Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
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Male Domination?

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Male_Domination.3F.

Please make this a link. I can't find it.
It doesn't exist any more, probably. --tjstrf 09:19, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's archived at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive#Male_Domination.3F. (Don't edit the archive page, start a new section at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals) if you want to discuss it. But you knew that, of course.) --LucVerhelst 09:51, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed naming convention: military vehicles

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (military vehicles): please comment on the talk page. —Michael Z. 2006-08-15 20:50 Z

Suggestion for German lanugage page approval implementation

This post has been moved to the proposal page Wikipedia:German page approval solution

Real name editing only

I have a modest proposal at User:AxelBoldt/Real name proposal, restricting editing of encyclopedia articles to people who are willing to provide their verifiable real name. Cheers, AxelBoldt 06:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That'll never happen. It runs contrary to Wikipedia's principles. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:29, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Which principles are we talking about? AxelBoldt 15:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Even restricting editing to those with a username would probably be a bad idea. Most of the actual information seems to originate from IP-only users. Shinobu 06:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
They would still be welcome to contribute information, just not edit the encyclopedia proper. AxelBoldt 15:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. That would be impossible. Michael 06:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One of the strongest arguments you will have is the idea that the information is made publically accessable. Given this is generally discouraged online, and it would place serious freedom of speech problems on editors within certain reigemes, this is not only understandable but an entirely valid point. A better idea is that of privately confirmed existance, either by peers or via the wikimedia foundation. Only the peers or the foundation would know this information, and would be bound to keep it private. Much of what would be useful to establish is a level of known expert authority for use in such things as peer review. LinaMishima 12:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think real names are discouraged online. All serious publications are nowadays online, and all serious publications provide real names of their authors. If the Wikimedia foundation kept the names private, then the whole point of the proposal would be lost: to make writers responsible for their contributions in the eye of the public. AxelBoldt 15:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it is in many respects when dealing with forums and other user-orientated activities. Doing so gives an element of security and protection - do you openly reveal where you live online. With only a name and some rough incomplete trivia about someone, it is quite possible to find out a lot about them. You are attempting to compare here wikipedia, a voluntary organisation based on a civil community, to a professional online publication, which typcially has full-time employed staff. No single editor is ultimately responsible for any single article here on wikipedia, it is the community that is. LinaMishima 20:11, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm worried about NPOV disputes and intimidation. ColourBurst 14:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Only users who are signed-in ... may edit the encyclopedia. This is one of the most common perennial proposals, and it's really really unlikely to ever happen. --Interiot 15:23, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I would say categorically that I, for one, would stop editing Wikipedia if I was forced to reveal my identity; and I think many, many others share my view. Batmanand | Talk 11:41, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well of course you don't want to reveal your identity. You're Batman. --Golbez 11:48, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Indeed. But those damned films, comics, books, songs etc have done a bloody good job of exposing my real identity already... Batmanand | Talk 12:04, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would those of you commenting in this section about "Do not force people to show their real names" pleae repeat what you are saying a little lower on the page, in the section on Tor and China? --Keybounce 20:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is not a one in a million chance that I would ever, in my entire life, possibly even consider not opposing this proposal in the strongest terms. — Werdna talk criticism 04:57, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No. — Omegatron 05:00, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, come now, the 15 or so of us that would be left after this passed could have a grand old time. Dragons flight 05:04, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that many people have the same real name. I suggest instead that we identify all people by their full mailing address and phone number. Deco 20:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Does that include dissidents in repressive countries? Anyway, no-one wants that hassle, certainly not me. ReeseM 00:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was being sarcastic. Deco 07:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can we list all sarcastic editors by their real names? Hmm. Or would that be ironic? Or s it ronic to list just those who did not "get" the sarcasm? Fiddle Faddle 22:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, yeah, I think using real names is a great idea, especially when I get such great appreciation already. Do you think I want to be stupid enough to give a guy like that my name? And that was just some idiot trying to keep a blatant hoax article. Fan-1967 00:23, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that this is a truly workable proposal. Firstly, as has been pointed out, it is to a certain extent a rehash of 'only logged-in users should edit', which is a bad idea for a variety of reasons. Secondly, it may expose our contributors to an inappropriate level of personal scrutiny. I edit Wikipedia and handle OTRS under my real name, and was recently personally threatened by a correspondent because we wouldn't delete a notable article (amongst other things, he tried to have my research funding suspended). This isn't a risk that every Wikipedian should be forced to take. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 08:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If this were enforced, I would stop editing, and I am sure a large number of other editors also do so. It is completly unworkable, and WP:CREEP. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 12:30, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it would be unworkable. Drjem3 21:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly oppose - I would leave wikipedia rather than reveal my real name. --Charlesknight 22:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly Oppose:

