swedish characters, same for Selma Lagerlöf and Dag Hammarskjöld, I could not find any more swedes in EB :-) (I did not check all..)

I also check for as many swedes as I could think of in wikipedia to see how it is done for none hockey swedes, I found the following swedes by looking at list of swedish ... and adding a few more that I could think of, ALL had their articles spelled with the swedish characters (I'm sure you can find a few that is spelled without the swedish characters but the majority for sure seams to be spelled the same way as in their births certificates). So IF you are proposing that we should 'rename' the swedish hockey players I think we must rename all other swedes also. Do we really think that is correct? I can not check this as easily for other countries but I would guess that it is the same.

Dag Hammarskjöld, Björn Borg, Annika Sörenstam, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog, Selma Lagerlöf, Stellan Skarsgård,Gunnar Ekelöf, Gustaf Fröding, Pär Lagerkvist, Håkan Nesser, Bruno K. Öijer, Björn Ranelid, Fredrik Ström, Edith Södergran, Hjalmar Söderberg, Per Wahlöö, Gunnar Ekelöf, Gustaf Fröding, Pär Lagerkvist, Maj Sjöwall, Per Wästberg, Isaac Hirsche Grünewald, Tage Åsén, Gösta Bohman, Göran Persson, Björn von Sydow, Lasse Åberg, Helena Bergström, Victor Sjöström, Gunder Hägg, Sigfrid Edström, Anders Gärderud, Henrik Sjöberg, Patrik Sjöberg, Tore Sjöstrand, Arne Åhman, so there seams to be a consensus for non hockey playing swedes? Stefan 13:33, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I also checked encarta for Björn Borg and Dag Hammarskjöld both have the Swedish characters as the main name of the articles, Selma Lagerlöf is not avaliable unless you pay so I can not check. I'm sure you can find example of the 'wrong' way also, but we can not say that there is consensus in the encyclopedic area of respelling foreign names the 'correct' english way. Stefan 14:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a very constructive step to me. So I'll do the same as I did for Czech, i.e.:

1. start Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish) as a proposal, starting off with the content you bring in here.
2. list that page in Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Conventions under consideration
3. also list it on wikipedia:current surveys#Discussions
4. list it in the guideline proposal Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics)#Specifics_according_to_language_of_origin

OK to work from there? --Francis Schonken 15:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Works for me :-) Stefan 00:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Tx for finetuning Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Swedish). I also contributed to further finetuning, but add a small note here to clarify what I did: page names in English wikipedia are in English per WP:UE. Making a Swedish name like Björn Borg English, means that the ö ("character" in Swedish language) is turned into an "o" character with a precombined diacritic mark (unicode: U+00F6, which is the same character used to write the last name of Johann Friedrich Böttger – note that böttger ware, named after this person, uses the same ö according to Webster's, and in that dictionary is sorted between "bottery tree" and "bottine"). Of course (in English!) the discussion whether it is a separate character or an "o" with a diacritic is rather futile *except* for alphabetical ordering: for alphabetical ordering in English wikipedia the ö is treated as if it were an o, hence the remark about the "category sort key" I added to the intro of the "Swedish NC" guideline proposal. In other words, you can't expect English wikipedians who try to find something in an alphabetic list to know in advance (a) what is the language or origin of a word, and (b) if any "special rules" for alphabetical ordering are applicable in that language. That would be putting things on their head. "Bö..." will always be sorted in the same way, whatever the language of origin.

What I mean is that "Björn Borg" (in Swedish) is transcribed/translated/transliterated to "Björn Borg" in English, the only (invisible!) difference being that in Swedish ö is a character, and in English ö is a letter o with a diacritic.

Or (still the same in other words): Ö is always treated the same as "O" in alphabetical ordering, whether it's a letter of Ötzi or of Öijer--Francis Schonken 10:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

For consistency with the rest of Wikipedia, hockey player articles should use non-English alphabet characters if the native spelling uses a Latin-based alphabet (with the exception of naturalized players like Petr Nedved). Why should Dominik Hasek be treated differently than Jaroslav Hašek? Olessi 20:48, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

If we are using other encyclopedias as litmus tests, we don't we look at a few hockey players: Dominik Hasek at Encarta Dominik Hasek at Britannica Jaromir Jagr at Encarta Teemu Selanne in Encarta list of top scorers

Last argument: We use the names that these players are overwhelming known as in the English language. We speak of Bobby Orr, not Robert Orr. Scotty Bowman, not William Scott Bowman. Ken Dryden not Kenneth Dryden. Tony Esposito, not Anthony Esposito. Gordie Howe not Gordon Howe... etc etc, etc. The NHL/NHLPA/media call these players by what they request to be called. Vyacheslav Kozlov used to go by Slava Kozlov. Evgeni Nabokov "americanized" himself for a season as "John Nabokov" but changed his mind again.

ccwaters 22:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Dvořák

Could someone clean this up:

Article/category name without diacritics

Category:Compositions by Antonin Dvorak

Category:Operas by Antonin Dvorak

Cello Concerto (Dvorak)

String Quartet No. 11 (Dvorak)

String Quartet No. 12 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 6 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 8 (Dvorak)

Symphony No. 9 (Dvorak)

Violin Concerto (Dvorak)

Page name with diacritics

Antonín Dvořák

List of compositions by Antonín Dvořák

Symphony No. 7 (Dvořák)

I'd do it myself if I only knew which way the wikipedia community wants it... --Francis Schonken 10:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I've been bold and renamed the articles to use diacritics in the title, since they already use them in the text. I've also slapped {{categoryredirect}} tags on the two categories: a bot should be along shortly to complete the job. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Tx!!! - I'll remove Dvořák as an exception from Wikipedia:Naming policy (Czech)#Exceptions --Francis Schonken 15:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"date" facts

(MoS of today)

Wiki-Linking

Main article: Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context

Make only links relevant to the context. It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. A link is the equivalent of a footnote in a print medium. Imagine if every second word in an encyclopedia article were followed by '(see:)'. Hence, the links should not be so numerous as to make the article harder to read.

Not every year listed in an article needs to be wikilinked. Ask yourself: will clicking on the year bring any useful information to the reader?

Do, however, wikilink years, using the As of XXXX form, when they refer to information that was current at the time of writing; this allows other editors to ensure that articles are kept up to date as time passes. Dates including a month and day should also be linked, in order for user preferences on date formatting to work properly. See also: Wikipedia:As of and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) …

as of today and since 18 Oct 2005

Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context

Only make links that are relevant to the context.

It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. A link is analogous to a footnote in a print medium. Imagine if every second word in an encyclopedia article were followed by '(see:)'. Hence, the links should not be so numerous as to make the article harder to read.

It's not always an easy call. Linking to the number three from triangle is helpful, while linking to the number six from Six O'Clock News would be quite wrong. This page is in dynamic tension with the general rule to build the web. See the talk page for additional considerations.

Rules of thumb for linking

What should not be linked .Plain English words. .Months, years, decades or centuries, unless they will clearly help the reader to understand the topic. (This is in contrast to full dates—see below.) …

What should be linked Full dates; i.e., those that include the day and month. This allows the auto-formatting function for individual users' date preferences to work. Editors are not required to do this, but some readers prefer it.

Major connections with the subject of another article that will help readers to understand the current article more fully (see the example below). This can include people, events and topics that already have an article or that clearly deserve one, as long as the link is relevant to the article in question. …

on 13 Apr 2005 Bobblewik made the following change to MoS (dates and numbers

In the specific case of dates containing the three components day, month and year e.g. 25 March 2004 , links permit the date preferences of the reader to operate. Both day-month and year must be linked for the preference to work correctly. Other date forms such as year only (e.g. 1981) should be treated like any other words and linked only if there is some particular relevance.

MoS (dates and numbers) as of today

Date Formatting

Adding square brackets "DATE" to full dates allows date preferences to work. Editors are not required to link full dates, but most full dates in Wikipedia are linked so that each user's date-formatting preference appears in the text. For this to work, at least the day and the month must be included; some date preferences won't work unless a year is also linked. …:

Avoid overlinking dates If the date does not contain a day and a month, date preferences will not work, and square brackets will not respond to your readers' auto-formatting preferences. So unless there is a special relevance of the date link, there is no need to link it. This is an important point: simple months, years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there is a strong reason for doing so. See Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context for the reasons that it's usually undesirable to insert low-value chronological links; see also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Internal links.

correspondence with User talk:Bobblewik as of today

"date" changes

what exactly are you changing? are you changing dates formated as:

mmm dd yyyy

dd mmm yyyy

dd mmm

mmm dd

yyyy

decades (2000)

centuries (21st century)

or what?

I would appreciate knowing exactly what this issue is about? Thanks Hmains 19:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure if I understand the question. I am not changing dates. I am (or was) removing *square brackets* from:

ddd Tuesday

mmm February

yyyy 2006

decades 1990s

centuries 21st century

I did not remove square brackets from:

dd mmm, yyyy 12 January, 2006

dd mmm 12 January

ISO 8601 dates 2001-01-15

These are used for the date preference mechanism. Part of this whole problem is because square brackets are used for two entirely different functions: 1. Reformating the date to a user preference 2. Hyperlinking to an article Many editors see square brackets on 'date preference' formats and falsely conclude that *all* dates must have square brackets.

I hope that is the answer you need. bobblewik 19:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

HMAINS comments

Given the above facts, what is the problem with removing unnecessary ‘date’ links, no matter how many are removed and no matter what method is used? Using the MoS guidelines means just that: using them, implementing them, having articles follow them--all by the editor who wants to. It does not mean editing articles to violate the MoS guidelines.

There are enough problems with articles and their writing that we could be working on, we should be thankful of any and every editor and method that implements the MoS easily.

Thanks Hmains 03:41, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

---

For future reference, it's not good form to paste large sections of text like this. Find the history links that document what you're pointing attention to, and link to the diff URLs instead.

If Ambi is saying that there's no consensus against linking each and every occurrence of years, days, day-of-weeks, months, etc., in isolation when not part of the month-day-year combinations that cause the user preferences to kick in, I think I have to disagree. It looks to me like there's been a fairly long-standing consensus that one should not link, for example, "February" in "the following February, Smith moved to Venice". This is not just editor's choice, but an editor actually is justified in specifically unlinking February if it was previously linked, as this is not a link of any "particular relevance". However, and I can't stress this enough, a link would be allowed and should not be unlinked in the case of, "Smith's favorite month was February, and he wrote a 1862 book, Six Weeks Till Spring, about his love for that month." Unlinking February in this case would be a damaging edit.

I can't see how a bot could be made to differentiate between the two. So if bobblewik was in fact using a bot to make these edits, I think others were fully justified in asking him to stop; even if he had not yet made a damaging edit, in general I think we'd prefer that irrelevant links stay than that useful links go. --TreyHarris 04:21, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not yet convinced that Bobblewik is using a bot, which is Ambi's stated reason for blocking him (and an entirely correct reason). I was under the impression that he approved every edit manually, so I'd assumed he was using something like AWB, which is not a bot. Now AWB does also say that you shouldn't use it for anything controversial, but Ambi and I will have to disagree about whether it's controversial or not: I see it as implementing long-standing and well-established style guidance. Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Your impression is correct. I have been characterised as a janitorial editor. I do thousands of minor edits (e.g. fixing minor inconsistencies). I make use of Firefox tabs and can easily get up to 5 or 6 *manual* edits per minute. If you look at my talk page, you will see that people sometimes mistook my manual edits for bot edits. I started using AWB after it was created and I continue to use a similar mechanism. Each edit is approved manually. Ambi and Talrias complained about the speed so I now only click 'Save page' approximately 2 times per minute. If there is still a problem with *how* the MoS is implemented, please let me know. I will try to work within constraints that apply to all editors. If there is a problem with *the MoS guidance* itself, then it should be revised and I will implement the new revision. bobblewik 23:58, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

So I think we've established: (i) Bobblewik is implementing guidance in the Manual of Style; (ii) the guidance is long-standing, not some new innovation; (iii) he's not using a bot. Given this, I really don't see any basis for him to be blocked. (An administrator doesn't like the guidance is not a sufficient reason). Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:12, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The guidance is not long-standing. Do a random pages test, and see just how many pages (which haven't been hit by Bobblewik) have date links. It's been massive longstanding practice to link dates, and this was never an issue until Bobblewik fired up a bot and started making changes en masse. Bots do not make disputed edits. I'm all ears if Bobblewik wishes to talk, but if he doesn't, I will (and am proceeding to) shoot said disputed bot edits on sight. Ambi 04:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think your argument here is entirely correct. Policies have usually arisen by describing the best practices of our best editors. But (rarely) policy does go against common practice current at the time in the Wikipedia, and that does not make the policy unenforceable or even lacking in consensus. If it did, we would never have been able to switch from having introductory paragraphs with [[Title]] rather than '''Title''', since, at the time of the change, nearly every article used the form now considered incorrect. --TreyHarris 04:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The difference there is that there was consensus support for that change. There isn't here - there was no widely publicised vote expressing support for that, and most people are still linking years in their own articles today. Policies have usually arisen by describing the best practices of our best editors, you're right. Occasionally, due to the size of the place, a handful of editors who agree on something can try to slip it in by the back door. When that happens, it still doesn't override four years of common practice. Ambi 05:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Interesting—this is an important enough point that I will take it into a new thread momentarily. --TreyHarris 05:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The MoS on not over-linking dates makes perfectly good sense to me, and is the way I've always edited in creating articles, even before I was aware of the MoS. It fits right in with the more general principal of adding only links that are pertinent to the article. And I see very few years in articles that require a link (other than linking full dates for preference formatting). -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 11:56, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

He's making 120 edits an hour to random articles all over the encyclopedia. If it looks like a bot, smells like a bot and acts like a bot, it is a bot. That you agree with that bot's edits is another dispute. Ambi 09:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Bot policy addresses bots, not humans. If you don't like someone's editing rate, that is unfortunate and I suggest you discuss it with Angela, who has considerable experience in this area. Jamesday 06:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

On my Bobblewik talk page, SeanBlack quotes Ambi:

• As you've been told several times, you cannot make edits as fast as you are without a bot flag. If you're not running a bot, you look, act, and smell like one, so you need a flag. Please stop, or you will be blocked again.--Sean Black ^(talk)
• I've had enough of this. As of now, I will rollback each and every single edit of yours unlinking dates. How much of your and my time you choose to waste in continuing to do so is up to you. Ambi

SeanBlack's block threat is sweeping and includes edits with detailed changes to copy text. In response to Ambi's previous complaints about speed, I asked for a statement of the speed limit. In the absence of a response, I reduced my speed to 120 per hour hoping that it would end the complaining. If that is too fast, I will reduce it to 60 per hour, 30 per hour, 10 per hour, 10 per week or whatever. I cannot comply with a speed limit if they will not tell me what it is.

If *how* the MoS and other edits are implemented is the problem, then all editors need to know the constraints. If there is a problem with *the MoS guidance* itself, then it should be revised and I will implement the new revision. I know Ambi is unhappy and I really would like to get this resolved. We all want the best for Wikipedia. Can we turn the negative energy of the complaints and block powers into positive proposals?

Formal request for help

I am hereby making a formal request for help from people with influence over these blocking editors. As a start, perhaps somebody might ask Ambi and SeanBlack to

• State the editing speed limit that will incur a block from them. I can then do what they want and stay under it. It cannot be acceptable to block for speeding if the speed limit is not stated.
• Stop reverting my edits. bobblewik 21:35, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

For your first point, WP:BOT states:

“ Bots running without a flag

These bots are run manually, under direct user control, without a bot flag so that they appear in Special:Recentchanges. Bots listed here should only be making edits 30-60 seconds apart until fully approved.

”

For your second point, once you either stop looking exactly like a bot (i.e., make less than 2 edits/minute) or get a bot flag (which should be possible) I'd agree that you should no longer be reverted. -- grm_wnr Esc 13:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for a clear answer. So my self-imposed speed limit was about right (120/h = 2/min). I will keep under that speed limit for repeat MoS consistency edits such as this. I will not even monitor speed if I am thinking and amending copy.

Ambi wrote on my talk page:

• Did you think I was kidding? Every unlinking you made today is gone. The same will happen every day until you actually start to talk and work towards some sort of compromise, rather than sticking up your middle finger at anyone who disagrees with you. Ambi

I wish Ambi would stop reverting all my edits and propose the revision she wants in the MoS talk page. Can anyone with influence help?

bobblewik 20:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I tried to get you to the discussion table to work out some sort of amicable compromise, as did many other people. As a sign of good faith, I didn't revert your bot edits during that period. And during that time, you thumbed your nose at your critics - you wouldn't respond to the talk page discussions at all except to the extent of "when can I start my bot again?". You're running a bot that reverses four years of standard Wikipedia practice, and doing edits of which even most of the fans admit doesn't have consensus support (even if it was managed to be slipped into the MOS). You yourself briefly took to including in your edit summaries that they were welcome to be reverted. Now, seeing no other alternative, I'm taking you up on that. If you would like to discuss a compromise, then I'm all ears. If you wish to continue thumbing your nose at me, Talrias, and everyone else who has asked you to come to the negotiating table, I'll just have to keep reverting all your mass-unlinkings. Ambi 04:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Please somebody explain why we need to put double square brackets around absolutely *every* year. I understand why we do so around full dates (allows user to view dates according to his or her preferences) but why for separate years, months, days EVERY TIME THEY OCCUR? Arguments like "it's what we always do" or "there's no consensus to delink them" (which are the only arguments I can find which have been advanced by Ambi) are not arguments in favour of adding those pesky square brackets. It's a bore having to filter out the blue every time I read an article. That's a good reaon for delinking en masse. Please Talrias, Ambi, whoever, please explain what benefit it brings to have 1998 instead of 1998, every time. If you can't then leave bobblewik in peace. Stroika 13:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The manual of style should, in general, not be enforced by a bot. It's not an incontravenable policy, and the change clearly does not have overwhelming consensus. The way to change this is to change the minds of people who make the links, not to go through on a mass change yourself. That said, I fully disagree with blocking Bobblewik over this. Nevertheless, I ask him to refrain until the general question has been addressed. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 13:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

So Bobblewik is in the right but needs to sit on his hands? Why? Nobody that I can see has raised a serious objection to the Manual of Style. Can anybody give a single good reason for adding double square brackets to each and every occurrence of a year or day or month? Forgive dim question but I thought bots were computer programmes. Bobblewik seems to be a human being to me albeit rather nimble fingered so what have rules against the use of bots got to do with him? More generally I want to ask: What harm can his edits cause? Stroika 14:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Some people like linking dates etc every time because it gives a consistent feel. You are mistaking what Wikipedia's process is. You think we should make these non-necessary (but not thereby "bad") changes. So do I, in the long run. But this isn't the way to do it. It isn't right just because you and I think it is. Bobblewik should have seen that he has encountered opposition. At this point, he should have stopped and got a reasonable consensus before continuing.