Practical - how would you ever know?
Emotional - people behave well whether anonymous or not
Intellectual - it really makes no sense at all

Fiddle Faddle 22:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly oppose as well. I can articulate detailed reasoning if desired, but I think it's already snowball-level clear that consensus is against this. Newyorkbrad 22:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The suggestion is really only interesting in that it is founded on such a profound misunderstanding of how both the Internet and the Wiki function. Banno 00:18, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Accountability is one of the fundamental flaws frequently pointed out about Wikipedia. But I don't think that this proposal solves it. We already have a problem verifying the truthiness of real names. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 18:35, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't go so far as to require it, but I think there should be some encouragement for registering under your real name. Perhaps you should have to do that to become an admin, or to edit semi-protected pages. --John Nagle 19:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Public service advertisements

Recently, above, the idea was raised of using advertisements on Wikipedia to raise funds for charity. I don't think this is a good idea, primarily because any sort of commercial advertisement gives the appearance of bias - that these companies could control content by threatening to withdraw advertising funds. But here's a rather different idea.

In Seattle there is a public radio station that plays dance music run by a high school called C89.5. They have a large listenership, but have no advertisements at all; instead, they have "public service announcements", which briefly describe volunteer opportunities in the community, environmental issues, and so on. I wonder if Wikipedia contributors would be willing to tolerate unpaid "public service" advertisements for charitable organizations such as the Red Cross, especially during times of crisis such as natural disasters when they solicit donations. The organization would supply no money for the service, but it would still have a positive impact on the world community. Just a thought? Deco 03:28, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposition considered and denied. Wikipedia does not exist to champion social change outside of an increase in free information and collaberation online. --tjstrf 05:04, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia and Wikinews already contributes significantly to publicising such responses to natural (and man made) disasters through their articles and the external links attached to those.81.187.181.168 08:55, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Several editors have said that they will leave if Wikipedia goes commercial. They see no reason why they should give their free labor to a commercial enterprise. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:03, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I proposed anything of the sort. Deco 04:42, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Been there, done that. BAD idea. [ælfəks] 10:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Charitable spam is still spam. We can do NPOV reporting on which organizations are doing what in a crisis, and an external link to the Red Cross website seems perfectly reasonable in an article about a disaster. More than that is of evil. Robert A.West (Talk) 00:31, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Categories of cruft

We appear to have a few categories that are collections of articles that have no claim to notability (e.g. a brand of detergent). I won't claim that *everything* in these categories needs to go away, but I don't think 90% would be too bold. For starters, take a look at Category:Brand_name_products_stubs. I'm not sure if the best means to this end would be to simply go ahead and exercise judgement in deleting things, individually listing the hundreds of articles on AfD (gah, hopefully not), or something else. Thoughts? --Improv 05:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Might I suggest WP:PROD? It doesn't take much effort to cut and paste the same prod reason across a few dozen articles. If things go away, then okay. If things get disputed, then one can figure out what to do next. Dragons flight 05:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Considering that several people might want to keep these things in some form, a less drastic approach might be to merge the products (short articles anyway) with the company which makes them. After all, if somebody is interested in a company, it is not far-fetched that they'll seek info on their products, but very short stubs on them looks unprofessional. If the article is too long a "list of products by..." might be useful for those who are interested. For the record, I love cruft just as much as Tom Lehrer claimed to love smut in his song. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • It's possible that several people might want to keep these things in some form, but they're not at all encyclopedic. I would point such people at WP:NOT. Unfortunately, this is a constant problem on Wikipedia -- we have a *lot* of people who will defend articles they create to the death who don't really understand the goal of Wikipedia. This is why I'm reluctant to prod -- no doubt the creators of an article on their favourite deodorant brand will remove it and I'll get to send pretty much the whole lot to AfD. OTOH, it can't hurt to try. It'd be nice if CSD A7 extended beyond people/groups. --Improv 13:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not sure what you mean by "not at all encyclopedic", because there is no clear and objectively "correct" place to draw the line for notability of products. I personally believe that every single car model produced by a car company is notable. I will accept that several soda brands are notable. I would probably say that articles on a single brand of toothbrush is going a bit far. Other people may have different standards. Lots of people will defend articles which they think are encyclopedic which other people might feel are unencyclopedic. A7 was introduced in order to get rid of the uncontroversial vanities, articles on schoolchildren, or autobiographies. WP:CSD should not in general be expanded to start deleting things which could be reasonably expected to be contested on an AFD. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Widely distributed products deserve articles, as do those that are significant within a single country. Remember that we must work to counter systematic bias, and you may not be aware of foriegn products. That said, a stub cull is probably needed, removing those stubs without enough details to allow it to be properly expanded (such as Duotang) and keeping those giving enough information to allow a full article to be built (EverGirl, for example). I am personally in favour of lists in the place of stubs, and so merging should be considered. Mass listings on AfD are generally discouraged, and result in horrible messes that often end up overturned. Prodding those stubs without enough contextual information would be wise, even better would be a CSD catagory for "stub without enough information to allow an article to be built". For now I would advise that you prod those stubs without enough information to build an article from. LinaMishima 15:41, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To back up what is said above about systemic bias and the dangers of indiscrimate prodding, people should have a look at teh AfD discussion for Boroline. Hornplease 10:32, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. Article was written over a year ago, & barely managed to grow to a little more than two sentences before it was AfD'd. And now it's back down to one sentence. You'd think that by now someone would have added a few things like who manufactures & sells it, what its known ingredients are, & if there are any notable advertising campaigns around it.
I'm not against stubs; I'm in the process of writing a couple hundred of them myself. However stubs like these, which begin life as a single sentence & never grow, cause me to favor a proposal someone suggested not that long ago to PROD or merge stubs that remain stubs after 6 months. If no one shows an active interest in the topic, maybe the article should be deleted. -- llywrch 22:31, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: RfA process

See initial draft at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship process

Wikipedia should use exonyms only as a last resort

I'm not 100% sure I'm posting in the correct spot but I would like to suugest a new wikipedia policy. Namely that, "Exonyms should only be used as a last resort." I came to this conclusion by recently stumbling onto the debate at the Meissen page, which concerns the correct spelling of the town (ss vs ß). It seems to me, regardless of the original title of the created article, if the article deals with a proper name then the native spelling should be used whenever possible, espcially if it won't cause undo confusion among English speakers. Naufana:Talk 03:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems you posted in the correct spot! It's an important question that applies to all Wikipedia articles about places. --Haldrik 08:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, this is the English Wikipedia. It is our policy to use the most commonly known name in the English language. Would you have our Germany article at Deutschland? User:Zoe|(talk) 03:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What Zoe says! What good could come out of using Meißen or Deutschland or Wien? Just good ol' confusion for the users. Most of the geography pages state the local name in the first line or two of the text anyways and the native name is often made a redirect. This is really a non-issue. Pascal.Tesson 03:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see country names can be English, but city names should be as close as possible to the local language of the city. English might have "English" versions of some cities, but doesnt have English versions of all cities, and so usually has to use the local names. Having to switch back and forth between sometimes using an English cognate and sometimes not creates even more confusion. Consistency is more important. For example, all names for German cities, towns, villages, hamlets, lakes, rivers, brooks, streams, meadows, regions, mountains, hills, etc., should be according to their German names. Thus the article can have the German city name, Wien. Notable English cognates such as Vienna can redirect to Wien. The only exception is, the English alphabet must be used for English articles. For German, this isnt a problem, thus Meissen (not Meißen). The proper spelling in the local alphabet can be mentioned in the article. --Haldrik 03:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Given the arguments on the talk page, the chances of using ß in the name is slim to none. When I go looking for a city, I know I won't look with a ß. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 04:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I respectfully disagree. The issue is similar to having Sean Carter as a redirect to Jay-Z and not the other way around. Pascal.Tesson 04:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, "Jay-Z" is the name Jay-Z himself chooses, and that should be the standard. "Wien" is the name that the inhabitants of Wien themselves choose, and that should be the standard. German is pretty straightforward, but other languages are extremely problematic when switching back and forth: for example between the closest approximation to the real name Beijing versus the silly "English" name Peking. The local language itself should set the standard for the sake of consistency. --Haldrik 04:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But we don't actually care what name he prefers to use. If tomorrow he chooses that he'd prefer being called MC Haldrik, we would still use Jay-Z as the main article because that is the name that most english users would recognize. This is the long standing principle of WP:NC. And you have your facts mixed up about Beijing. It was indeed formerly known in english as Peking but the standard has, for about ten years now, been switched to Beijing. Actually the article discusses this in length. Pascal.Tesson 05:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"But we don't actually care what name he prefers to use." But the fact is, the article is under the self-designated name. "It was indeed formerly known in english as Peking but the standard has been switched to Beijing." Chinese isnt the only language whose naming convention standard is switching to the local language. --Haldrik 05:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the sake of a universal standard for all Wikipedia articles, using the local name is the only possibility for consistency. --Haldrik 05:39, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But wikipedia is not universal. It's English only. I agree that a multi language gazetteer based on semantic markup to provide statistics for all places should prefer the local name but that will be a different project.81.187.181.168 09:28, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Were that the case, Vienna would be at Wien, and no one would be able to find anything. For consistency, we should be using the name people will be most familiar with, as is policy. I sure as hell don't have a ß on my keyboard, so why would I possibly look for it under that title? Your argument about Peking is moot, because it's been standardized as Beijing for some time now. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The nonstandard Vienna can redirect to the standard Wien. --Haldrik 06:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Vienna is the English standard. That's what you don't seem to get. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So you're saying that Beijing should be at 北京? Or are you suggesting that we should select a romanization to generate our own set of exonyms? --Carnildo 06:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Most countries have their own Romanization policy. Their policy is the one that should be standard for placenames in their country. --Haldrik 09:20, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See Romanization of Japanese. There are three standards for romanization in Japanese. The most commonly used (Hepburn) is not mandated by all government agencies, and is not a government standard. ColourBurst 21:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And - how do I put a ß into a word when I'm searching for it? And what about Αθήνα? I think it's Athens & Meissen! Saltmarsh 05:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's what redirects are for. Any name containing characters that are not easy to type should be accompanied by redirects. Unlike Athens, which is clearly an English form, "Meissen" is probably just a transliteration. A redirect and {{foreignchar}} explain the situation well enough. There are many places in Germany or Poland that do not have a name in English. They only have German or