As for the bot point: yes, if decided to be done, this should use a bot account. I am pretty sure that "bot" doesn't mean it has to be fully automated. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 15:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

SO what if editors like linking dates? Bully for them. The Manual of Style says editors should not overlink dates.

Bobblewik is simply acting in accordance with the Manual of Style. Why does Bobblewik have to sit around waiting for people to get used to it? He doesn't need a consensus. What's the point of having a manual of style unless we act on it? What little wikistyle I know I mostly picked up from reading articles. Unless editors act on the MoS new editors will learn the bad habits. I sure did.

Bots in fact are closely defined at the beginning of the bots page, they "are automatic processes interacting with Wikipedia over the World Wide Web." Bobblewik is not a bot just a fast editor. Bot rules don't apply. QED?

So. Unless someone can present a compelling reason for ignoring the MoS and wikilinking every occurrence of a day month or year, or unless someone can show why every wikilinked date should be preserved bobblewik should be unblocked, pronto.

Could someone not involved in this discussion please clean up this section as it is getting complicated to read, create a new section perhaps? Stroika 16:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The manual of style is a guideline, not policy. Bobblewik is running a bot script to implement the manual of style and has frequently declared it is policy - which is a misconception. He needs consensus to run his bot script, and needs it approved on WP:BOT. If it looks, smells and acts like a bot, it is a bot. Bobblewik is making edits too fast to individually check each one, and he often makes mistakes - just see his talk page. Bot rules most certainly do apply. Your second-last paragraph is a false dichotomy. Talrias (t | e | c) 16:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

The Manual of Style is not incontravenable policy. If people want to break it, that's fine, as long as they're consistent. Its role is to settle disputes, not to advocate large scale changes.

Because Wikipedia is a community, and it's not unreasonable to expect that changes like this have consensus behind them.

That's a really bad definition. Of the first four bots on the page, three of them have human interaction. Bobblewik is using an automated tool with human interaction, which has always fallen under the remit of being a bot.

He's still blocked? I shall undo that, if he undertakes that he stop doing this until consensus is reached. Making these edits is not against Wikipedia rules. Ignoring legitimate concerns is.

Encyclopaedia > consensus > policy. That's not to say that there aren't interactions, but this is one occasion where the benefit to the first is not clear and the second is clearly being broken. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 16:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I discussed this with Ambi here, saying I thought (and still think) she is acting inappropriately towards Bobblewik. She replied here, politely, but saying she thought her vigilanteeism was appropriate. I've looked over the subject carefully, and I firmly believe (a) BobbleWik is doing nothing wrong by delinking dates, and (b) Ambi is acting inappropriately in reverting these changes, and should cease. It looks like Wikistalking and attempting to revert war. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 14:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I think people are missing part of the point here. The point is not that removing links around years is bad, just that using a automated script to improve an article by doing it is not justified. Articles are organic things which grow over time and using a inflexible bot script to "improve" an article - despite it frequently removing dates in useful places, as shown by the number of messages on his talk page - is just not on. Yes, remove dates around links when they are overlinked. But do it when it fits, not with a bot - especially a bot which was never approved in the first place. Talrias (t | e | c) 15:55, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I have seen no evidence that a bot is used. I've heard the "if it smells like a bot, it's a bot" line, but I disagree. Changes made with AWB look like a bot's doing, but they are not. I frequently make repetitive manual changes so quickly, people have asked if I was using a bot, but I'm not. Bobblewik has said he looks at every change before he clicks "save", and I see no reason to think he's lying. AGF and all that. So it looks like you blocked Bobblewik for using a bot, when you have no evidence he has done so. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 17:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

An afterthought: many of Ambi's reversions of Bobblewik have been done more than twice per minute, and have been repetitive as well. And yet no one seems to want to accuse Ambi of using a bot, and she has not been block for using an alleged bot. And she should not be. It seems to me that accusing someone of being a bot without evidence is akin to accusing someone of being a sockpuppet without evidence. And blocking someone for that reason is inappropriate. – Quadell ^{(talk) (bounties)} 17:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not a mindless bot, he says he approves every edit. When people point out valid concerns—like that delinking [911]] doesn't make sense— bobblewik takes it into account. When people revert his edits he doesn't revert back. When someone asks him to lay off particular pages, he does. A lot of us think he's doing really useful janitorial work. Years are currently massively overlinked. Look at Rambo for example, where Ambi reverted his changes. Which version do you think is better?

Now, I understand that people have valid concerns on whether bobblewik's method is the best way to achieve the goal of reducing overlinking. But please suggest some alternative method if you dislike this one. The overlinking of years is a self-perpetuating problem, the current overlinking is so massive that new users take it for an accepted norm. Drastic action is needed if we are to tackle this effectively. Haukur 17:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Several bots have human approval on every edit.

If there is a demonstrable (and that doesn't mean a vote) consensus for making the changes, I would agree to their being made provided a bot flag was in place and the edits were not under Bobblwik's main account. The place to decide this is Wikipedia talk:Bots. Once a bot flag is approved there and the bot task is approved there, then there can be no complaints. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 18:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll repeat what I said in the section above, I don't think years (or other parts of dates) should be linked unless they especially relevant to the article, and I have yet to work on an article where I thought that was the case. I remove year linking whenever I edit an article, and I see nothing wrong with what Bobblewik has been doing. (I do link full dates for preference formatting, but that is somehting different). -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 19:15, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Please see my new bot application. Thanks. bobblewik 19:53, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Admins should remember that the page on using rollbacks limits them to simple vandalism. Rich Farmbrough 01:06 26 February 2006 (UTC).

WikiProject link spam?

In the last couple of weeks there have been a flurry of changes to article stub templates to remove links to wikiprojects on the dubious basis that the links are link spam. This is being lead by User:Jerzy (sysop), User:Freakofnurture (admin), and User:Carnildo (de-sysop) with justification based on their own comments at Wikipedia talk:Stub. Attempts to restore the templates is turning into revert wars. Garglebutt / (talk) 05:41, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Changes are currently focussed around this list: User:Jerzy/WikiProj-soliciting_stub_templates. Garglebutt / (talk) 05:50, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with what they are doing- otherwise some new person who comes along will mess the article up and not see how they are supposed to improve the article. It helps Wikipedia hy having these links! I've approached one of the users and then they just reverted it back. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 06:00, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem with these links, particularly ones like "see WikiProject Whatever for article coordination" or "help WikiProject Whatever by expanding", is that they are an implicit claim of article ownership, and promote the WikiProject as being more important than Wikipedia as a whole. --Carnildo 07:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be suggesting that you would rather not have wikiprojects and that you would prefer wikipedia to grow without any internal consistency within subject areas. This is a hard position for me to understand. I can't see how advertising a group of editors who have put the effort in to design a useful set of (optional) guidelines for articles can be a bad thing. Wikiprojects also act as a useful resource to find editors with similar interests, who often colloborate to produce high quality articles. Maybe you are suggesting the wording should be changed to something like "If you are interested in subject X you might like to join WikiProject X", to avoid any implied claim of ownership? --Martyman-(talk) 22:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

How about putting some useful information on the WikiProject page, and then linking to that information in a way that does not assert article ownership? "WikiProject Military History has a number of sources that may be useful for expanding this article." or "WikiProject Military History has some guidelines on article structure". See how much more useful those are than "Help WikiProject Military History by expanding this article"? --Carnildo 23:43, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with the wording being changed to "WikiProject Military History has a number of sources that may be useful for expanding this article." if you had been making that change instead of deleting the section I never would have complained. But I also don't see the link to the wikiproject purely as a resource for guidelines and style help, the more people we can get involved in the wikiproject itself the better. Editors who are involved in the projects are much more likely to put in useful input to improve the guidelines. --Martyman-(talk) 23:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

You are trying to set policy without consensus. Implicit ownership by a project is an accusation you are making that many of us disagree with. If the compromise to stop you fucking up templates is to change the wording until it suits you then so be it. Garglebutt / (talk) 23:59, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't be happy with the change in wording because it's too long (they're stub messages, they should be one sentence, tops). I also completely fail to see why the hell you need to try and generate and help wars. One would think the wheel war fiasco I've just found out about would have cured you of that.

I also don't see how they "convey article ownership," unless you want all Wikiprojects gone. - SoM 02:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

"Please see WikiProject Whatever for article coordination" conveys the impression that any editing of the article needs some sort of approval from the WikiProject, while "please help WikiProject Whatever by expanding" elevates the needs of the WikiProject over those of Wikipedia as a whole. Neither wording provides any useful information to the casual editor who has no idea of the inner workings of Wikipedia. --Carnildo 04:53, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The stub templates themselves do not give any useful information to the "casual editor who has no idea of the inner workings of Wikipedia" either. There is chance by helping them find a group of like minded editors, these "casual editors" may become more involved members of the wikipedia community. --Martyman-(talk) 05:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I will point out, on a side note, that the Military history WikiProject has removed links to itself from stub templates ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 03:28, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The whole point of a WikiProject is for consistency- to make all the articles to conform to a similar structure. By removing the notice from the stub you're undermining this. Do you want California 1, CA-2, CA 3, California Route 4, California Highway 5, California State Route 6, California State Highway 7, CA Highway 8, etc.? Change the wording if you must, but I think that there are more critical things to resist on Wikipedia than so-called "ownership" of articles by WikiProjects. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 05:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

• If there is no consensus or demonstrable policy on this issue I would ask those removing the notices to develop such a consensus or policy first. The allegation that links to wikiprojects is a claim of ownership is highly spurious: what is a wikiproject but part of wikipedia. Steve block talk 21:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

• • There is already a clear policy to use. "Is this part of the article content encyclopedic in nature?" Wikiproject membership clearly isn't, so that pretty much solves the question of a mere inclusion of a wikiproject in an article. Jamesday 06:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

As it seems, from the discussion above, that at least one of the people removing the links is willing to accept them with a different wording, which is also accepted by those involved with the WikiProject, I strongly urge that everyone work together to change the wordings on the stub templates to follow this form, and neither remove the links nor throw around charges of bad faith, etc. JesseW, the juggling janitor 19:04, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Using and changing pictures in Wikipedia

Am I right in thinking I'm allowed to copy a properly licensed picture to Commons? The one I have in mind is http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afbeelding:Witvleugduif.jpg, which I'd like to use at White-winged Dove. I'd copy the Dutch description and license (GFDL).

Am I right in thinking I'm allowed to edit a properly licensed picture and save it under another name? I'd like to crop and enlarge http://en.wikipedia.org/wikiImage:Laughing_Falcon.jpg so it will fit better at Laughing Falcon. I hate to do that without the author's permission, but his or her user page and talk page are redlinked.

Are the answers to these questions available somewhere? Are they considered obvious?

—JerryFriedman 18:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

You can always edit an image that allows editing as long as you follow the license terms, which usually include things like crediting the author and releasing the derived work under the same license. There's no need to inform the author, although it's a nice thing to do. Note that Commons has a stricter license policy forbidding fair-use, non-commercial, and no-derivative-works licenses, so they do not accept all images from the Wikipedias (see Commons:Licensing). Other than this caveat, just copying images around and uploading them under different names or projects should be okay with any of our images, but remember to link to your source. Deco 20:50, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The first one is GFDL so you can certainly modify it and upload it to commons. The second one is {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} (and is also missing a source :-( ) — I'm not sure, does that permit modification or only copying? Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I am under the understanding that {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} is as close as you can come to legally releasing an image in to the public doamin (in countries that don't allow you to release to public domain like the US). I would appreciate it if anyone could tell me if this actually is the case or not. Secondly if the image does not have source information then it should be tagged for deletion as there is no way to verify it's copyright claims. --Martyman-(talk) 22:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, CopyrightedFreeUse is misnamed. It's very liberal, more than any other license but PD. I've suggested it be called FreeUse instead, but whatever. Deco 23:00, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, all, that helps a lot. —JerryFriedman 17:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

So excuse my ignorance, but what's the difference between {{CopyrightedFreeUse}} and {{NoRightsReserved}}? Stephen Turner (Talk) 17:45, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely nothing. Currently {{NoRightsReserved}} (which I'd never heard of before) has a better name and is worded more explicitly, but they have the same legal impact. Deco 23:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

There are major differences between the two. One addresses licensing, the other also addresses things like the right to be associated with your own work, the moral rights, for example. It would be completely inappropriate to do things like replacing one with the other, changing the terms under which the work is provided.Jamesday 06:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

What Jimbo said about userboxes in the Signpost interview

Today I took the opportunity of an interview on IRC, organised by The Signpost, to ask Jimbo about userboxes:

Feb 15 16:53:49 Ral315 Tony_Sidaway asks: "In the past six weeks the number of userboxes on English Wikipedia has risen from 3500 to 6000 and, despite your appeals for restraint, the number pertaining to political beliefs has risen from 45 to 150. Can the problem of unsuitable userboxes still be resolved by debate?"

Feb 15 17:11:57 jwales eh

Feb 15 17:11:59 jwales userboxes

Feb 15 17:12:00 jwales eh

Feb 15 17:12:40 jwales I'm looking at the political beliefs one now.

Feb 15 17:13:50 jwales My only comment on the userbox situation is that the current situation is not acceptable.

I think that puts it pretty plainly. It's not just that he doesn't personally like userboxes, but speaking as the leader of the project he finds the current situation unacceptable. Something must change, one way or the other. --Tony Sidaway 21:42, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

That was quite a biased question. :-) I know that Jimbo has had personal involvement in the Userbox Wars and evidently has a certain point of view about them, but I don't think we should take any action based solely on his contention that "something has to change". Let's just wait and see what he comes up with. I may be pro-user-box but I personally wouldn't mind them being banned altogether if it would put the war to an end. Deco 23:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

They haven't come close to an agreement at Wikipedia:Proposed policy on userboxes. If I were them, I would try to come up with a compromise, as the people in power are getting increasingly upset about this and may decide to delete most or all userboxes. This would probably cause many editors to leave the project. Unfortunately, many people seem to be very idealistic about userbox policy, as if it defines the project (if opinions via userboxes are restricted, Wikipedia is doomed kind of thing), and are unwilling to make even the slightest sacrifice in their position. People should realize that keeping them all is probably not an option, given the amount of opposition they have, and a compromise is likely to get them more of what they want than a drastic action by Jimbo, the Foundation, ArbCom or anyone else. I'd suggest getting rid of the "politics and beliefs" boxes first, and then trimming them down further categorically or on a case by case basis. That still leaves a wide variety of userboxes, but takes care of most of the divisive ones. -- Kjkolb 23:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

To be honest I think this one is going to have to be settled by the board. I appreciate Jimbo's comments above, but taken at face value they offer little. He expresses a view that the current situation is unacceptable. This leads to further questions:

• What does he mean by the current situation?
• What does he mean by unacceptable?
• In what capacity does he speak, editor Jimbo or board member/God King Jimbo?
• Does he have a proposed solution?

We can all agree the current situation is unacceptable. The problem is, we all have differing opinions on even defining the current situation. Stronger leadership on this issue a while ago may have prevented a recent incident, and would probably mean the issue would be settled by now. To my eye it seems clear that userboxes which do not facilitate the building of the encyclopedia are against policy. My best solution is to just delete every single userbox; the information on them can be expressed in other ways. Steve block talk 23:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

There is disagreement on how to fix the situation, but not everyone agrees that the current situation is unacceptable, which is a big part of the conflict. Some have suggested that there be no changes, or that there should be increased freedom in userbox policy, either because they think editors have a right to free speech on their userspace, that userboxes help by identifying bias or that those who are against the userboxes should realize that it is not important and just let it go. Or by the current situation did you mean the warring over the userboxes, not necessarily the boxes themselves? My preferred solution would be something like Wyss's, but I'm willing to compromise and let people have their silly/unhelpful userboxes, as long as they don't harm the encyclopedia. -- Kjkolb 00:40, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

By the current situation I meant the current situation. You have confirmed my point as to the ambiguity of the usage of the phrase, since everyone has their own take on what the current situation is. It is clear the userboxes are contentious, but their existence is having greater impact than seems necessary to a project whose ultimate goal is the creation of the encyclopedia. Their existence, debates on their existence, off the cuff comments on their existence, deletions of them, and even their non-existence have all led to incidents of contentious merit. In all honestly I will now vote for, support or agree with any proposal that has a hint of suceeding just to move the wikipedia and community past this fixation. But I stand by my belief that this now needs an edict from above; it's too contentious for the community to ever get a grip on. How do we determine what is out of order in user space, POV in this instance is unavoidable, finding offence in a userbox is a subjective matter. The solution that seems most balanced is to just ban anything that expresses an opinion. I now await the first wag who points out such a policy would make talk pages a lot quieter. Steve block talk 19:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

If transparency is key to an open work, and I do believe it is, then participants revealing their biases is, on balance, a good thing. Userboxes seem to me to be an innocuous way of self-identifying one's biases. If they are not a good solution, then the alternative is for everyone to write paragraphs describing the same things we're seeing in userboxes. But really, what exactly is the actual problem? Is it just a matter of personal distaste of people's free speech? If so, then that is *rotten*. If it's a technical issue, then that's another matter. What on earth is the friggin' problem with userboxes?? — Stevie is the man! ^{Talk | Work} 04:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia project. I tend to think userboxes provoke PoV of the most unhelpful sort. I also think that a user's userboxes can be misinterpreted by other editors, who might make snap judgements about a user's supposed PoV based on her userboxes and edit accordingly. IMHO most userboxes will ultimately be divisive and pull the project away from scholarly principles. That said, I like them when they pertain to practical stuff having directly to do with the wiki interface... OS userboxes, browser, admin, bureaucrat, arbcomm, mediation, country and language userboxes I think may be either neutral or helpful. Wyss 23:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

French Wikipedia bans political userboxes and (according to their admins) "doesn't have too much trouble". A quick check on their version of VfD shows that they do not have any userboxes currently up for deletion. German Wikipedia bans all userboxes in Template space apart from language and regional templates. Either of these offers a model for a solution here.

Political and religious userboxes have been non gratae since 2006-01-21 [7] and yet a small number of users keep creating new ones. Blocks as per WP:POINT might be in order here, but doubtless some one will accuse me of "fanning the flames" just for mentioing that! Physchim62 (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

As with many things on Wikipedia, it has changed from being a way to build a sense of community by grouping people based on their interests to intentional provocation. The only obvious solution is to put the same constraints on their content as we would with any article on WP. Ideally a userbox should only be a reference to an existing group on wikipedia such as project affiliation. I'd add a "userbox free zone" userbox to my user page but... Garglebutt / (talk) 02:16, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

The following discussion was posted in response to a copy of this post at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion:

I think that puts it pretty plainly. It's not just that he doesn't personally like userboxes, but speaking as the leader of the project he finds the current situation unacceptable. Something must change, one way or the other. --Tony Sidaway 21:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

It appears to me to be not only grotesquely unfair but personally abusive to take a short statement that begins with "My only comment..." and use it as a prop in this manner. While the above is couched as a simple statement of fact, when parroted in this way it implies de facto approval of the actions and positions avowed by the recyler of these comments. "See Jimbo really does agree with me! Look, here's something he said that might support that!"

Rather than kowtowing, it might be better to simply proceed in a thoughtful and consensual manner, with less drama, less unilateralism, and more respect. What exactly are we to draw from the above statement, other than the aforementioned implicit approval? How does it help us to move forward? Pardon the rhetorical question, because clearly it add nothing to the debate. It's simply a bit of grandstanding that we could have done without. Everyone thinks the current situation is not acceptable.

brenneman^{T}{L} 03:29, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

"Personally abusive"?? How so? --MarkSweep (call me collect) 03:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Because it exploits the fact that the person has made a careful and qualified statement and that they have explicitly said they would say no more. If Tony Blair is asked about the ethics of publishing inflammatory cartoon and he responds "All I want to say it the current situation is unacceptable." Hamas reprints this under the headline "Blair says situation unacceptable" that's at best unkind. I'll ask again: What was the point of reporting this almost content-free Q & A?
brenneman^{T}{L} 03:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

"Everyone thinks the current situation is not acceptable"? I don't think that's true. I think some people think it's just great that they get to keep making political userboxes and feeling like they're involved in a "great userbox war of '06". That's precisely the problem, isn't it? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, they're having great fun striking a blow for "personal freedom", but they are hurting Wikipedia in the process. -- Dalbury^(Talk) 11:20, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

What Jimbo said about userboxes on wikien-l

And here's what Jimbo Wales said on the official English Wikipedia mailing list. I don't know why, but a lot of otherwise clued up Wikipedians don't subscribe to that, which is a shame because they often end up wondering what's happening when a big change comes along.

(Excerpted)

I heard today that the number of userboxes, and in particular the number of very problematic userboxes, has exploded. I think this is seriously Not Good For Our Loving Little Community.

I am not doing anything about it just yet, but I am willing to concede that my nonviolent social request that people knock it off and think about what it means to be a Wikipedian has not gotten very far.

As far as I can determine, and I am very much aware that I am here prejudicing the terms of debate, this is a cultural battle between wikipedians and people who have stumbled into this cool site they heard about on CNN where you can write whatever the hell you want and argue with people for fun.

Full version at http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-February/039853.html

--Tony Sidaway 06:19, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

wikien-l is a reasonably high-traffic list, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Wikipedians just don't have the time or inclination to sift through it. Personally I don't read a great deal of it, though I typically do read Jimbo's posts. — Matt Crypto 13:01, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo's nonviolent social request that people knock it off was given about one week at most before his hand was forced, mainly by Tony himself. I myself was working up a series of templates to be used, by following the what-links-here, to bombard the talk pages of users of questionable userboxes and engage and educate them, hopefully leading the voluntary removal by most, thus reinforcing community and consenus and leaving the truly recalitrant isolated, after when a forced cleanup would be much easier, in line with Jimbo's earlier request. But in the current atmosphere that's no longer possible. Thanks a bunch, Tony. Herostratus 13:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not clear on how Tony has forced Jimbo's hand, as Jimbo has not actually done anything yet other than comment on the situation. The initial reaction to Jimbo's request showed pretty well the recalcitance of some userbox supporters, just as some opponents of polemical userboxes have pressed the issue. For a workable solution, take a look at User:Pathoschild/Projects/Userboxes and User:Pathoschild/Projects/Userboxes/Policy to see what one user has quietly been doing. (links gleaned from a post on wiki-en). -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 14:23, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

(I'm on a lot of lists, and I tried wikien-I for a few days but it was just too high traffic for me. Even in digest, I'd suspect. I'm going to rely on people providing pointers when something important is said, I guess.) As to whether the request Jimbo made is working, I think it is. Just not as fast as some might like. ++Lar: t/c 16:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Discussions on a mailing list are not a substitute for consensus gathering, discussion and possible voting within the community here. It's fine for a small minority of authors and others to discuss wherever they like, but that's not the same thing as the community. Of course, there's no reason such discussions can't then result in proposed policy changes which go through the usual policy process, just like discussions anywhere else. Jamesday 05:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Second-level copyright

This concern several types of images that are normally considered specific occurences of {{fairuse}}, but mostly the various {{screenshot}} (althought the reasoning can be extended to stuff like {{bookcover}} and {{promotional}}).

• Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. established that "Photographic reproductions of visual works in the public domain were not copyrightable because the reproductions involved no originality."
  1. From there, is it reasonable to assume that a screenshot is copyrighted to the original author, not the screenshot taker?
  2. If the copyright reside solely within the original holder, then there is no requirement to ask the screenshot taker for permission to use it on Wikipedia, since they cannot claim any copyright on it whatsoever, right?

• However, it remains polite to at the very least acknowledge the taker (e.g."screenshot courtesy of www.randomsite.com")

Does that reasoning hold? Circeus 13:16, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

No, it oversimplifies a complex set of issues. A screenshot is not an exact reproduction of the original work. If it is viewed as a "derivative work," both the creator of the original and the creator of the screenshot may have copyright interests. Consider the case of a photograph of a stage play. The performance itself is copyrighted, yet the photographer who take a picture of a moment in the performance is presumed to have a copyright interest in that photo. A case can be made for each side on this question, and the courts have certainly not yet come close to resolving it. Monicasdude 13:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Myself, I was really interested in tv-screenshots (I want to add sceenshot to some anoimecharacter pages.), so I'll keep these arguments in mind for other cases. Circeus 13:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it depends on exactly what the screenshot is of. In some cases, such as screenshots of software, computer desktop layouts, etc., there may be some compositional creativity on the part of the screenshot maker in getting things laid out just right on the screen before capturing it, and hence the possibility of copyright there. On the other hand, if it's just a raw capture of some canned material from the original author (e.g., a still frame from a TV show, or a static Web page), then you're probably right about no further rights being gained by capturing it in a screenshot. Also, in some cases a screenshot may capture works of multiple authors; a screen shot of a Web browser, for instance, includes possible intellectual property of the browser maker, as well as the maker of whatever Web site happens to be displayed in the browser. *Dan T.* 13:51, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That roughly confirm what I was thinking. Circeus 13:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Say you want a perpetual copyright. You could make a new copy of the tape for each broadcast and claim a new copyright because of the new copy. Even thought the content is essentially the same. That decision says that the original copyright status applies and you don't get a new copyright for an effectively perfect copy. That's because there is no original creative work involved and original creation is what earns you a copyright. Lots of hard work or spending lots of money to make something doesn't. A screen shot in an encyclopedia is typically intended to be an exact reproduction of the original - that is, it's objective is not to be original. Such screen shots would not have their own copyright. However, as a courtesy, you're correct that it is good practice to credit the provider of such content. It's likely to be mandatory in some non-US jurisdictions. In any case, it's helpful in tracing the source and tracking the license status and that is something we always want. There's also some need to consider whether the screen shot really is no more than an accurate representation, though the courts would generally describe any potential copyright of this sort as "thin" and the fair use of the original source might well dominate the discussion. Jamesday 06:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Star Ratings on Album pages

I had started a bot request for Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Albums#Stars_to_text however after starting the job I was notified that some editors had some unaddressed objections and I have stoppped the bot in the interm.

The request is for a bot to replace the "star images" in ratings into text for album pages (for example would be replaced by (4/5)). The reason for the changes were listed as

1. For some people, it's hard to distinguish between 1 and .5 stars (eye, monitor, etc.)
2. Without the captions, it's virtually unreadable for visually impaired.
3. Image bandwidth. It's much faster and uses less bandwidth without the unnecessary stars.
4. Generally, it's easier without them.

Some editors had concerns that consensus was not reached on the previous page, As this is a large amount of pages (2500+) I think it's necessary to have a proper consensus either before the bot could possibly get restarted. Some star ratings have already have been converted to text (not my myself) - so a consensus might want to change those back to stars. Tawker 14:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

In regard to point 1, the stars image has poor contrast and is a bit small. If it was just simply black stars, a bit further apart, and maybe with the half-marks as grey stars rather than half-black ones, it should be as legible as the surrounding text. I'll make up image(s) if someone wants. For those who are significantly visually impared what's there is okay (the alt text isn't bad) but we can improve it with regular wikimarkup: . -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's my simple test case for 4.5 stars, with appropriate alt text: . Hmmm, the half-tone thing doesn't work nicely - hang on while I make a chopped one... -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:14, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's one with the half denoted by a star chopped in half: . -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

How about a "star outline" with a white center? Tawker 15:15, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean that the half star should be an outline? Here's one like that - -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

It's a good idea to give a contrasted color outline, even if it's only useful to silly people that've customized their CSS. So a black star should have a thing white outline, a white star should have a black one, for example. ¦ Reisio 22:40, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

One issue with the stars is that it doesn't work for out-of-ten reviews, so I've knocked up a couple of ideas to get around this, based on Finlay's design above. 9.5/10 and . They look a bit crappy because they're only gifs, but I think they'd work if done properly. - MightyMoose22 02:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't see this alternative as a viable solution. A large clump of black stars doesn't effectively present information; non-geniuses like me need to count each star to figure out what the rating is (compared to the nanosecond it takes to read "9.5"). This solution also does not seem to take into account less friendly decimals like 9.4 or 2.1 or 7.7, and I don't see how it could without resorting to either approximation, or the ridiculous, microscopic division of stars. Text is both effectient and accurate. --jiy (talk) 07:08, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's suggesting that we convert all ratings to stars regardless of how they're presented, rather that we do (or don't) convert stars to text. My personal feeling is that we display the ratings as they are displayed at the original source - if it's reviewed in stars we use stars, if it's 9.5 as text we use 9.5 as text, if it's a thumbs up/down we use a little thumbs up/down icon. - MightyMoose22 23:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

In regard to point 2, see my alt text above. In regard to point three, this really isn't an issue. Bandwidth is never our chokepoint, these image files are tiny, and will be efficiently cached in the webservers, the squids, and in the visitor's browsers. In regard to ease, I think we can have a simple substable template (e.g. {{subst:starsFromFive|3.5}}) to make human-handling of the stars straightforward. I do think the stars are a good idea, and I think we can intelligently handle fallback for visually impared visitors without resorting to text-only. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Many of the albums are not templates, they're images. I'm starting to think both an image and text eg (4/5) would work best. Tawker 15:08, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Whatever we do, it's clear that the ALT text on the current images needs improving, so at the very least that's a nasty task your bot could help with. Once we have a consensus as to what the markup should be for such stars, I figure it'd be nice to have a subst-template which would make life easy for humans to follow the standard. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I personally would support having a template instead of image, so that it would be possible to redesign stars whenever we feel like it. So I propose substing Image:4 of 5.png by any template {{whatever | 4/5}}. For now the template can be processed with showing current image, later it can be switched to text or new picture with text. --Jan Smolik 15:43, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there any particular reason why we need images in the first place? It's somewhat visually pleasing, but not much more. Template idea was already suggested and implemented, then taken away sometime ago. I'll see if I can find the relevant disussion. -- WB 23:54, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Found it, and the consensus was deleted then. -- WB 00:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

As what Water Bottle just said, the image template was deleted because it was a meta-template and using these stars would reverse this decision. Also if images are to be used what is there to guarentee that ALT text will be added? Nooby_god | Talk 23:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

That might be acceptable. WP:AUM doesn't seem to be as popular now as it was then. Ehheh 14:49, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The Choice - please vote on which option you prefer?

===Option 1: Replace image to something similar to above (alternative image)=== (possibly the "black stars"

• I think that makes sense. I don't see why it has to be text-only, as long as proper ALT text is used. *Dan T.* 19:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support 2nd. If we have to abandon the current system (which seems to me to be unobjectionable). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support 2nd as well The current image system is just hard to see and etc. If we are not going text, at least we need to get rid of the current images. Which, ironically, were created by me in the first place... -- WB 22:33, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support 1st - MightyMoose22 02:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
• This choice isn't exactly very clear - "Replace image to something similar to above" - well, all alternatives are discussed above. I'm guessing you mean this choice to be "Use Alternative Image", in which case, I Support. With numbers only e.g. (4/5), it is not necessarily clear that it is a rating. I agree that they could be visually better, higher contrast, and yes if we're using images for ratings out of 5, ideally we also need images for ratings out of 10. Gram 12:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Option 3: Text only (remove images)

• Support There's not much of a reason to use images. -- WB 19:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Nooby god 16:32, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support It is arbitrary that rating systems that are conveniently represented through visuals merit star images (the 5 star scale), while those that do not translate well visually must default to plain text (like the 10 point decimal scale Pitchfork uses, or the A-F grading system Robert Christgau uses, or the Favorable or Unfavorable derived from reviews that do not use any point scale). I see no purpose in mixing images and plain text arbitrarily, especially when using plain text all the time is the simplest and most painless route. - jiy (talk) 22:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Exactly, if we have to explain the stars, then we somehow have to explain that A-F is a grading scale, etc. -- WB 05:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Option 4: Leave the current system in place (but with better "ALT" usage)

• Support 1st. This is the best of the options, to my mind; the image is very similar to that used by AMG (which is the most common source of reviews, I think), and makes its point well. The text alone isn't particularly informative (4/5 what?). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:20, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
  • To me that doesn't make sense. We need to assume somewhat of a knowledge for readers. For example, if we have to explain 4/5, then we should also explain that A+ and C are grades used in some countries to indicate how good something is on each page or with a link? -- WB 04:29, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support 2nd - MightyMoose22 02:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Gflores ^Talk 03:25, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Option 5: Other (please specify)

In the interest of fairness, I have added the votes of 3 users who had already made their fellings clear regarding this matter on the previous page of discussion. - MightyMoose22 03:12, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It appears we're in a bit of a stalemare here with votes being 3 a peice, how do we propose to solve this stalemate. Tawker 04:46, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, we've got 5 votes for option 1 and 3 each for options 3 & 4, but it's not enough for a majority consensus in my opinion. Is there any way we can bring this to the attention of a wider audience, other than just the people who read these boards? Any way to modify a TfD template (or something similar) to go along with the star pics currently being used? - MightyMoose22 23:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, as it stands, its eight to three in favour of using graphics; perhaps we could now ask people, given that we're using stars, which of the two they prefer?