Polsh names that contain funny characters. I don't see a point in spelling these names wrong just because they are hard to type. Oh, and Wikipedia's naming conventions are not consistent, because they mirror real-world usage. Consistency will be impossible to achieve, and not a good thing. Kusma (討論) 06:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By holding down the Alt key and typing 225 on the numpad (doesn't work with the numbers along the top), though granted it's cumbersome and few people have the ASCII and Unicode tables memorised. --Sherool (talk) 06:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"There are many places in Germany or Poland that do not have a name in English." Exactly. And not just Germany or Poland. Everywhere on this planet Earth is almost nothing but places that dont have a name in English. Insisting on a traditional English equivalent is just an irrational fixation on a few places compared to every other place on Earth. --Haldrik 06:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"How do I put a ß into a word when I'm searching for it?" One doesnt. The standard equivalent is used: a ss. The official equivalent for Αθήνα, according to the Greek government, is Athina. --Haldrik 06:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously some names take a bit of getting used to, but redirects easily solve the unfamiliarity. The world is getting smaller, and in the long run, using the local standard as the standard is the better policy. --Haldrik 06:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To the contrary. The world is getting smaller, and in the long run, having everyone standardize to one language is the ideal policy. --tjstrf 06:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But now you are trying to impose your righteous point of view on users. Wikipedia is not a place to try and force every english speaker to use Wien instead of Vienna. Whether you like it or not, Vienna has been the standard name used in english for centuries. In French that would be Vienne, in Spanish Viena and so on. And again, you seem to be missing that point, the native name is always given in the first line of the article. What point would there be to categories if they were filled with 北京. Pascal.Tesson 06:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Righteous point of view"? First I'm not sure conformity is always a good thing. So there's nothing "righteous". Wikipedia requires a standard naming convention, and the nature of Wikipedia is universal and global. There is no policy that is practicable except using the local names as the standard placename. Just look at news journalists on tv. When they cover global stories live, it becomes increasingly difficult to not use the local placename when they are actually standing right there in it. --Haldrik 06:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Find an English reporter saying "I'm live here in Wien" and you might have something. A minor phonetic difference (your removed "Iran" reference) is hardly convincing. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And find a user browsing through Category:Capitals in Europe who would find it more convenient and practical to have Praha, Wien, Warszawa and Beograd. Pascal.Tesson 06:49, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Warsaw can easily redirect to Warszawa whereupon the user becomes informed about its actual and standard name. --Haldrik 06:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone who cares enough to look up the name of a particular city can be expected to become familiar with its local name. --Haldrik 06:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A better example is the Italian city Torino. The actual local name in Italian is Torino. The English cognate is Turin as in the "Shroud of Turin" or in the "Turin Canon" ("Turin Papyrus of Kings"). The article for this city is still "Turin". However even as we speak the official English name for this city has switched over to the local name Torino since its official use for the Olympics. (Not Turin). For example: NBC Olympic coverage. This switch to the local name as the standard is inevitable. --Haldrik 06:55, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then there's no problem. In time, it will change. Until then, we use the most common/least surprising one. --Golbez 07:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But there is a problem: which English standard is used? The history book Turin or the newspaper Torino? By always using the local name Torino as the standard, there is never a problem. --Haldrik 07:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there is. not everyone knows it as Torino, and will not associate that with Turin. Those that will, however, recognize that Turin is the alternate form. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 08:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, Torino is the Italian name for the city, but in the local dialect, it's Turin. Care to let us know which version you would prefer? But in fact, there is no point in arguing this, this policy is not going to change. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The national dialect (Italian) versus the regional dialect (Piedmontese): quite a relevant observation! Which would you use? (It appears the traditional English name derives from the regional dialect whereas the journalistic English name uses the standard national dialect, no doubt to emphasize national pride in hosting the Olympics.) Since most places dont have English names, Wikipedia needs a policy to refer to non-English places regardless. For the sake of the most consistency, I feel Wikipedia should use the country's national standard dialect for the placenames in that country, and mention the regional dialect as an "also known as". For example, the article on Torino may mention nearby towns, lakes, mountains, and so on that have no English name. From your point of view, how do you propose to name them? Should the Torino article use the national standard dialect or the regional dialect? --Haldrik 00:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"However even as we speak the official English name for this city has switched over to the local name Torino since its official use for the Olympics". "Official English name" where? Nobody in Britain would call it Torino. It's still Turin. The Winter Olympics may have been known as Torino 2006, but that doesn't mean the normal name for the city has changed. -- Necrothesp 01:40, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Categories don't contain redirects. Also, Torino is indeed an exception where Torino is starting to become standard. But if you want to go the Olympics route, it was the Athens Olympic games, not the Athina olympic games on NBC. Pascal.Tesson 07:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If the local name is always the standard, then there is never a surprise. If the standard is sometimes an archaic English cognate or sometimes a contemporary journalistic local name, then there will always be surprises. --Haldrik 07:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It will remain a surprise because regular visitor Joe Smith isn't going to be looking for Wien or Warszawaor or Meißen or any of those city names that aren't commonly used in English. It's the principle of least astonishment. If I get redirected to Wein, I'm going to be astonished. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 07:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When Joe Smith searches for "Vienna" he be redirected to "Wien". If Joe Smith needs to know information about the city Wien, he must know - of all things - that its name is Wien! --Haldrik 07:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's name in English is Vienna, not Wien. It's is called Wien in German, which the article notes in the first sentence. We favor Engish terms, not foreign ones. Until Wien becomes an English standard, Vienna is and always will be the name that city goes by. What you suggest seeks to confuse everyone by using names no English speaker would immediately (if ever) recognize. not happening. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 07:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So, if we're going to use local names, is it "Iran", or "Persia"? The locals can't seem to decide. And what about that valley in Asia? Calling it either "कश्मीर" or "کشمیر" is endorsing a specific point of view. --Carnildo 07:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Iran" or "Persia"? The official name of the nation state according to that nation state must be used. Preferably nation states should be the local one, thus Italia not Italy. But, nation states are limited in number, and using archaic English cognates can apply to all of them consistently, so its not so problematic to use traditional English. However using archaic English for cities and towns doesnt work as a policy because English cant be applied to all of them. --Haldrik 07:30, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Another problem is English tends to accumulate several archaic cognates (via different languages, different archaic transliterations systems etc.) for a placename. For example, Antolia vs Asia Minor vs Turkey, Acre vs Akko, etc. By always using the current local name, there is never ambiguity about which English name to use. --Haldrik 07:37, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What about the valley? Whose POV do we endorse? --Carnildo 07:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Whose POV do we endorse"? POV is a serious problem. Using the defacto local name helps reduce this problem. (It is Iran, not Persia, whether we like it or not, and until it's changed.) Even when the local name is still in question, it's irrelevant to the policy of using the local name. Is it "Israel" or is it "Palestine"? It's frustrating to write articles on this because the usages of these placenames are complex and still fluid. Nevertheless, whichever is prefered, the policy would have "Yisrael" and "Falastina" (assuming the local names would be used for nation states too). Haldrik 07:46, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople. Istanbul, not Constantinople. Why did Constantinople get the works? Aint nobody's business but the Turks!!! (They Might Be Giants) --Haldrik 08:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The song "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" was actually performed by The Four Lads in 1953; the They Might Be Giants version was a cover. *Dan T.* 13:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"It's name in English is Vienna, not Wien." Well for example, say your standing in the German city Wien/Vienna, and (hypothetically) you are standing on the corner of "Wien Street" and "Meunchen Road". Do you actually call these roads by their names "Wien Street" and "Meunchen Road", or do you switch over to the archaic English cognate and call them "Vienna Street" and "Munich Road"? These kinds of complications are extremely confusing, when you actually have to refer to these names in real life. Simply using the local name as the standard solves all of these kinds of problems. --Haldrik 08:08, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Street names are irrelevant. We are not talking about the streets, we're talking about the city from an outside perspective. This is an encyclopedia, not a travel guide. English speakers do not call it Wien, and calling it such here creates far more problems that it solves, contrary to your opinion. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs)
But in the 21st-century there isnt any "outside perspective" because the journalist is standing right there! --Haldrik 08:22, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And the journalist isn't going to call the city Wien because no one would know what he's talking about. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 08:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Go to the English Google Maps website and type in the "Vienna" search. See what happens!!! --Haldrik 08:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a "noat found" URL. But when I wentto Google maps,Vienna produced a map of Vienna, Austria. So?Kdammers 08:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Look at Japan and Russia in Google Maps, and you'll find place names in the languages and character sets of those countries. Apparently, Google Maps isn't designed as "English", but as multilingual. *Dan T.* 13:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem linking to the correct site from above. In any case, when you enter the English name "Vienna", you get a map that doesnt use any other name except "Wien". There are no exonyms, for the sake of a global, universal, consistent policy. The same policy Wikipedia needs for the same reasons. --Haldrik 08:58, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Haldrik, did you ever reply to the issue of things like Chinese cities? Should Beijing be listed under its name using the Chinese alphabet? Or should it, instead, be listed under the standard english name of Beijing?