It would be better to have more people involved, though. Perhaps we could just start informing editors whom we know to be involved in relevant articles? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Angry over the Wikipedia policy towards indecent language

I have been on conflict with Monicasdude over the article Self Portrait. I insisted on rewritting swearwords with asterisks and noticed that they kept on being changed back. When I looked through the pages history, I found that Monicasdude was "reverting censored language." I asked him about this and called my sensibilites "excessively tender". In the country I'm from (Australia), and the social class I of (equivelent the middle-to-upper classes in the UK), these morals are quite normal, and a local Melbourne Newspaper, The Age refuses to print these words, and insists on censoring them. A considerable amount of printed media, including (I beleive), Encyclopedia Britanica and most other printed Encyclopedias. There are many online websites like this too. So why didn't wikipedia agree in this policy. It seems that its current policy was created in America by someone who didn't know of this policy elsewhere. I would appreciate any user who agrees on this view, and that we should at least have right (as opposed to authority) to censor language, if they send my a message on this. Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian) Febuary 2006

I'm afraid you're wrong on this one; it's policy, and has been explicit policy for years, that Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors. One reason for the policy being the way it is is that the stability of Wikipedia articles depends on editors' agreement, and it is very hard to agree on where to draw the line were we to agree to draw a line. You may or may not agree with this policy, but it is Wikipedia's policy and it currently has very strong support by Wikipedians. Inconsistent as it may seem, there is a feeling that we can't have overly-erotic images, but with respect to written language, the feeling is that "sticks and stones can break my bones but [words] can never hurt me." As far as I know Australians have uncensored access to the Internet so your statement about Australian mores is apparently not carried over into official Australian policy. Dpbsmith (talk) 11:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I know of no modern printed encyclopedia that would censor a word like "shit", especially not in quoted text. BTW, I know some Australians, and also some Americans, and, on average, the Americans are rather more prude about language. "Rest room", indeed... --Stephan Schulz 11:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Mrs. Digby told me that when she lived in London with her sister, Mrs. Brooke, they were every now and then honoured by the visits of Dr. Johnson. He called on them one day soon after the publication of his immortal dictionary. The two ladies paid him due compliments on the occasion. Amongst other topics of praise they very much commended the omission of all naughty words. "What! my dears! then you have been looking for them?" said the moralist. - H.D. Best. Shimgray | talk | 21:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Concur with Dpbsmith. I don't see our language standards changing significantly because of concerns for polite diction. --Improv 16:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Why did people decide that adding an asterisk makes it okay? Anyone who can read will know what sh*t is and most of will know what s*** is, too. -- Kjkolb 07:32, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"...it currently has very strong support by Wikipedians" Do you really mean *all* wikipedians. As you probably know, stereotypes over such a large group are never 100% accurate. "As far as I know Australians have uncensored access to the Internet so your statement about Australian mores is apparently not carried over into official Australian policy" I didn't despute the former, I *have* come across websites the would censor a word like the "s word," and this has nothing to do with what country I'm "surfing" from (I don't even know where all these websites are located). I don't know exactly what you mean by "official Australian policy," but whatever it is, the "educated middle class" don't have much control, and may statement about morals was (mostly) about that social class. "I know some Australians, and also some Americans, and, on average, the Americans are rather more prude about language..." What social class(es)? I did not dispute this about, a "lower class" Australian that "grows up in the suburbs," "shops in the mall," and "watches commercial TV [Australia has many noncommercial radio stations but no noncommercial terrestrial TV]." But the "educated middle class" can, especially among older generations be more prude about words like the f word and the s word, and sometimes even blasphemy, given that so many of them were educated (prior to Universiy entry) by hardcore christians, than the "archetypal" lower class. I personally dislike using the gramaticalised s word in this way on the grounds of its concrete meaning. Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian) (talk) Febuary 2006

What are you talking about? Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors, as was said above- it's not censored for the protection of prude adults, either.--Sean Black ^(talk) 21:41, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

If you can build a consensus to censor Wikipedia then current plicy may change. But thankfully that will never happen. It is as simple as that. Martin 21:49, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It's true that not 100% of Wikipedians support this policy; with such a large and diverse group, I doubt that 100% supports any proposition, including that the Earth is round. However, there is a broad consensus for it. *Dan T.* 22:03, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I find the original posters comment about it not being acceptable in Australia a joke. I was just watching a show last night where Harrison Ford was being interviewed and was so impressed at being allowed ot swear on broadcast television that he did, quite a bit. This seems to happen a fair bit with american guests on Australian talk shows. It seems Australia has a much more relaxed attitude to searing in the media than the US. --Martyman-(talk) 22:07, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

"I find the original posters comment about it not being acceptable in Australia a joke." No, many middle class Australians really do perceive these as "lower class words," I was talking about this particular class. "It seems Australia has a much more relaxed attitude to searing in the media than the US." This is not my expierience, one of the conditions of a radio or TV broadcast license is that stations may not transmit indecent language between certain times the day, if swearwords appear, they must edit them out, usually with an electronic bleep. Channel Ten even did this with Big Brother when broadcasting it between these times.Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian) (talk) Febuary 2006

I find the idea that "middle class" tastes are inherently preferable to "lower class" tastes to be far more offensive than Myrtone finds profanity. This was, after all, the stated central point in the old (old, old) argument that Pat Boone's music was superior to Little Richard's. Monicasdude 03:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Then we should be proud that Wikipedia uses language that does not alienate the "lower classes." Really, I don't see why this fight persists. Wikipedia is not censored, end of argument. --Golbez 03:59, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

What's with the classist comments? Are you actually saying the words of the "lower class" (as you have designated them) are beneath us to reference? How do you know that many of us are not "lower class?" I find your references to class offensive and would like you to remove them from my eyes. Postdlf 04:04, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

1. The use of "shit" on the entry Self Portrait is a quotation. It's there for accuracy.
2. Wikipedia cannot be censored for minors or prudes.
3. Leaving aside the political correctness or not of User:Myrtone's assessment of Australian standards, in my view, and with respect, it is wrong. Educated Australians (a group in which I hope I might include myself, having three Bachelor's degrees and a Master's degree from the University of Melbourne) are not as sensitive as he suggests. Avalon 10:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistence in our notability policies -- Digipedia

I am just stunned with inconsistencies in our notability policies. If you are university professor you must be much more important than average to be involved in Wikipedia. Bands must have published record with major label. Record itself is not sufficient. Sportspeople must have played “in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in an individual professional sport, or at the highest level in mainly amateur sports, including college sports in the United States.” This suddenly includes more people but is still rather strict.

On the other hand, software can be included if it has more than 5,000 users or a forum or mailing list with a significant (5000) number of members. That can also mean that at least 5000 people have heart about it. While a record for a band is not sufficient (to publish a band you must have made concerts for more that 5000 people in total). Cities (at least American) can be included anytime. Today I clicked on the Random Page and I saw article about “city” with 211 people. Highschools of the world are included just becouse they are highschools (I have been to few discussions and I gave up AFDing them).

But the best is when you are a Digimon (whatever that is). Then you MUST be included without any doubts. I AFDed article about Solarmon whose whole content was: “Solarmon is a Rookie Level Machine Digimon that looks like Hagurumon, but is all yellow. He is a rare form of the Machine Digimon. Abilities Attacks Shiny Ring Sol Carol Little Burn”. And actualy everyone votes keep even with comment that there is some project that wants to make these articles realy useful.

I know that articles with various subjects are written by different groups of people. But generaly those groups should compare their criteria with those of the other groups. People please be reasonable. We need more consistence troughout those categories. Otherwhise this will be Digipedia with some high school articles and very very little of somethink else. Jan Smolik 21:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:DIGI is working on improving Digimon articles. Might I also point that all Pokémons without exceptions have received articles? I think that is a powerful precedent. Circeus 00:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not distinguish between Pokémon and Digimon. I only say, we have quite a strict rules for scientists, relatively strict rules for bands and sportpeople, but no rules for comics characters. I am not against including 10 or 20 most important characters. But not 200+. The serie only runs for 9 years so all of them cannot be realy notable. Not even fans of the comics would be able to name them all. Favorite author of my childhood is Jules Verne. But I do not include articles about all characters from his books. I believe it is the same thing as having separate article about each of Ali Baba's thieves. We can have article about Ali Baba though.

However my comment is not only about Digimon. It is a general problem I see that different categories have diferent notability criteria.

The biggest problem I see is that Wikipedia gives too much importance to things that are happening right now. If Jaromír Jágr scores a goal, his article is updated before he gets to the shower. When new Digimon appears he has article of his own within a week. On the other hand really important people from the history have one-liner stubs. The other day I randomly came upon article about some US politician John R. Lynch who had realy unclear one-liner. Later I found out, he was one of the first black politicians, and firt black speaker of the Mississippi house. I am not able to improve the article much, as I am not American and do not have access to the resources about Americans, but I think he deserves much more work than Solarmon, who is basicly (according to his article) looks like the other Digimon whose name I forgot but is all yellow. --Jan Smolik 10:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

One more thing. There is a Notability (fiction) guideline you Pikimon and Digémon guys are clearly breaking by having separate articles for minor characters. --Jan Smolik 10:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

They don't care. This is a real problem in deletion discussions. On your other comments, yes, there is way too much emphasis on what's happened in the last year, week, hour. It's so easy to grab something off the Internet, or just add something you heard on the news. There is also way too much emphsis on "pop culture". I mean, do we really need a list of List of Thrashcore bands, most of which are not notable enough to have an article? -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 12:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with this notion on a fundamental level. According to Google, most Pokémon (even the obscure ones like Masquerain), get almost 50,000 hits. Also, since the PCP came about, many of the articles are now very well referenced and have brilliant prose. Bulbasaur for example is nearly an FA. I'm sorry, I thionk this is just a case of {{sofixit}} - we're fixing the Pokemon articles - you fix the ones about old politicians, okay? --Celestianpower ^háblame 16:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Jan, I definently see and understand the point you are making about the inconsistent policy. The de facto standard for notability is hugely different whether you are talking about a scientist or a Pokeman. I would be happiest if we could make the standard more consistent by raising the bar for fictional characters and lowering it somewhat for biographies of real people. I wouldn't support dropping the standard for biographies of real people to the level that they are at for Pokemans. I just don't think Wikipedia would be better than it is now if we tried to include all professors. ike9898 18:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Celestianpowers notion of number of hits: If I run a merchandising company, I would made sure that my products have 50 000 Google hits. It does not say anything about importance, it just says that somebody spent huge amount of money for advertising campaign. Anyway, people living before the Internet time have huge disadvantage, because articles about them, fanzines etc. were in paper and are not searchable via Google.

Considering quality of articles is another thing. If an article has excelent quality I support that it is incuded in Wikipedia. But most Digimon / Pokemon articles just cannot reach excelent quality because there is not enough information. They will just remain stubs. You can have article about Hamlet but you surely would be suprised to see a separate article about each soldier that caried Hamlets body in the final scene. There is no Soldier 4 Carrying Hamlet's body article. --Jan Smolik 15:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Normal Norman man

A Norman T.A. Munder article reads : ""[his] life indicates what can be accomplished by individual merit guided by the highest Christian principles ...".

We should assume here in WP that morality or principles are not the results of one and only belief. Comments welcomed. --DLL 22:01, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It looks like someone has gotten to it already, but for future reference--when you find something like that, you can just be bold and have a go at editing it, or you can tag it with one of the tags from Wikipedia:Cleanup resources to call someone else's attention to it. If people brought up every article-specific issue like that on the village pump, we wouldn't have room here to discuss anything else! --Aquillion 06:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Google Should Not Have Access to Talk Pages or User Pages

I was horrified to see that completely untrue things that were said about me in Talk pages were turning up in Google when searching for my name.

The people saying these things know that (1) they are untrue, (2) they are malicious, (3) they can hurt my professional reputation, and (4) they will show up in Google searches. Knowing these four things, and also knowing that some things they are saying will never be allowed in a somewhat more legitimate article, they use disrespectful, disgusting language in Talk pages and one or two User pages.

We all know there is unadulterated slime in Wiki--but why should EVERYTHING ANYBODY WRITES NO MATTER HOW DISGUSTING be available to Google?

Surely, this is a terribly wrong policy and should be changed!--samivel 23:08, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree -- Article space is public; nobody should have any expectation of privacy in any other namespace either, but we'd prefer that the public did not casually drop in. Google (and other bots) should be instructed not to crawl outside of article, template, category, and image namespaces. John Reid 00:12, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Disagree. It is important to be able to search the user and talk spaces. Wikipedia's search box just doesn't do the trick. --BostonMA 00:25, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

If people are saying malicious things about you on talk pages, you could ask to have them removed (under for instance the Wikipedia:No personal attacks policy). Given that, I don't think blocking Google is needed (and being able to use it to search the discussions is very useful). --cesarb 00:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Talk pages, and special project pages, are "internal" things to the Wikipedia project that aren't part of the encyclopedia itself, and while they're not "private", they're not really the things we want to encourage random outsiders to stumble upon, so they probably should be excluded from search engines other than the internal Wikipedia search. *Dan T.* 00:55, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It would be better to propose it after the internal Wikipedia search gets useful enough to replace Google's. --cesarb 01:07, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Disagree. All of Wikipedia is free-content and open to public viewing. --TantalumTelluride 01:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Disagree per Tantalum Telluride and BostonMA. It would be NIFTY if Google were to take flags about which areas to search, and set them to articlespace only (by default, resettable with advanced options or whatever) when invoked outside, but not prevent entirely. ++Lar: t/c 01:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree I was recently disconcerted when, in the course of searching for additional sources for an article I was drafting, I saw my draft (on my user sub-page) show up in Google. That's just a little too self-referential for me. I do have a "this is a draft" box that I try to remember to put on draft pages. Nevertheless, I would prefer not having the general public looking over my shoulder while I'm writing the first draft of an article. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 01:58, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree Talk pages contain material that is not under WP content policies. It may contain libel, personal attacks and other unsavory stuff. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 04:19, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• Disagree, although I understand why people are upset. I believe that radical openness is more important in this case. --Improv 02:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Disagree per Tantalum Telluride and BostonMA. If you don't want your drafts to show up on Google, you can always store them on your home computer and blank your sandbox after each editing session. Monicasdude 04:05, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I think there's something to this, not because I want to prevent my own user page or talk page from being "broadcast" over the internet, but because I want to prevent other people's user page and talk page from being googled. There are some (though not many) Wikipedians who have turned their user pages into a personal advertisement for themselves, and are using Wikipedia web server space for self-promotion just as surely as if they had written an article about themselves. Blocking google from accessing user pages would discourage this. Just a thought, not a firm position as to whether this should be policy. Postdlf 04:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• Agree, once the Wikipedia internal search is improved, I would support this. It makes advertising on one's user and talk pages much less effective and while it does not hide the innerworkings or the occasionally unseemly side of Wikipedia (such as talk pages on controversial topics and talk page posting by confrontational users), it would not highlight it either. Also, users are easily found on Wikipedia, as there are links to their user page in their signature and in the history of articles they edit. The only reason I can think of to use Google to find a user is cyberstalking. As for removing inappropriate material, it is done to some extent, but much of it stays and removing it all would be a huge burden, particularly with the controversy over which comments to delete. Not calling attention to it is a better option. Finally, not having the pages indexed would give people better search results, as they are usually not looking for a Wikipedia talk page when they do a search. Of course, the Wikipedia clones are a far greater burden for searchers. -- Kjkolb 05:27, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Agree - and also consider AFD discussions while we're at it. Fairuse images should also be excluded, but that's a whole separate debate (and technical issue). --Rob 05:44, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Disagree in the strongest possible terms, both to the original suggestion and the one above about AFD. Often, searching via Google is the only way to keep track of what has been discussed in the past and how those discussions went. I do so quite regularly, and either suggestion would directly cripple my use of Wikipedia. None of the reasobns given for limiting searches are convincing; nothing written on Wikipedia talk pages or elsewhere outside of article space is any more significant than things written on any other messageboard or communication forum. No offense meant, and I'm sure the suggestion was intended in good faith, but this is a bad, bad idea, one that would seriously restrict users to no useful end. --Aquillion 06:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Sorry to hear that you don't like what people say about you. Google should still be free to index it, if only so you can find out and correct people. If you believe, after discussion with a lawyer, that you have been libelled please do feel free to use appropriate channels to address the matter, including possibly removing the content which your lawyer advises you is libelous and placing a clear note in its place identifying what was removed and why. I suggest the lawyer because people often make major mistakes about what is and isn't libel, being confused between it and "what I don't like to read about myself". Jamesday 06:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Maybe the first line of pages such as user talk pages should specify "This is not a Wikipedia article" or something like that. ike9898 16:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Agree per Kjkolb. Rich Farmbrough 12:09 27 February 2006 (UTC).

About Future Products

Articles about future products cite the company as the main source of verifiable information. The problem occurs when the marketing department of a company purposely distorts what is likely to happen in order to gain a market advantage. Example: it is in Sony's interest to keep potential game purchases believing the PS3 will be released soon in order to hold off purchases of XBox 360. It may not matter that there are many credible rumors out there that there is no chance of a significant release of the product within the company stated time frame because the company is verifiable and the other sources aren't. In my opinion Wikipedia policy of NPOV is in contradition with verifiability in this example, since most people looking at the situation would agree on a different release date then the one the company is publishing.

So what is the solution?

• Don't allow discussion about future products
• Add a disclaimer to verifiability, saying that NPOV has a higher precedence.
• Add a disclaimer to verifiability: statements companies make about future products need to be subject to community opinion on probability of being true.
• Add a policy about future products. Everything is speculation and that the community needs to agree on what is most likely to occur and not the company. Yes company stated information is usually 95% accurate.

In conclusion if we continue the current course of policy we become pawns for companies marketing departments to add credence to their half truths.