Unless you're prepared to say that an english encyclopedia should list it as 北京, you really don't have a leg to stand on. So, which is it? Should Beijing be listed as 北京, or should Wien be listed as Vienna? Bladestorm 09:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did reply just minutes ago. Most countries have their own official Romanization policy. Their policy should be the standard for all the place names in their country. --Haldrik 09:41, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Beijing is the official Chinese name using its Romanization policy. Similar, Tokyo is the official Japanese name using its Romanization policy (the "Romanji" alphabet). --Haldrik 09:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Really helps if you know what you're talking about, as all three major romanizations of Japanese don't come out to "Toyko"; one is Tōkyō, and two are Tôkyô. Thanks for playing. --Golbez 10:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
According to Japanese law, either of two Romanization systems can be used: the official Kunri system or the Hepburn system. Altho, Kunri is "more official", Hepburn is the one that is officially used by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on public signs (which uses a simplified variant of Hepburn without diacritics, whence "Tokyo" found on most official signage). Wikipedia editors who write articles about Japanese places can discuss among themselves which official Japanese Romanization system is the most appropriate standard for Wikipedia articles, at Wikipedia:naming convention. All articles about Japanese places will use their consensus as the standard. --Haldrik 11:28, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Romanization is a bias, if ß is allowed, since 北 and ß are similarly non-recognizable to someone who speaks only English. Simplified Hepburn is even more biased towards English, since it modifies non-English readable letters (ō). Either romanize everything or romanize nothing. ColourBurst 17:40, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A counterproposal: English Wikipedia should use non-ASCII titles for articles only as a last resort. Every foreign name can be transliterated unambiguously. Using non-ASCII characters creates only problems to Unicode-disabled people, and I see no real advantage of using them - local name is always displayed in the first paragraph.  Grue  11:15, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia will potentially mention millions of places that dont have an English name. Wikipedia must have a policy to handle this. This policy must be consistent. --Haldrik 11:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yet it seems that you are refusing to point out any way in which the existing policy fails to meet that standard. The existing policy is "in the __________-language Wikipedia, use the name which is best-known to __________ speakers." The closest you've done to pointing out an issue is to point to the non-issue of "what if the place isn't known to __________ speakers at all??" The reasoning behind "use the local name, in that case" is quite obvious. However, you seem to be trying to jump from "use the local name, in that case" to "use the local name, in every case", and your reasoning for that jump seems rather obscure. -- Antaeus Feldspar 12:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"You seem to be trying to jump from 'use the local name, in that case' to 'use the local name, in every case'". Exactly. Because. Where English might have English cognates for ten cities in a particular country, there will be thousands of city/town/suburb names that dont have English cognates. These thousands of names require a comprehensive Romanization system that is consistently and systematically applied. It becomes stupid to fixate on ten cities, when the local names are used for virtually everything. --Haldrik 14:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Moreover, most English speakers are totally unaware of both the English cognate and local name of a city. For example, who here knows where "Hamath" is? How about "Scythopolis"? If you dont know where the English name refers to, you might as well use the proper local name. --Haldrik 14:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When you end up using the local name for a town because it has become very familiar to English speakers (such as Torino) and you end up using the local name for a town because it is very unfamiliar to English speakers (such as any obscure village near Torino), at a certain point its just stupid and confusing to worry about a handful of archaic English names. --Haldrik 14:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You've replied without addressing my point. You say "These thousands of names require a comprehensive Romanization system that is consistently and systematically applied." You seem to think that of "Always use the local name" and "Use the name best known to speakers of the language", only one of those two can be "consistently and systematically applied", yet you've shown no reason that should be so. The latter is equally practicable and is more practical besides, since it means that the majority of the speakers of the language who want to link to the article will be able to do so on their first try instead of getting a redirect. -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone with a brain can see that the advantages of using a consistent system outweigh using an eclectic system when needing to standardize millions of data. How many seconds does it take to go thru a redirect? Not even a second. If users know to always use the local name, then that is the "name best known" because that is the name that is 100% predictable. --Haldrik 15:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Users will never know to use the local name. They don't know the local name. You have yet to show what possible reason makes your system any better than our current system. When English speakers look for something, they should get the page they're looking for, not some redirect to a four-letter pagename making them scratch their heads and wonder what's going on. Anyone with a brain would realize this immediately. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 15:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Look, Wikipedia isnt just for 4th-graders who are working on their book report. This is the 21st-century, there is a whole planet out there, and Wikipedia has to cope with all of it. --Haldrik 15:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Users will never know to use the local name". Of course, users will know to use the local name. The unfamiliar will use whatever name they know. In a split second they will be redirected and they'll know the proper name. --Haldrik 15:10, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But we're not the whole planet, now are we? We're English speakers. We expect things to be in English. This is what you've consistently failed to understand. No English speaker is going to look for Wien or any other foreign name. They're going to look for the name they recognize and understand. English speakers do not know Vienna as Wien and likely never will. Why should we confuse everyone by using names no English speaker will recognize? You'll never make a convincing argument for that. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 15:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"But we're not the whole planet". Rather, Wikipedia is the whole planet. "No English speaker is going to look for Wien". Those who want to search for "Vienna" will find "Wein". And who knows? Maybe they'll be happy to know the Naturpark Eichenhein is right nearby! Not to mention the airport is at Schwechat. --Haldrik 15:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has many different projects that encompass the entire planet, but we here certainly do not. We encompass the English-speaking countries, which know "Wien" as Vienna. That is the name they've been taught all their lives. They're not going to use Wien when looking for the city, and Googling "Wien" only gets someone a bunch of German sites and unrelated pages. I google Vienna and I get what I'm looking for instantly. Why should we confuse users by using names that aren't standard English? Answer that. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 15:29, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"That is the name they've been taught all their lives." Any user that needs to know information about Wien, needs to know its name is Wien. --Haldrik 15:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Wikipedia encompass the entire planet, but we here certainly do not." Speak for yourself. Most of the articles that I've worked on refer to foreign names with no English equivalent or worse several competing English alternatives. --Haldrik 15:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reindent. They need to know it's also called Wien, eh? Then what, pray tell, is not clear about this: "Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]) is the capital of Austria"? I think they know. You're argument is misleading, because you act as if Wikipedia somehow hides this information from its users. Clearly, this is not the case. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 15:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Many places are known in English by names having nothing to do with the local name. However, that is how English speakers are going to search for them, and how they're going to read them. In particular, we should never use letters which don't even appear in English. It's one thing to use an accent over a letter (é or ü). It's another to use a totally unfamiliar character. A typical English speaker seeing "Meißen" is going to think "Meiben" which isn't even close. Fan-1967 13:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can we all agree that this is a rejected proposal? --tjstrf 15:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly. I should note (claiming great offense), that my homeland is referred to on the German Wikipedia as the Vereinigte Staaten. I hereby suggest (not demand, being mindful of WP:POINT) that the German Wikipedia immediately rename all articles concerning placenames in English-speaking countries to use English names.
If it isn't obvious, of course, the above suggestion is entirely facetious.
--EngineerScotty 16:21, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I wasn't clear enough, the last line i wrote was "espcially if it won't cause undo confusion among English speakers." I think it's obvious that established names should probably be left as the exonym (exonym as a last resort was in the title) but for lesser known places the original name should be used. As for being unable to type an "ß," well redirects can bring you from "meissen" to "meißen" and the "ß" is located in the characters list below (second character in the second line) if it is needed in editing. Thanks Naufana:Talk 16:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly think English names of places should be used where they exist. Rome, Vienna, Munich, Prague, Warsaw, Moscow, etc., all have well-established English names distinct from local names, and those English names should be used. But places that have no common name in English, such as Meißen, Toruń, Chişinău, etc., should use their native names as they are spelled locally, including unfamiliar characters, provided the local spelling is in the Latin alphabet. Where the local spelling is not in the Latin alphabet, a transliteration of the local name into the Latin alphabet should be used, as in Blagoveshchensk and Beijing. (And yes, ß, þ and ð are part of the Latin alphabet!) The only problem is deciding what counts as a "well-established English name", or even more so, what is not an outmoded English name. Mainz and Koblenz are really no longer called "Mayence" and "Coblence" at all; "Constance" for Konstanz and "Brunswick" for Braunschweig are pretty old-fashioned but not completely dead; and "Turin" for Torino, as mentioned above, seems to be on the way out. If policy leaves any ambiguity, it should be on this question: if English has historically used a name spelled differently from the local name, is that historical English name still up-to-date? For Munich, the answer is a clear yes; for "Mayence", the answer is a clear no; but for "Brunswick" and especially "Turin" the answer isn't clear at all. Angr 17:09, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Meissen does indeed have a common name in English, which is well established. Every English-language encyclopedia that I've checked, spells it as "Meissen."[1][2][3] And yet, there are still people at Talk:Meissen who argue, against clear evidence otherwise, that there's no common English version of the name, and hence they want the article moved to "Meißen". --Elonka 22:56, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Britannica can't be trusted to use unfamiliar letters at all, since they also misspell their articles on "Torun" and "Chisinau". Interestingly, Encarta and Columbia do use diacritics for those names: [4], [5]; [6], [7]. Nevertheless, what other encyclopedias do is still irrelevant. Meißen has no English name and never has. The spelling "Meissen" is only used by encyclopedias who don't trust their readers to know what "ß" means, and who can't or won't provide links to an article explaining it. Since Wikipedia has the convenient {{foreignchar}} template which will provide a link to ß at the top of the article, there's no reason for us to provide our readers with misinformation. Angr 07:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above, Turin isn't "on the way out". The BBC still uses it, for a start. Just because the Winter Olympics were officially called Torino 2006 doesn't mean that people are stopping calling the city itself Turin. -- Necrothesp 13:36, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OWN dispute