Daniel.Cardenas 02:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. However, an anouncement is verifiable, but should be in that form; On date X company Y announced the imminent release of product W. However, reports that call the announcement into question that have been carried by reputable sources may also be used in the article. If it is verifiable, and notable, use it. Don't say, "Sony will be releasing the PS3 soon." Say, "Sony has announced its intention to release the PS3 soon." You can then go on to say, "The Wall Street Journal reports that there are doubts in the industry that the PS3 will be released before the 2nd Quarter of 2008." My take on it, anyway. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 02:54, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem is reputable sources. Lets say we have 5 sources that may not be overly reliable but when taken as a whole paint an obvious picture. When trying to add the sources they are deleted because individually they are not overly reputable. Daniel.Cardenas 12:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Adding five bad sources together does not make a good source. Those five sources could be getting their information from each other, or all getting their information from the same shakey source. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 12:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I encourage you to look at the talk pages. Seraphim doesn't understand why "First available in Q2 2006" is not a true and verifiable statement and why "Sony says..." is a true and verifiable statement. I suggest a policy clarification to avoid the current false statement on the PS3 article "available in Q2" and avoid misleading wikipedia readers. Daniel.Cardenas 17:47, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I've made my point clear on the article talk page. Sony yesterday stated that they are going to launch the PS3 in spring 2006. That is the official release date, if other sources call that into question they can be noted in the article, but that doesn't change the fact that the official release date is "Q2 2006" not just "2006". Seraphim 03:13, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Userbox policy

This is a policy proposal onn userboxes, developed by Pathoschild from an original by Doc glasgow.

It picked up quite a lot of favorable comments in Pathoschild's userspace and so after discussion I've moved it to WP:UBP (which believe it or not hasn't actually had any concrete proposals on the main page for weeks).

• Wikipedia:Proposed policy on userboxes

--Tony Sidaway 05:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• Now in straw poll: Wikipedia:Userbox policy poll --Tony Sidaway 04:54, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes Subst

Beliefs userboxes substitution

Purpose: Getting rid of the capability for factionalists to use "Whatlinkshere" to recruit people for the purposes of vote-stuffing. Also to remove unencyclopedic templates without disrupting user's pages.

What do you need done: Substitution of all templates listed at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Beliefs. You can start with {{user No Smoking}}, {{user Drug-free}}, {{user not stoned}}, and {{user not-Drug-free}}, and proceed from there.

Consensus of community for operation (wikilink showing support): Is Jimbo himself good enough for you?  :-P

Cyde Weys 06:30, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a yes/no vote as to if you want me to start a bot run to subst those userboxes. Tawker 07:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

For subst'ing the userboxes:

• Good idea - eliminates the major problem, and hopefully does so in a way that reduces the level of vitriol, rather than increasing it. Of course, I'd want to see some statements in here from those strongly in favor of keeping the userboxes, but it seems, at least, a good start. Michael Ralston 08:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Weak support - so long as the categories are removed before substing. Physchim62 (talk) 08:46, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • This is a good point, the categories should be removed first. I'd be willing to help with that. Ohh yeah, and of course I Support the overall proposal. --Cyde Weys 19:49, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 12:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Against subst'ing the userboxes:

• Oppose — Factions are bad, but substituting userbox templates is worse. What links here is a very valuable tool that shouldn't be mangled for political reasons. Fix political problems with political solutions. — Omegatron 04:23, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Female infoboxes with body "statistics"

I removed Template:Infobox Female Model Bio from Zöe Salmon and tfded the template as I suspected that it was going to be used on any female celebrity who was vaguely attractive. I was then reprimanded for suggesting the template was sexist on tfd and assured that it should only be used for models. However the user who originally created the model template then created a very similar Template:Infobox_Female_Media_Bio which still lists hair and eye colour, height, weight, and Dress size. Personally I don't think we should be using infoboxes that treat women like some piece of meat but I'd appreciate other peoples views on this. Arniep 11:49, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Female body statistics, in and of themselves, are not encyclopedic. When a particular woman's statistics have been a 'news item' in reliable sources, the coverage can be included in the article. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 12:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps one way to redress balance might be to incorporate into male celebrity infoboxes a field to hold the size of the gentleman's...wallet? --Tony Sidaway 13:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Is that a joke!? Seriously, it is going to make Wikipedia look really stupid if we have these things on every biography page. Arniep 13:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, of course it's a joke. I assumed that using "wallet" as a euphemism would send a pretty strong signal, but this may be a matter of my personal cultural expectations. wikipedia-en is big. --Tony Sidaway 04:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Can someone please add such a box for Tarja Halonen - we're dying to know her stats. BDAbramson T 16:44, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

We have them for porn star articles. I don't even think they should exist on there (not to mention it would fluctuate constantly, methinks). Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 16:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

With models sizes are extremely relevant and important. Not so much for female celebrities, but for models there is no reason not to list them. Seraphim 00:02, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

How about female cartoon characters? --Moby Dick 11:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I think having statistics strictly for models would be appropriate, given that their fashion repertoire makes it relevent. But I wouldn't see a relevenace in having them available for, say, users, being as this is an encyclopedia and not a dating service. Eluchil 11:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem is a lot of celebrities may have modelled at some point in their lives but modelling is no longer considered to be their job. I don't think we should use these stat boxes unless these people are known only as models. Arniep 15:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

As mentioned above, physical stats fluctutate too much to be declared in the abstract. Even if such information is relevant, it should be removed unless a reliable and notable source is cited that indicates when the measurements were taken. Postdlf 16:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorting articles with Norwegian letters

I have created two articles, Berge Østenstad some time ago and Leif Øgaard today. I wonder how they should be sorted into the categories. From looking at the Berge Østenstad history, I see it has been moved backwards and forwards between being sorted under "O" and "Ø" a few times. Note that the letter "Ø" is not just a variation of the letter "O". In the Norwegian language it is the 28th letter of the alphabet, and in a Norwegian encyclopedia you would find articles beginning with "Ø" at the back, only ahead of the articles beginning with "Å". The times I create articles with these letters (Æ, Ø, Å) I try to remember to create redirects with the normal English letters, but sort them using the Norwegian ones.

So my question is should Leif Øgaard and Berge Østenstad be sorted under "O" or "Ø"? Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll suggest a crazy idea, that will be promptly rejected. This is an English encyclopedia, and therefore we should give articles English titles. Now, I'm realist, and that's not happening. I can live with non-English spellings, and even accents. But including "Ø" is going to far, since (as you say), its not a variation of "O" but an entirely separate letter. If we allow this, how can deny all the other characters for various languages? --Rob 13:05, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Added: One problem with "Ø" names is in enormous categories that use {{CategoryTOC}}, which disaplays A-Z at the top. If something is sorted under "Ø", you have to click "Z" if you wish to jump to the end quickly. I don't think that's very intuitive. Clicking "O" seems more natural (for an English speaker). --Rob 13:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

In Spanish, "ñ" is a separate letter from "n", though it's right after "n" in the alphabet. Also, "ll" and "ch" are each traditionally considered a single letter in Spanish, though their language academy fairly recently decided to remove this status. Different languages have different alphabetization rules, which makes things very confusing. Putting characters in their Unicode order won't necessarily match the alphabetization rules of any particular language. The Olympics' opening ceremonies feature the parade of nations in alphabetic order depending on their names in the language of the host country, which can look weird sometimes in English (with or without "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" to contend with). Since this is the English Wikipedia, it should follow current usage and alphabetization in English, but sometimes things (especially proper names) do get written with foreign orthographies even in English text, though the alphabetization in English is done as if the foreign letters were really the corresponding English one, since foreign letter variants aren't separate letters in the English alphabet. "Piñata" would alphabetize the same as "pinata". *Dan T.* 13:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe have a look at #Using diacritics (or national alphabet) in the name of the article above, just above the Dvořák subsection title, a similar issue is discussed for Swedish Ö/ö.

The present guidance can be found at Wikipedia:Categorization#Category sorting. It all depends on whether Norwegian people are prepared to "accept" that "Ø" (a separate character in the original language) is "translated/transcribed/transliterated" in a letter O with a diacritic (however, written the same, as Ø) in English, so in English alphabetically sorted as if it were an "O". My opinion is that if Norwegians can't accept this (invisible) transformation, and take a stance that also in English Ø should be treated as a separate character, alphabetically sorted according to Norwegian rules, in that case that Ø character should not be used in article names for English wikipedia (that is for articles where the content is, I'm not speaking about redirects) - while in that case the name with Ø would still be Norwegian language and not English, and thus not OK with WP:UE.

Hope I didn't make my argument too complicated, and that you can understand what I mean. --Francis Schonken 13:25, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• I personally think that it'd be better to use the Norse-style spelling in cases where things are spellable in Latin8 or a close variant (sort under Ø), but I can't guarantee that there is not an existing policy that would override this. --Improv 17:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for new sister projects

After having dispute concerning Digimon (above), after seeing development of WikiProject Schools and after participating in few AFD discussions about bands and after watching development of new stubs about semi-important people I would like to propose creation of following Wikipedia sister projects:

• WikiSchools – for school articles
• WikiWhoIsWho – for very short articles about semi-important people – wikipedia should take only best articles developed here (I already see problem with duplicating work, but this can be solved by some kind of replication).
• WikiFiction – for detailed articles about fictional universes (Digimon, Pokémon, Starwars, …). Wikipedia should only contain short summary of those.

The reason for this is that detailed articles about these things overflow recent changes are prone to vandalism and therefore add work that could be otherwise given to development of more important articles. These articles are a mirror of contemporary world and are therefore interesting but in my opinion do not belong to an encyclopedia.

I also think that WikiMusic might be also useful. Again to provide information mainly about contemporary music, which can create great resource for studying our time. But most of this information should not belong to the encyclopedia.

Can anybody help me, to present this proposal more formally (I do not know where and how)? --Jan Smolik 13:49, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

If you wish to leave Wikipedia, and make your own Wiki(s), then, best wishes and good luck to you. You can make a wiki that only has the things you are personally interested in. You needn't get any permission or backing, as all the software is freely available. But, don't expect anybody in your "target groups" to leave Wikipedia. --Rob 13:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not want them to leave Wikipedia. I want to create space for more articles that would otherwise be considered for deletion. Many current articles are on the border of our current notability guidelines. We can either change those guidelines, so that these articles could be included or follow precedens with Wictionary and Wikispecies and create sister projects. --Jan Smolik 14:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Look, you'll have to learn to live with not getting your way on some AFDs. Its a fact of life. Crying off, and trying to send others to other projects isn't the solution. So, once again, if you wish to set up another wiki, go and do so. It really has nothing to do with anybody here. --Rob 14:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I can live with this. But for example if I used WP:FICTION as a guideline I could go and merge 90 % of Digimon articles into List of Digimon minor characters per point 2 of this guideline. It would be easy: Name, level, color, attacks, next line. I do not want to do that as I would damage hard work of people who wrote those articles. I actualy do not want to delete those articles. But it is against the rules to have them here. Nobody went ahead to change the rulse and I think that would be strongly oposed. So that I propose creating a sister project for this kind of articles. It is not crying. It is only a logical conclusion. Would you rather wish me to go ahead and propose all Digimon aricles for deletion? Very simmilar think applies to schools. Many of them break current policies. By whoiswho and music I also want to include articles about people and bands that are otherwise deleted from Wikipedia.

Wikipedia should contain information about all these things (Digimon, Bands, People, Schools) but only to the level specified in notability guidelines. --Jan Smolik 14:44, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

What's absurd about your supposed "precedent" Wikispecies, is we still have articles on species. Nobody is thinking of getting rid of them, because of the "sister" project. Not now, not ever. There's Wikitravel (not a sister project, but similiar concept), yet real places remain the most heavily covered component of Wikipedia, where virtually nobody suggests we should delete "non-notable" cities, towns, villages, or even tiny townships (in fact, we probably keep stuff to small for wikitravel). Since *you* have a problem with Wikipedia, and how inclusive it is, it is up to you to deal with it. If you wish to deal with your problem, by making wiki forks, so be it. That's to bad. But, I still fail to see how *your* problem with Wikipedia, is anybody elses. You know as well as I do, that if the rules supported you, and you could delete the content you don't like, you would. Your just making your proposal, because of your frustration at total and complete failure to convince others that the rules of inclusion should be what you want. --Rob 15:43, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Why the hostility? The user proposing these ideas is being perfectly reasonable. ike9898 16:34, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, in each of the categories, the user is seeking the removal of a majority of content from Wikipedia. The removal of thousands of articles, is not slightly reasonable. When stuff is kept on AFD, people need to move on, and let it go. There is nothing in the proposal that would make Wikipedia better. Yet, tremendous value from Wikipedia would be removed. This user wishes to see not only large classes of articles leave Wikipedia, but classes of users go with them. I think when people make such suggestions, they should contemplate the consequences. --Rob 18:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

You seem very emotionally invested in this issue, but you need to remember to be civil. Not only is it a rule of Wikipedia, but it is easier to convince others to take your side if you're not being visibly nasty to the other side. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 19:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Not really a useful proposal. I don't see how splitting all of Wikipedia up into different pieces would either reduce vandalism or focus our efforts on "more important" articles. It seems to me that it would just make things inconvenient. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:44, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that the other sister projects exist because they have separate, incompatible content policies: e.g. on language, original research, NPOV, etc. There's no such clear distinction for the new projects you suggest. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:48, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it is also the case of Sister projects I proposed. For example schools will keep having problems with verifiability. Many "redundant" fiction space articles do not have sufficient context to become featured articles one day. With every Digimon/Star Wars/Star Trek character or vehicle you have to include information what Digimon/Star Wars/Star Trek is. Sister project can receive different organization of articles so there will not be urgent need for having context in any article. As with WhoIsWho it is a problem that basic notability criterion (as I feel it) in Wikipedia is that the article can grow to the featured quality one day (can but not necessarily will). With many people, their article will probably never grow from stub, because there will never be enough information. Also WhoIsWho might receive different policy regarding original research (for example actualy asking person we are writing about).

As for splitting into pieces. I think Wiki model can only work in communies of certain size. It does not work in too small (the case of Czech Wikipedia) but also in too large. I think that Wikipedia is slowly approaching this border and community is getting too large. So I think splitting is only a question of time. I think it is not a qustion If we will split but When. Anyway, individual WikiProjects already have policies incompatible with the rest of Wikipedia (example is diacritics policy of WikiProject Ice-Hockey)

Currently there is a backclog in many tasks. I think those backclogs can be cleared much more easily if splitted into more of them. The option to Sister projects is mandatory categorization of every article to let's say 10 basic categories and possibility to filter articles in Recent Changes and in those backclogs. But in current state this category filtering (or filtering in more categories) is not implemented yet, and most new articles are started uncategorized. --Jan Smolik 15:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Policy/guideline on "famous residents" for cities

Is there a policy or guideline addressing lists of "famous residents" in city/town articles? - Chris 14:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. These lists, of course, have a subjective element to them. I would propose that it is appropriate to add any name that already has a non-stub article. For some cities, this list could get very long, so it would be appropriate to break it off into a separate article. But at that point, it would probably better to deal with it as a category ( Category:Residents of Paris ). ike9898 17:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I think who's included very much depends on the size of the community. If it's a RAMBOT-only article for very small community, devoid of any human content, I'll put any anybody with an article (stub or not), and even a article-worthy redlink, just so there's some content beyond RAMBOT demographics. If the article and/or community is bigger, I'll be much more selective. For major cities, I think you want a category. But, I don't think there's any universal rule. --Rob 18:13, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Gods or Men?

Are admins users who must follow the rules that apply to all users? Is adminship an assigned task or a reward? Are admins entitled to conduct themselves in an overbearing manner, lording it over the little people? Is adminship itself an entitlement that must be granted to any user with a high edit count? What is adminship -- or better, what is adminship not?

These points are addressed in the policy proposal Wikipedia:What adminship is not. This cuts off commonly mistaken ideas about adminship in the tradition of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not.

I call for all users to participate in the discussion on talk and help to establish answers to the questions above. John Reid 17:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

External Links: Is a link to a Google map acceptable?

If a Wiki entry corresponds to a physical location, like a museum, would it be acceptable to add an External Link to the address in Google maps? Seems OK to me, but I don't know about any underlying licenses or other etiquette.

I've added it to the article for the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. --GregCovey 19:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It is legal, if that's what you mean. But it's much better, in general, to use one of the geo-xxx templates, which link to a wide variety of sources, including google maps - e.g. {{geolinks-US-cityscale|37.429289|-122.138162}}, ({{coor dms|37|16|05|N|115|47|58|W|}}, or {{gbmapping|NS705945}}. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd call it acceptable (there certainly aren't any licensing issues with mere links, and linking is the purpose of the Internet), but I don't see how it would ordinarily help an article. For example, in the article you gave all the link provides is the location of the gardens. Since the article already linked to the gardens' website, any reader could have gotten that information himself and performed such a search using any mapping tool they wanted: Yahoo, Google, or Rand McNally. If there's a decent sattellite image available it might be nice to add, but I don't see how showing the location on a street map helps. Somebody decided a long time ago that rather than linking to books on Amazon we'd provide a page that links to books by ISBN on many, many different online booksellers, so we wouldn't be systematically providing implicit endorsement to a particular bookseller. I'd say there's a bit of the same principle here, too: we don't want to use Wikipedia to favor a particular mapping tool provider. I'd say leave the link out, though I wouldn't consider it a big deal if it's left in. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 19:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

(after edit conflict): sounds like we already have templates to handle this. I'd say use one of them if all you're showing is how to find the location. Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 19:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Torrent Links

What is WP policy on torrent links being added to articles? BorisFromStockdale has added links to torrentspy to a few Star Trek Deep Space Nine articles. Currently there is one linked on the bottom of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. This may be clearly against policy and will be removed by a more knowledgeable editor - but I just thought I would ask for clarification anyway, as technically it isn't illegal, but it is putting WP into a grey area of the web.SFC9394 20:31, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• Well, direct links to places you can BUY DVD's or videos are generally frowned upon. So it seems that direct link to places you can steal them would probably be at best, viewed with the same level of suspicion. His links add nothing in the way of information, so I have removed them. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:54, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• It's not illegal, but it's still dirty, and we shouldn't be doing it. Raul654 21:55, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• That is roughly what I expected, but I didn't want to remove them all in case it was ok. I shall rv any edits containing torrent links if any more are edited in.SFC9394 22:12, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• There's no reason for them whatsoever. Torrents are notoriously fleeting, what is a good torrent today will probably be dead in a fortnight. Also, um, no. --Golbez 22:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

This user has some other odd contributions; see e.g. the images at User:66.122.0.126. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I saw that when checking out his contribs. It looks like he is part of some sort of homework answer sharing ring or something. The static IP that he posts to appears to be his high school IP. Don't know whether this contravenes rules and regs, but it certainly isn't encyclopedic. He added to the IP talk page:

"I decided to start uploading old homework to this website. I do not advocate plagirism, but you are free to use it for any purpose!"

Firstly, not the place to be doing that (even if it was enclyclopedic), and secondly user pages aren't supposed to be unofficial notice boards for institutions.SFC9394 23:05, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

IFD the lot, Wikipedia is not a file repository. --Golbez 23:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I am just going to go through the whole lot now - I will add a summary piece to his talk page outlining what is wrong.SFC9394 23:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I think torrent like to something "free" such as NASA documents, Linux OS's would be acceptable, as long as they were clearly marked as torrent links (a torrent icon perhaps?) Tawker 17:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

non notable

Can someone reassure me that the fact that someone slams a door on a film set is not notable. If people agree with that can someone please block User:Monkey68 who keeps trying to add it to Cameron Diaz despite my warnings? Thanks Arniep 23:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

We don't block people for persistently adding info, even trivial info, unless they violate the three-revert rule. If the user knows about the rule (warn him!), and reverts more than 3 times in 24 hours, then you can report it at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. Just remember that the 3RR applies to you as well. Admins aren't in the business of blocks based on our personal judgement of how trivial a fact is. -- SCZenz 02:30, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you are probably wrong on that as I think we aim not to include non notable information. We just can't allow people to add every tiny detail of what a person has done in their lives. Arniep 15:42, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

No, you're wrong. We don't block edits made in good faith, and evidently this user thinks this fact should be included - this should be resolved by discussion on the article's talk page. Deco 19:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you're wrong. If I added often slams car doors, often wears shoes to articles would this be a notable fact for a celebrity? There comes a point when info is such stupidly trivial normal behaviour that adding it can be seen as vandalism. Arniep 22:04, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Synopsis of future policies?

Heyo - long story short, I've ended up writing an opinion piece on whether it's a good idea for students to use Wikipedia when doing research. As part of this, I wanted to briefly mention Wikipedia's future plans to make Wikipedia more stable/reliable. I read in the nature.com Britannica/Wikipedia comparison that there were plans to A. have a 'stable article' system, where once an article was deemed accurate/complete enough it would have a frozen 'stable' version and a seperate, 'live version, and B. to have a sort of article review system. I haven't found any other information on A, and am not entirely sure what B means. Could someone direct me to information on future Wikipedia plans, or give me a synopsis? And while I've used Wikipedia for years I've never quite figured out how to navigate the community parts, so this may very well be the wrong place to ask this question - if it is, please direct me to somewhere more appropiate. Thanks! Aerothorn 01:52, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

My take on your query: Jimbo (Jimmy Wales) has talked about doing those things, and, yeah, a lot of us think it's a good idea, but right now we're busy writing an encyclopedia. More seriosly, those topics haven't really gotten beyond more or less idle chatter, unless someone is seriously working on them in some obscure corner I haven't stumnbled across. When the time is ripe, I'm sure some editors will start putting a proposal together. That's the way most things work in here. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 02:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The m:Article validation feature was originally intended to go live in January, but it is being rewritten [8] and has no firm date at present. Stable versions...well, there's Wikipedia:Stable versions, but that's only putative. Tim Starling (a developer) was, according to Jimbo, working on 'delayed gratification' so that an edit would only appear once approved, but I never managed to find a link to a discussion about that. -Splash^talk 02:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

You can also check Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team and Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Core_topics ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

An End to the Userbox WArs?

In case anyone missed it, a poll opened at Wikipedia:Userbox policy poll which, I think, stands a chance at ending the bloodshed. Current tally is 26 yay and 4 nay (not that it is a vote or anything). BrokenSegue 04:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Internal linking proper names

I wasn't able to find a policy or guideline on this: I ususally create an internal link for a proper name of a person, first in the hope that when I preview the current article, I will see the link in blue and know that the linked article exists and the spelling is correct. The person whose name appears in square brackets would merit an article according to our rules for the creation of a biographical article on him or her. Of course, not everyone whose name appears now in the Wikipedia will have their own article, but many will.

When the link is red, and the spelling is correct, I know that an article doesn't exist for this person and I can either create the article now, or when I reread the current article in a few weeks and the link is in red then that's a reminder (to me or to anyone) to write the article.

Is there a reason for anyone to manually or robotically remove these internal links? patsw 05:47, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

"A" reason? Sure, at least two: Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context and Wikipedia:Notability. The relevancy criterion is easily hurdled for almost all uses of proper names. But the notability question is legitimate. For instance, in an article about a historic figure, if you say, "she had three sons, Ewan, Gregor, and Seamus", linking any of the names would be incorrect unless the linked son was notable in his own right.

Simply removing redlinks on sight would be improper editing behavior, though I have noticed it happen during article cleanup (for instance, sometimes people have objected to Featured Article candidates on the basis of too many redlinks). No bot can determine notability, so an autonomous (not human-driven) bot should not be employed to remove redlinks.

By the way: the previewing behavior you describe, while laudable, isn't quite sufficient. We often end up with rather humorous linkages based on proper name collision—say, you click on the link of the name of the current mayor of a town and get an article about a 16th-century poet. You should click through these links before saving to be sure they are the correct articles and not disambiguation pages or another person with the same name (or a misspelling thereof). --TreyHarris 07:16, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

There isn't a Wikipedia:Notability guideline. It's an essay in the Wikipedia project space. However, for the former link, I am grateful since it includes this text:

• Major connections with the subject of another article that will help readers to understand the current article more fully (see the example below). This can include people, events and topics that already have an article or that clearly deserve one, as long as the link is relevant to the article in question.

If, for example, there's an article about an author, and it mentions another author, both of similiar prominence and importance, you'd put in the link -- in the expectation that you or someone else will eventually write the article. And it doesn't improve the article to remove such a link. patsw 05:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Right, I'm aware that notability isn't a guideline. But linking to a non-notable name seems like a bad idea by concatenation of other policies. If someone clicks a redlinked name, tries to stub it out, and can't find any references to the individual except in reference to the other article's topic, going back to the redlink and removing the link seems legitimate to me. --TreyHarris 20:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Permission received from TIME MAGAZINE for covers and text

We asked Time Magazine if it was okay to use the cover photos. Subject: RE: AskArchivist Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 10:51:30 -0500 From: Bonnie_Kroll at timeinc.com Thanks for submitting your question to Ask the Archivist. Fair use doctrine allows you to use a reasonable text excerpt with a link back to the entire article at time.com. You may also use a thumbnail of our cover images, as long as you link back to a page on time.com. Best regards, Bonnie Kroll Ask the Archivist http://www.timearchives.com Rjensen 11:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe this fair use applies to all magazines already. feydey 02:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Three revert rule page

There is a discussion on Wikipedia talk:Three revert rule over the policy and changes made to the page. Some users believe the spirit of the policy has changed since originally voted on and adopted as policy. Other users feel the the changes made and the practice of the new implementations applied make it substantial enough to hold new changes, yet their was no formal process of consensus beyond that.

Discussion has led to the point where even an admin has threatened a user with a block from Wikipedia if the user reverts a recent change by another admin to the policy, which essentially changes the spirit of the policy by force without discussion. Any attempts to discuss the changes have led to some admins complaint of "wasting time" or "trying to game the system." An attempt to add a tag by two different users on the policy page to advertise {{ActiveDiscussion}} has led to the revert of that tag and the response of "there is no discussion."

One user reported the changes to wikien-l and immediately declared the page an edit war despite attempts to establish discussion.

The 3RR page needs attention from a well rounded group of users to establish a neutral policy. It appears at a first glance that a few admins have joined together and outnumbered the views of the other users, which is clearly not a neutral view and has not demonstrated any attempt to try for a neutral view and update policy by means of a established procedure.

— Dzonatas 14:05, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The 3RR and "...in whole or in part..."

In this edit, SlimVirgin altered the 3RR rule. In this edit, he altered the nutshell synopsis. I have no reason to think that SV was not attempting to clarify policy in good faith. I have every reason to believe, however, that this change slipped in largely unnoticed and unconsidered by the community. As these edits have problematic— and unconsidered— consequences, I am challenging them.

• This change marks a dramatic expansion of the scope of the 3RR rule, but I see no evidence that "consensus was reached", or that "changes [made] to this policy reflect consensus before [they were made]", as required by {{policy}}. It appears that it was simply changed, without establishing that such practice either did not in fact violate official policy, or that it wasn't an oversimplification of official policy.

• As to the danger of opening this particular door, many benign edits would constitute partial reverts, but this overbroad change makes them all subject to 3RR, bypassing the criteria elaborated below for careful exceptions. This is not supported by any discussion in evidence that I know of. Note that WP:REVERT only acknowledged whole reverts, until it was hastily changed when I raised this challenge.

• Because of the broad spectrum of benign edits which would fall under the rule, this would make 3RR less like an electric fence as originally intended, and more like a minefield. One would often be unaware one had violated the rule.

• In particular, this change makes most good faith edits in compromise 3RR-countable, which especially undermines the 1RR principle.

• There is no evidence that the change actually advances the objectives of 3RR, though it does make it far easier for admins to block users. The issue of dealing with those who would game the system when edit warring has been raised repeatedly, but without any explanation of why the in whole or in part language is necessary to do so.

• Not entirely without reason, 3RR violators are highly stigmatized. This makes challenges to any unjust application of the rule virtually impossible. By dramatically increasing the scope of edits subject to 3RR, this gives admins the perogative to so brand virtually any contributor who resists an edit as a 3RR violator, with little hope of just review. This has consequences for both NPOV and anyone can edit, both core Foundation principles.

Thus far, discussion on the talk page has been dominated by a small handfull of admins outraged at the suggestion that in whole or in part is problematic. Particularly worrying is their repeated refusal to allow the {{activediscussion}} flag on the WP:3RR page, effectively hiding the discussion from other community members referencing the rule.

I would like to test community concern by posting this here at the pump. Even if you concur with the change, I would ask you to address your concerns in the discussion, so as to have some record of community feeling on the matter.

StrangerInParadise 02:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Defense of content

Salute to All - I request that you please examine and consider Wikipedia:Defense of content, which is a collection of ideas to fight vandalism better. Rama's Arrow 16:24, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Using a '/' denotes a subpage?

Does using a slash in an article that doesn't require a '/' automatically mean that page is a subpage, and subsequently against WP:SP. For example, would List of United Kingdom locations/A be against policy but List of United Kingdom locations - A or List of United Kingdom locations:A not be? Pepsidrinka 17:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd say "use common sense" - replacing a backslash with some other character doesn't really make it any less a subpage in practice, even if it's not technically a subpage. And we're not about to delete CP/M or other such articles. I think it's fine like it is. Deco 17:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

If CP/M is the actual title for something, which it seems to be, then it is fine. If you took the moment to glance at WP:SP, it has a section that allows titles that have a slash within their names. Pepsidrinka 22:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The issue is described at wikipedia:naming conventions (common names)#Subpages - the "automatic subpage" is disabled for main ("article") namespace, but still works in other namespaces. In main namespace, subpages have no specific "software" characteristics (but they do have naming conventions, as explained in the guideline linked above) --Francis Schonken 19:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Re. examples used by Pepsi, see also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists) (historical guideline, maybe time to reactivate it?) --Francis Schonken 19:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

This should probably be reactivated, for consistency's sake. Pepsidrinka 22:58, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (long lists) now again under "proposed" flag, please proceed.

I'd also recommend listing this (again) as proposal at wikipedia:current surveys and/or Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies

Also, best to insert again in Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Conventions under consideration

The thing is, if nobody is prepared to follow this up until a consensual type of naming conventions guideline results (possibly with more than one accepted format), the page will probably sooner or later be re-classified historical. --Francis Schonken 17:03, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Changes to policy

From the earlier #HMAINS comments thread about the date-linking change to the MoS. I call it out here because it's caused me to consider the differing expectations people have about how guidelines (and to a lesser extent all policies) can change over time:

The guidance is not long-standing. Do a random pages test, and see just how many pages (which haven't been hit by Bobblewik) have date links. It's been massive longstanding practice to link dates, and this was never an issue until Bobblewik fired up a bot and started making changes en masse. Bots do not make disputed edits. I'm all ears if Bobblewik wishes to talk, but if he doesn't, I will (and am proceeding to) shoot said disputed bot edits on sight. Ambi 04:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think your argument here is entirely correct. Policies have usually arisen by describing the best practices of our best editors. But (rarely) policy does go against common practice current at the time in the Wikipedia, and that does not make the policy unenforceable or even lacking in consensus. If it did, we would never have been able to switch from having introductory paragraphs with [[Title]] rather than '''Title''', since, at the time of the change, nearly every article used the form now considered incorrect. --TreyHarris 04:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The difference there is that there was consensus support for that change. There isn't here - there was no widely publicised vote expressing support for that, and most people are still linking years in their own articles today. Policies have usually arisen by describing the best practices of our best editors, you're right. Occasionally, due to the size of the place, a handful of editors who agree on something can try to slip it in by the back door. When that happens, it still doesn't override four years of common practice. Ambi 05:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Over the past three years observing Wikipedia policy, I think I've observed two major but very divergent points of view with regards to policy and guideline changes, which I'd summarize as:

1. Be bold in making policies better. Editors who think a point of policy is incorrect, or see a way to make a guideline better, first simply edit the policy page to change it. They assume that those who care will be watching the policy page, and will revert it, dispute it, or use the other mechanisms we're all accustomed to in the article space. If the change remains undisputed for some period of time, then the changed text is every bit as actionable as any text previously in the guideline.
2. Get consensus first, then edit. Editors who have a problem with language in a guideline should first comment on the policy's talk page asking for consensus to change it. If no one responds, some editors will go ahead and make the change, but this does not appear to be universal. Any change made without following this process does not have consensus and is hence inactionable. A policy page that has been riddled with unreverted edits made without prior consensus can be considered "rotten" and the whole may become less actionable because of the bad edits.

Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines is silent on which of these views is correct, except for noting, "Amendments to a guideline should be discussed on its talk page, not on a new page - although it's generally acceptable to edit a guideline to improve it." "Generally acceptable" is, as someone said recently, a hole large enough to fly a large cargo plane through. Wikipedia:No binding decisions reaffirms that policies are subject to change by consensus, but does not prescribe a mechanism for doing so—though it does seem to affirm the idea that voting or a formalized amendment process is not necessary for change.

The problem with the lack of clarity on which change philosophy is right should be clear. The consequences of this lack of clarity show up on this page nearly every day.

Those who adhere to the "be bold" philosophy will participate in consensus discussions started by those adhering to the "get consensus first" philosophy, though they may complain about the overuse of process ("{{sofixit}}" or the like) or boldly incorporate the text suggested while people are still discussing it. They will generally perceive any text that has been stable in a guideline as actionable, and will behave accordingly, even to creating bots or running high-velocity, semi-automated edits to enforce the guidance. The idea that a statement that has persisted in a policy for a long time may not actually represent current policy is incomprehensible to them. They are liable to treat those in the other camp as whiners ("{{sofixit}}"), opportunists ("you're only complaining because you don't like the guidance"), or worse.

Those who follow the "get consensus first" philosophy are generally (it appears to me) less attentive to changes in policy until one surprises them. They point out that they're busy writing an encyclopedia, and the velocity of changes across policy pages is too great for them to audit each one to see if they disagree with it. They will assume that any important change would be brought to their attention one way or another (either at the village pump, or via a new section on a policy talk page). Any change that occurs without being brought to their attention is illegitimate, and a policy that has been extensively edited without prior consensus to do so is, at best, suspect ("a big ball of mud") and at worst has become completely inactionable from the weight of illegitimate edits.

Both sides accuse the other of wikilawyering from time to time. And in fact, the disputes that erupt tend to generate much heat but little light, with both sides at least insinuating that the others are not acting in good faith. Sometimes the result is a movement to ratify or reject the disputed policy change via a new consensus discussion or vote—which the "be bold" adherents will usually submit to, with some grumbling, because in their world view, the discussion should have already taken place following a quick revert of the original change. The new discussion does not address the legitimacy of the original edit, and so the question remains unanswered. Other times, the "get consensus first" adherents will simply walk away, dismissing the policy as no longer actionable. By their very (in)action, they reduce the value of the policy as a dispute resolution aid.

Not everyone falls into these two camps, naturally. My intuition is that it's something of a bimodal distribution. Even the boldest policy editor would think twice before making a major change to WP:NPOV without discussing it first, and even the strongest advocate of getting prior consensus would likely think nothing of updating a minor guideline in a straightforward way to account for a new software feature.

This suggests an avenue of compromise, one that most editors would probably already agree with me on: that sweeping changes that affect a large number of pages or editors or should be discussed prior to editing, and that minor changes that affect very little can be made without prior discussion. But what about all the other cases? When should prior consensus be expected? And is a change made without prior consensus illegitimate? If so, shouldn't all such changes be reverted as soon as they are discovered?

I think a policy change policy is called for here. I'm willing to write up a proposal, but I'd like to get some feedback first, in case I've misjudged the issues. (Please don't take that as evidence that I'm hostile to the "be bold" camp. ;-) --TreyHarris 09:40, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your offer to write a proposal. IMHO it is however not needed. The thing is, the Policy & guideline templates already take care of that. They're already on every policy/guideline page (or should be), and contain short formulations of when and under what conditions changes can take place:

• {{Policy}}: Feel free to edit the page as needed, but please make sure that changes you make to this policy reflect consensus before you make them.
• {{Guideline}}s: Feel free to update the page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose any major changes.

So for policy: consensus is needed, the word consensus linking to Wikipedia:Consensus. That page is supposed to make clear how consensus works in wikipedia context. If it doesn't, please update that page.

For guidelines, minor changes are distinguished from major changes. What distinguishes a "minor" from a "major" change is not defined. Can it be defined? My shortest definition would be: a major change is a change that is likely to be disputed. A minor change is a change that is not likely to be disputed. If you perform a change you thought to be minor, and it is disputed nonetheless, well, then it is a major change isn't it? In that case: use the talk page and sort it out (like you would do with any other major change). I don't see a need to give a more elaborate philosphical definition of this minor vs. major distinction (what would that add?) --Francis Schonken 16:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I was preparing a response to the points you raise when I saw this edit. What in the world? I point out what I think is a problem, you respond essentially that no, it is not a problem, a third party responds that it is a problem in a different case from the one I used as an exemplar (thus backing up my argument that it is a widespread problem)—and you move the other editor's comment into the discussion about that particular problem? And you mark that edit minor? I'm just stunned. --TreyHarris 17:17, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, didn't mean no harm. I thought SIP had meant it to be a repeat of his/her previous piece, so I moved these pieces together. (S)he had separated from your topic by a pagewide line, hadn't (s)he? If that was not SIP's intention, please move back here. --Francis Schonken 17:25, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

To respond to Francis Schonken's original points:

You cite {{policy}} and {{guideline}} as evidence that there's no confusion here, but those templates themselves have had stable language for only about four months now, and I don't see any evidence of any consensus votes for them. Surely a template that has the weight of policy should be considered policy in and of themselves, shouldn't they?

In any case, even if those templates do represent policy, I don't think the situation is nearly so clear-cut. For one thing, there's no definition of what "feel free to edit the page as needed" or "major changes" means. "Feel free" in these two templates links to WP:BOLD. The discussion in the WP:BOLD guideline is definitely article-oriented; it does not even mention updates to policy. It talks about using care when updating "controversial" pages, but in the policy space it would seem like the least controversial policies, such as WP:NPOV, are the ones we'd want extra care exercised with. It also links to Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, which appears to be exactly what the "be bold" camp I described above is following.

As for "major change", it is neither defined nor linked. One might take "major change" to mean "non-minor change", in which case we could link to Wikipedia:Minor edit (whose disposition seems amorphous to me; it's marked as neither policy nor guideline). This seems patently wrong to me, however, as there seems to be wide acceptance of making straightforward edits to guidelines, even if they could not be marked minor because they actually change content.

You point out that Wikipedia:Consensus is linked, and I agree that this helps to clarify the situation with regards to policies. But this says nothing about how to handle unreverted changes that are later claimed to have lacked consensus, which seems to be the issue in the 3RR dispute. It also does not help us with the guidelines situation that arose in the Bobblewik dispute.

The real problem is that, regardless of how one defines the line between changes that should be discussed prior to editing, there seems to be no consensus whatsoever for what to do after such edits are made without prior discussion. Should they be reverted on sight, even if they seem to make the policy better? Should an editor who does this repeatedly be subject to sanction? If the change is not reverted, what represents policy: the revision people actually see in article space, or some mishmash of past versions that does not actually exist on any page, current or historical?

I still believe that there is actually a problem here. Policies and guidelines are dispute resolution aids. If the policy is, as you seem to think, clear, you should be able to make an easy ruling on any of the disputes arising recently: the date-linking issue, the 3RR edit, the change to editor's choice on curly quotation marks. Are you willing to do so? If not, there's a problem, and it needs to be addressed. --TreyHarris 03:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Moved back here, sorry for the inconvenience, my fault:

Page-wide lines are to demarcate successive multi-paragraph posts to a discussion where indenting is less practical. Had you read my entry— or even the title — you'd have seen it was a supportive response to TreyHarris' post. Why would I just repeat what I said above? StrangerInParadise 21:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

---

A case in point: 3RR and in whole or in part

The characterization of those less attentive to changes in policy until one surprises them[, as] they're busy writing an encyclopedia, and the velocity of changes across policy pages is too great for them to audit each one to see if they disagree with it, certainly applies to me and my concern over in whole or in part. The challenges I has encountered in raising the matter are a case in point as to how policy changes or is preserved.

When I saw the change, I asked myself how recent it was and weighed that against that so broad a change went in with no apparent discussion. This in my mind overrode the sense that by sitting unchallenged for a few months, it had gained legitimacy. For raising the concern, I found myself immediately the brunt of cries of wikilawyering and gaming the system, which tended to obscur my actual concern: the dynamics of a policy change which undermined core foundation principles of neutral point of view and anyone can edit by rendering a broad spectrum of edits, especially edits in compromise, 3RR-countable.

This took what was to be an electric fence, a bright line not to be crossed, and rendered it a minefield, where one might not even realize one had violated the rule, spirit or letter. One could find oneself in a harmonious editing session with a collaborator, exchanging edits in compromise and tacitly accepting corrections of fact, only to find edits in that session counted towards 3RR when reverting an outsider once.

The deeper and more general paradox is that policy changes affect most disproportionately those editors who are unlikely to read policy pages.

How does one raise such a concern? First I reverted the changes (once), explaining the challenge and informing interested parties. A call went out to admins to prevent an edit war on the 3RR page— one can see here the genesis of what followed. Although I have never in the several years at Wikipedia been blocked for 3RR, I was immediately accused of edit warring, gaming the system, etc. An element to any policy discussion is the deeply biased outlook admins have about non-admins, particularly those concerned about 3RR issues. Towards anyone actually stigmatized by a 3RR block, the bias is considerably worse.

Although the matter is clearly in dispute, the {{activediscussion}} flag was repeated removed from WP:3RR, with admin threats of blocking and disruption. This brings us to another point: admins watch policy pages (good), but often act like they own policy pages (bad). Removing the flag would appear to be an attempt to starve the discussion of new participants. It is certainly against policy to forcibly remove the flag, but threats of blocking for disruption keep it off.

In principle, WP:CIVIL, WP:OWN, etc, should suffice to allow a reasoned consideration of the matter. Clearly, policy has to resist random attacks by the merely disgruntled in order to maintain coherence. However, with the manner of unsanctioned force and incivility now propping the policy up, how can it claim to be the result of legitimate consensus?

StrangerInParadise 16:54, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

---

Support: I support to create a policy about policy changes. TreyHarris covered some really good points. Although there are template tags, they do not discribe or prescribe methods to resolve dispute resolution or further consensus with a policy already in place or with minor changes over time. There is a page that describes how to create policy, so there should be one on how to maintain and change policy or guidelines. — Dzonatas 18:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Community assent

A process for the community to give assent to specific versions of policy or guidelines may help achieve the goal expressed above to allow those that want to be bold while those that want consensus first to work together. The basic idea is to mark a specific version of a page for nomination, and someone else must seconded the nomination. Once their is a second, a copy of the specified version is placed on a new subpage, and discussion continues on the new talk page for consensus about that specified version. The process is based on a piece of parliamentary procedure combined with ideas from Wikipedia:Stable version. There is more detail to this, and I'll move this dicussion to Wikipedia:Community assent. — Dzonatas 23:42, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Internal linking years and decades

What opinions have you on passing through articles adding internal links to each of the unique year and decade references? Is that helping the reader or just increasing someone's edit count? patsw 05:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Dates and numbers is correct. Years and decades should be linked only when they are particularly relevant to the article. Personally, I have yet to work on an article where I thought any year was particularly relevant to the article. I do link full dates to enable preference formatting. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 13:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Suggested name change for Wikipedia:Remove personal attacks

I've started a discussion about changing the name of WP:RPA here; rationale can be found there. In short, it ought to be changed to "Refactor personal attacks" given what the guideline actually says to do with personal attacks. android79 22:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

American Idol semifinalists

This may be a rather trivial subject, but it is nonetheless relevant to fancruft and notability concerns. I've redirected any current American Idol semifinalist to the American Idol (Season 5) page who does not have other accomplishments meriting an article (such as Lisa Tucker, who was also a Star Search finalist and a cast member in a production of the Lion King musical); if they make the finals, they can get an article back. This is not only sensible in my view, but based on previous discussions on Wikipedia on this issue. However, there have been a couple complaints raised about this on the season article's talk page, in which the opinion has been expressed that even many of those cut prior to the semifinals are notable enough for an article, simply by virtue of having appeared on the show, however briefly.

There is simply a severe drop-off in coverage and fan awareness between even the least notable of finalists[9] and the average semifinalist[10]. These articles, if not redirected, would be nothing but lists of the one or two songs they sung on Idol before being cut, and maybe what town they are from (consider the pre-redirect version of one current semifinalist's article). To the extent that it's necessary to include that scant information at all, the season articles are quite capable of incorporating it.

Please leave comments on the talk page so we can be saved the trouble of an AFD for every last one of these; currently all semifinalists from prior seasons are also redirected to the appropriate season article if they have no other accomplishments, and I'd hate to see these springing back into substubs. And I'm sure everyone else would also hate to see "articles" for everyone who's never even managed to endure 15 minutes of fame on TV. Postdlf 00:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Pop Idol run in at least 35 countries, so that what we realy need is to have articles about all the finalists and preferably all the semifinalists. Look only on the many inviting red links in the Czech version of the Pop Idol.--Jan Smolik 22:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Template self-linking question

I'd like to canvass some opinions on this question. A user (not me!) is seeking to include a link to a template's talk page within the template itself, so that every page that shows the template will also provide a link to the template's talk page. His justification is that it will enable people to "see what is going on" with the template in question.

While it's certainly technically possible to include a link to a template talk page within a template, is it a good idea? I personally have strong reservations; I'm not aware of this being common practice (or even done at all, as I've never seen any examples of it) but I don't see anything in Wikipedia:Template namespace that would rule it out. What do the rest of you think? -- ChrisO 01:08, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Generally no, since we should be trying hard to keep non-article content out of articles. Which template in particular? Is it a content-related template template? -Splash^talk 01:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I am the editor. I pointed the link to the template page, Template:ScientologySeries and not to the talk page. I used the word "article", appearing in the first sentence on the template which says: "This article forms part of the series on" and I linked. At no time did I ever link to the talk page. ChrisO has misstated my action. Terryeo 07:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

(via EC) I guess this would depend on the template. If it's one that is only used on back-channel pages (User:, Wikipedia:, Talk:, etc.), then I don't see any pressing reason not to place such a link. If, on the other hand, it's an article-space template, and not one like {{npov}} or a stub tag, then it probably shouldn't include links to any page outside the namespaces that are actually part of the encyclopedia (i.e. articles, templates, and categories are okay; anything else is not). Wikipedia:Avoid self-references is the relevant guideline.

Many templates include {{ed}} or some variation thereon; maybe you could encourage this person to use that instead? —Charles P._(Mirv) 01:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The template is Template:ScientologySeries. The user in question seems to be unhappy with the way the template is laid out and apparently wants to publicise its talk page as widely as possible. Personally I don't think this is appropriate, but I wanted to know if there's any sort of general formulation on self-references within templates. I think WP:ASR probably covers it - thanks. -- ChrisO 01:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I appriciate that you're able to view so deeply into my motivations for raising the question, but actually my motivations were as you first presented them, ChrisO. It would allow a user to view the template by itself and engage in its discussion page. ty. Terryeo 02:27, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

(editconflict)Wikipedia:Avoid self-references is pretty much global in scope. A talkpage link on an article space template is clearly inappropriate. The editor in question should request comments or something. But not in a way that so directly impacts article work with behind-the-scenes work — people take our content and redistribute it and such self-references make it rather poor material for them. -Splash^talk 01:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

removing {prod}

Is it proper for someone to remove a { { prod } } (proposal for deletion) from an article? This just happened on Conspiracy factualist. Will that removal keep it from being condidered for deletion? Bubba73 (talk), 02:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is proper to remove a prod tag; you can take that as a sign that the proposed deletion is not unopposed. No, it will not keep it from being considered for deletion; if the tag's been removed without the problems that the prod tag identified actually being fixed, by all means just list the article directly for deletion on AFD. Postdlf 02:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe the purpose of the prod tag is for non-contentious articles. If someone feels that the article should stay, they can remove the tag. If you still feel it needs to be deleted, just follow the AfD route. Pepsidrinka 02:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I don't think I've seen 'prod' before. It is a new article, someone put up 'prod', and on the talk page I agreed with the deletion, but then the original author removed the 'prod', so I take that as meaning that he disagrees with the deletion. Bubba73 (talk), 03:05, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

It's actually a recreation; it was prodded before, deleted, and then reposted. I've listed it on AFD, so we can go ahead and kill it good now. The prod template is rather new; see Wikipedia:Proposed deletion for an explanation of this experimental policy. Postdlf 03:14, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Are admins permitted to revert my comments to other users?

Ambi has been reverting my edits using the rollback function.

• I've had enough of this. As of now, I will rollback each and every single edit of yours unlinking dates. How much of your and my time you choose to waste in continuing to do so is up to you. Ambi 01:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Did you think I was kidding? Every unlinking you made today is gone. The same will happen every day until you actually start to talk and work towards some sort of compromise, rather than sticking up your middle finger at anyone who disagrees with you. Ambi 09:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
• ...and again. Ambi 05:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators says Do not use one-click rollback on edits that are not simple vandalism, not even to reverse a mistake of your own making. Please use manual rollback with an appropriate edit summary.

Now she has started using rollback to remove my comments for user talk pages. Am I now forbidden from talking to other users? Please help me. bobblewik 10:42, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The approach which both Ambi and Bobblewick seem to be adopting results in a winner/loser outcome on this issue. I fail to see why Bobblewick feels so absolutely confident that this "style" is appropriate on every page, just as I fail to see why this style is absolutely wrong on every page (at least, I assume that Ambi reverts this style on every page no matter who has adopted it, because any other course of action would be simple victimisation, would it not?) David91 11:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think this is not the place to discuss this. Why don't you try dispute resolution? -- Michalis Famelis 12:56, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I would be happy too, if I knew where. Can you suggest the place? bobblewik 13:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Start here: Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. --Michalis Famelis 14:37, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Um, just out of simple curiosity, why the <censored> is bobblewick unlinking dates in the first place? Kim Bruning 15:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Not dates - years and months, ie. January 2006. violet/riga (t) 15:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

To conform with the MoS. And it looks better. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 15:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Because there is not reason to link years. Date preferences only work if month is included and link to number of year is not relevant in most cases. See WP:MOS. Anyway if a user thinks that linking a year is helpful they should choose the list for appropriate category. For example 1966 in sport. Not just blindly link year. Today I clicked on the year in the table of Ice Hockey World Championships and foolishly thought it is a link to the page of World Championships of that year. Then I was realy surprised to find out that political page opened. --Jan Smolik 15:07, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Ambi reverted the rollbacks of those edits to user talk pages, it looks like it was a simple slip quickly corrected. Rich Farmbrough 11:27 27 February 2006 (UTC).

You could be right. It does look like an error followed by a self-revert. bobblewik 18:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Answer to Michalis Famelis: thank you. I have raised the question at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Use_of_rollback_in_format_dispute. It is not a complaint, merely a request for clarification of policy. It is not a question about the format dispute itself. It is about the tool. bobblewik 19:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject sub-jurisdictions

Several Wikiprojects are known to place templates on talkpages categorizing article. Nothing to be said against that. But what about Wikiprojects or portals introducing their own article quality assessments, either on talk or even on the article page itself? Is this a desireable method of scaling with the growth of WP, or is it an undesireable "inner fork" with sub-communities undermining community-wide processes? Case à point, {{Indian featured}} (for talkpages), {{Indian featured article}} (for article namespace, on tfd). dab (ᛏ) 14:02, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

List articles - WP:NOT or not?

There are a large amount of articles that comprise solely of lists. To me that seems to be clearly against WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information item 2, especially since the same function is already there by categories. For example, there is Category:Mathematicians but there is also an article List of mathematicians. To me, the latter is redundant, and a clear example of a "List of loosely associated persons" - (abridged quote from WP:NOT). Could someone explain if simple lists of people like the above (and many others) are in keeping with the official policy or not? Tougher question, if the articles are against official policy, which should be changed, the policy, or the articles? MartinRe 20:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Policy also says that Wikipedia is not only an encyclopedia but an almanac, and almanacs contain these sort of list and other category information. I don't think NOT currently forbids this sort of thing, and it's generally well-accepted, but NOT could use clarification. Deco 01:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

That's the first I've heard of a policy describing Wikipedia as being an almanac, could you point me to the appropiate sections, please? MartinRe 10:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I could be mistaken, but I could've sworn that at one point WP:NOT actually specified that Wikipedia was not an almanac, although it sometimes has the features of one. In any case, I would certainly support that addition if anyone else would. --Aquillion 12:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The same policy also says "Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic." This seems to describe List of mathematicians pretty well. Lists and categories are not mutually exclusive. Categories cannot be organized in any way except alphabetically, cannot be annotated and cannot include members for which there are not yet articles, all of which Lists can do. Dsmdgold 13:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Define "solely of lists". Have you seen the Wikipedia:Featured lists for examples of how good our lists can be? -- ALoan (Talk) 14:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, we have a guideline for lists (WP:LIST), which describes the purposes of lists, and IMO makes pretty much sense. - Liberatore(T) 15:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that link, I followed it to Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists) which covers many of the issues I was looking for. The featured lists are excellent, (I like the London underground one) on the other side, articles like the List of musical topics don't seem to add much more than the category does (with the additional problem of hard to keep up to date) MartinRe 16:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Many of the List of X topics articles are holdovers from the pre-category days, when the only way to keep an eye on a largish body of articles was to use "related changes" from such a topic list. This was manageable when there were only 300,000 articles in the 'pedia, but even then they were rarely up to date because newer editors creating articles didn't know the lists existed. See Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes for ideas on when a list should be converted to a category and when it should be left alone. — Catherine\^talk 13:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

You may want to consult also Wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Reducing anglo-saxon focus and emphasis

I am not sure this is the right place to discuss this. But if the intention is to have a global and universal encyplopedia, shouldn't the articles really try having a greater global view rather than one so western and anglo-saxon? I say this just coming from taking a look at the article 2005 in music. This is only one example. But there are many articles like that. Of course the reasons for this are understandable but .... I think an effort should be made. I do not have any specific suggestion on how to address the issue. Thus, for now I only want to bring this up for discussion. Cheers. Anagnorisis 20:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's the obvious reasons. Getting more editors into the project who are familiar with non-English speaking parts of the world would help, but there is also the call of the other language Wikipedias for such editors. I have seen a sensitivity to this issue in some AfD discussion, sort of "let's cut a little slack for this article because it's on a subject unfamiliar to most English-speakers, and the editor(s) may not have access to all the resources we have." I have waded in a couple of times to save articles that weren't well supported by Google hits, or whose authors did not have a very firm grasp of English. Unfortunately, if I can't find sources myself, I can't help edit an article that needs sources. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)^(Talk) 22:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There's a project to address this issue: Countering Systemic Bias. So, many editors are aware of the problem. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any easy solutions. — BrianSmithson 22:33, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I think it is easy to see where the problem comes from. Of course editors can only comment and contribute about the things they know. And most editors whose mother tongue is English (and also have the means to access wikipedia) will certainly come from english-speaking countries. My frustration in this case was because I was looking for information of musical hits from other places of the world, different from the usual things I get to hear on english-language radio. I was hoping articles like 2005 in music would help but they didn't. Well, I guess we just have to wait for more editors with knowleadge about different matters .... and things will take care of themselves with time. Cheers. Anagnorisis 22:43, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

It might help if people from other language wikipedia were able to indicate what people and issues we should write about. It would be best, if our page "Sugested topics for English Wikipedia" was linked from their community portal. Many of us are able to read (at least basic information) in other languages. It is easier than writing or speaking in foreign language. Myself I can read name and date of birth (and death) in most european languages :). Thus we should be able to extract at least a decent stub from the foreign language Wikipedias if we knew what locals consider important. It is somethink different than pages for translation. The page does not have to exist in an other language Wikipedia and I am not proposing word-by-word translation. Just getting basic info. --Jan Smolik 10:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Template for Template For Deletion

The Template used to designate a Template for Deletion has always befuddled me, for nominess for AFD you have a big huge template clearly anouncing what's happening same for Miscellany for Deletion (or whatever it's called) but the TFD template is quite the opisit it is a small string of text that one wouldn't otherwise notice except for the fact that it's on top of the article, I feel that someone should design a new template as it's important for new editors (who may not be quite as observant as I was) to know what's going on.-Deathawk 00:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

• The template has been that way since it was first created. My understanding is that because templates on Wikipedia come in all shapes and sizes, and they can be placed at many different locations on a page, a large TFD template could essentially disrupt an entire layout of a page, especially for those with 800x600 monitor resolution. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:08, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Solicitation of "keep" or "delete" votes on AfDs: proper or not?

Just one very simple question: Is it acceptable for an editor to go around to user talk pages and the talk pages of other articles openly soliciting votes in the hopes of swinging an AfD discussion one way or the other? (I know it violates WP:SPAM, but WP:SPAM is only a guideline, not policy, and I'm more interested in whether or not it can be considered an infraction worthy of invalidating any AfD "consensus" which was only reached due to such a campaign by an individual editor.) Thanks, --Aaron 00:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

This is internal SPAM. I'd say give them one. More than that is getting into SPAM territory. If they are doing it in a serial manner, then that is definitely SPAM and they need to get a warning to stop. This is just my opinion, because if this idea catches on, a lot of message space will be taken up with internal spam adds. Also the people who are lured in will likely be strongly on the side of the person that messaged them, and that could add bias. It's also roude, as it makes the person receiving the message feel obliged to vote to make the other guy happy.

I'd say no, it's not a good idea. But at this point, the way Wikipedia is set up, there wouldn't be much anyone could do about it other than ask them politely to stop. But I haven't read the policy, perhaps there is something in there that would give grounds for a block or something. --DanielCD 01:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Generally it's looked down upon pretty heavily, but I personally don't see why it has to be such an issue. In my mind, getting more people involved in a discussion is not a bad thing. If users from side A of a debate want to go and let other users of their opinion know about the debate, so be it. If users of side B then go and find supporters for there side too, so be it. If there's 300 people on Wikipedia on side A and only 15 on side B, but all 15 of the B's happen to watch AfD/RfA/RfC/RfWhatever regularly, then the vote will be skewed. What's not good is incivility and flamewars. What is good is rational discussion and trying to figure out if there is or is not consensus. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 01:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

There's a fine line really. Inviting more people who are genuinely interested into the discussion is a positive thing, but sucking in meatpuppets just to sway the vote is dishonest. A rule of thumb is, don't focus solely on inviting people expected to vote the same way as you - invite some opposers too. Advertising a vote in a general forum like here though is not at all a good idea, as it's a very rare AfD which concerns Wikipedia at large (there have been such AfDs, such as votes that have a strong influence on imminent policy decisions or ongoing ForestFires, but very rare). Deco 01:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, let me be clear: This is about sucking in meatpuppets. I'll substitute a sillier subject in order to relate what's really going on: If a given user is utterly obsessed with Pokemoncruft, and he only posts his "friendly reminders" about Pokemoncruft AfDs on the talk pages of other Pokemoncruft articles and the user talk pages of those who have reliably voted keep on other Pokemoncruft AfDs in the past, then that user is not interested in stimulating discussion; he's trying to stuff the ballot box. And he's at least occasionally successful. I don't think that's good for Wikipedia. --Aaron 06:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I would say that using the "foocruft" terminology is an indication one "is not interested in". People should not be sending masses of message on one side. On that I agree. But, it seems the larger problem is the trench war mentality, that often develops in AFD. Broad insults of the work of others is not helping to address that. If somebody sees their work insulted out-of-hand, by somebody who obviously has a personal dislike of the broader topic in general (and not just the topic of single article), then they won't pursue a conversation about the article, and just play the numbers game. --Rob 17:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd say it varies from case to case. Bringing something up with one person you know has a strong interest in it is probably alright; contacting several people you know is frowned upon, but there's not much we can do about it. People who do things like spam every single user in a specific category because they think it means they'll be sympathetic to their view should, IMHO, be blocked on sight, preferably before they get too far. Spamming users by category is not ok. --Aquillion 12:25, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The best option is to clearly state what has gone on at the AfD page, so that the closing admin will be aware the discussion was skewed and can take that information into consideration when closing it. - SimonP 16:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that's enough. Saying "I've gone and alerted (everyone I know who I think will support my side/every self-identified member of my political party on the Wiki/some Wikiproject with 500 members), who I'm sure will be interested in these discussions (and vote for X)" is all well and good, but how exactly is the closing admin supposed to account for that? Voting is already problematic enough; most AFDs have only a handful or so of people voting on them. We assume that that sample is randomly selected and representative, or at least not totally biased to one side or the other, and that they therefore represent both a form of consensus; if someone has successfully canvassed for votes, though, then you're just getting the consensus of whatever group they canvassed in. That's not a meaningful result, and the only way an admin can take that information into consideration when closing is to nullify the vote completely (which is often what happens when large-scale canvassing works.) It's all well and good to take the "vote" out of votes for deletion, but, look, it's still run like a vote, and the people canvassing for votes know this; if they can get the tally below 60% or over 80%, they've won regardless of method, and result generally is a given, except, in rare cases, when a result over 80% might be cancelled because circumstances (thousands of socks, really really heavy canvasing in favor of deletion) make consensus unclear. For people who just want to stop a deletion, though, getting the votes to delete down to anywhere near 60% is enough, since even a close of no clear consensus due to disruption would be a 'victory' for them; I've never heard of an article getting deleted with such results, no matter what other issues were involved. Given the low number of people who vote on typical AFDs, the only reason why canvassing isn't as successful as it is is because Wikipedians tend to react poorly to it, but that, if anything, makes it important to condemn it as strongly as possible. --Aquillion 16:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I've done it for articles that were repeatedly put on AfD. I've gone to the old debate and asked previous voters to chime in again. I don't think that's spam. There is no way of being notified if an article you're interested in is put on AfD. You MIGHT notice on your watch list if the nominator actually uses an edit summary, but probably not. Personally, if an article I'd spent time editing showed up on AfD I'd want alarm bells going off. SchmuckyTheCat 17:13, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikilinks in Harvard Referencing

I've been using Harvard Referencing extensively for a few months. What if the author has a WP article - where should the link to his article go - in the text or down in the references? That is, ... bla bla bla (Joe Smith 1970) or in the reference list? I've been putting the link down in the reference list and listing last name only (without a link) in the text, as per Harvard Referencing on paper. Bubba73 (talk), 04:25, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe you are correct to only place a link to the author in the full citation. Doing this appears to better comply with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) in that it minimizes links irrelevant to the context and it also avoids possible confusion about where the links buried inside the text should point, to an article on the author or to the full citation. --Allen3 ^talk 17:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

thank you, I'm going to keep on doing it that way then. Bubba73 (talk), 17:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way, if Smith's book is reasonably significant, it may be worth redlinking the title... Shimgray | talk | 23:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I do that if I know the book has an article about it. (Oh, by redlinking, you mean linking to a article that doesn't exist yet, right?) Bubba73 (talk), 00:10, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah; creating-a-link-which-is-red. If you think it'd be worthy of an article - and, I guess, pretty much anything which is standard in a field should get at least a redirect - then it may as well be redlinked for when one turns up. Shimgray | talk | 00:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

NEED POLICY: Link to subscription services? yes

Some editors insist that Wiki should ONLY link to totally free and open sites (like Gutenberg), and should never link to sites that require some sort of registration. Taken to an extreme that says we should not list books because you have to buy them before you read them. In fact tens of millions of Wiki users--I think the great majority--have access to many subscription services through their libraries. In the US that includes over 15 million college students for example, and about 25 million high/middle school students. Add public libraries most of which have subscriptions. So these 40-100 million users have access but usually do not know they can download free articles and books from digital libraries. Wiki can really help them by providing links to sources that involve subscription services. I might add that people who work at home, like me, are probably paying about $40 a month to a cable provider to get access to WWW and Wiki. Everyone can get free access to books at their local library and of course there they can free get access to subscription services like EBSCO. Rjensen 14:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I think you're being a bit too American-centric here, or at least Western-centric. Wikipedia is supposed to be open to anyone anywhere that can read English; EBSCO-type databases are generally only freely available to those in the U.S. and Canada (and probably in some other Western nations, but to what extent I can't say). And even then it depends; if you're not currently enrolled in college, your access to these databases is completely dependent on whether or not your local library has signed contracts with the companies that own the various databases. And those contract deals vary wildly. Using myself as an example, I have two library cards, one for the New York Public Library, one for my dinky little hometown library. I have access to more than 300 databases via the NYPL; my hometown library, by comparison, offers one low-end general EBSCO database, a few intended purely for schoolchildren, and free access to archives of the local newspaper. That's it. Beyond that, we have to face the simple reality that most people that do qualify for access have never signed up for it. I would estimate that nine out of ten people with access who came upon an EBSCO-like external link in a Wikipedia article would throw up their hands as soon as they clicked the link and were asked to log in, because they'd have no idea what they'd just encountered. Even more problematic is that those sorts of databases tend to use URLs that aren't exactly static. The given library or university's ID is often coded into each URL the database sends out; if I were to access some obscure abstract from a database using my New York Public Library account, and then put that URL into a Wikipedia article as an external link, what will end up happening is that everyone that clicks on it will suddenly be asked to enter their NYPL library card number, whether they live in Brooklyn or Los Angeles or Tahiti or Australia. So the link would be completely useless to probably 99%+ of everyne that would ever click on the link. Given all these problems, I have to say I agree that such links shouldn't be part of Wikipedia articles at all. --Aaron 18:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The question is whether it is a link for providing further information or reference you quoted. If for example I cite Journal of ATM (important in computer Science) I need to link to payed service. And even more. Right now I am using newspaper articles (from 1990s) to support my information. I obtain them via internet archive (similar to Proquest). First I provide link to the archive so that people are able to obtain the article in other way than go to the Czech National Library in Prague (it is the very likely the only institution with complete collection of Czech newspaper). And second I cannot say whether the article was realy printed in the newspaper. The archive can be incorect. So when quoting you should say where the information was orriginaly printed plus where you obtained it (orriginal newspaper, microfish, computer archive, ...).--Jan Smolik 21:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I think subscription service links are okay in some circumstances, if the linked content is used as a reference. If you're referencing an article on the NY Times website (and they require free registration), the link to the article is okay. Though, if the story was printed in the newspaper, a more complete citation with date, page number, author should also be included. If you are referencing a scholarly journal that's accessed through EBSCO, I say no link. But please include the full citation, (journal title, article, authors, volume, page #, etc.), so that people can look them up (either online, if they have access, or can make a trip to a local university library and view a hardcopy). As for online services such as EBSCO, I'm aware of some journals that are available through more than one service (e.g. http://heinonline.org/, and http://www.ebsco.com/). We shouldn't give preference to one service over another. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 21:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

What is Policy on Repeat Vandals at Public sites?

There is a repeat vandal at 158.123.154.2 which is apparently a site registered to the State of RI. There have been repeated warnings. ⇒ _normxxx| ^talk ⇒ email 15:31, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Definitions and Copyright status

I was working on a few glossary pages and I was checking around and some of these entries could be found word for wordd on other sites (not Wikipedia mirrors but actual sites) I was wondering if definitions are considered fair use and if not then how should we work around this? Deathawk 22:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

"Ethnic groups in" categories

what are the guidelines for these? Today, there are fragments on pretty much every ethnic group in pretty much every country (as tiny minorities). What does it take to be listed in an "Ethnic groups of" category? Take Greeks:

Categories: Ethnic groups in Albania | Ethnic groups in Australasia | Ethnic groups in Brazil | Ethnic groups in Bulgaria | Ethnic groups in Hungary | Ethnic groups in Macedonia | Ethnic groups in Russia | Ethnic groups in South Africa | Ethnic groups in Turkey | Ethnic groups in Ukraine | Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom | Ethnic groups in the United States | Ethnic groups in Uzbekistan

Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria etc., fine, but Brazil (0.01%), UK (0.3%), USA (0.5%), UK (1.5%)? What percentage is sufficient? Arguably 1.5%, but certainly not 0.01%? This renders the categories useless, since every ethnic group will be listed virtually everywhere. Maybe a limit of one or two percent either of the host country's population, or of the total population of the group would be appropriate? In the case of the Greeks, this would include USA, Canada, Germany, Australia, UK (borderline) but not Hungary or Brazil or South Africa. dab (ᛏ) 06:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality gives some recommendations (not in percentages, which IMHO are quite irrelevant, the recommendation rather ties with verifiability in the sense of needing quotable literature that the group for some way or another is recognised as being significant for a particular reason, the mere existence of the identifiable group does not suffise - even if it would be 20%). --Francis Schonken 10:32, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

High Schools in disambig pages

I'd like some clarification on policy/guidelines with respect to (e.g.) adding "Newmarket High School" to the disambig page. My understanding of disambig pages (from reading the guidelines) was that they were always a means to an end, a trade-off between usability and inclusivity; and that they are supposed to be a navigation aid, not a complete list.

Whilst I'm aware that high schools in North America are frequently referred to by initials (e.g. NHS), I'm really not convinced that the majority of schools are famous enough outside their immediate area to warrant inclusion in a disambig page.

Or to put it another way, if one average high school should go in, they all should; and I don't see how a long homogenous list of schools is useful if the person doesn't know what they're looking for. If they do, then they don't need the disambig page.

I made a compromise suggestion here, as it seems that some people do want high schools included.

Fourohfour 11:47, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Why concealing user contributions to deleted pages?

What's the reasoning behind disallowing non-admins to see any user's contributions to pages that later got deleted? --tyomitch 22:51, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Quite often, pages (or individual edits to existing pages) were deleted because they contained libellous material, or blatant copyright violations; material we would on the whole prefer not to publish to the world. Letting people see the edit history wasn't really a problem, because they couldn't see the actual deleted material. However, then people started gaming the system - instead of writing "Joe Smith rapes baby donkeys" in the article, they started putting it in the edit summary... or putting in people's home addresses, phone numbers, you get the idea. So we blocked the ability to see the edit summaries, and I believe the simplest way to do this was to block seeing the dit history for deleted pages.

(OTOH, If you mean "why doesn't Special:Contributions show deleted edits", I don't believe it ever did.) Shimgray | talk | 23:06, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Avoid using meta-templates straw poll

Wikipedia:Avoid using meta-templates has a straw poll running to decide whether to accept or reject the proposed policy. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask on the talk page there. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)