The page has been changed in the last couple days to include many new things (take a look at this dif). Some of the new things don't really fit in with "owning" an article though. Minor changes, such as formatting, image size and placement, choice of words, and other mundane edits are argued about on a daily basis by one editor seems to be kind of a false indication. If formatting is done wrong on an article, I fix it, to make the article look better. Image size and placement can't be considered owning the article, especially if the image is too big. Sometimes, there are better words to describe something. The articles are for the readers after all, not for the editors alone. Since WP:OWN is an important policy, I believe we should get at least some community consensus before any changes are made. -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk) 02:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • If I'm honest, and with apologies to Royalguard11, I think he or she has misunderstood the dispute, and that the statement of it, above, isn't an accurate reflection. There is a real dispute though at WP:OWN, stemming from the edit war at Hippies. Like Royalguard11, though, I'd encourage community views. AndyJones 13:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not exactly an edit war (most of the editors who have been working on the article simply cannot work with the major irrational and undiscussed changes being made by User:Viriditas, and his refusal to discuss his actions, so at this point basically only Viriditas is editing the article) but yeah, that's where it started. User:Viriditas accused 3 of his fellow editors with 'own'ing an article (Hippie) in an RfC and in the same time frame, Viriditas made edits to WP:OWN with what seems to me to be the intent of tailoring the policy to suit his needs vis a vis the RfC. User:Pedant 08:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Pedant is certainly welcome to this POV, but the dispute, for the most part concerns a culture of original research and unwillingness to supply citations. There were ownership issues, and I raised them more than a month ago, and after taking a break, I've raised them again. My edits to the ownership policy did not change the core policy in any way, but merely gave examples. If there is a genuine concern with my edits to that policy, I would love to hear them. As for the issues that Pedant raises, I would like to know what my needs are and how I have changed the policy to suit them. Pedant seems to have great psychic powers, so I defer to his expertise in these matters. All I ask is that he share his lottery numbers with me. —Viriditas | Talk 04:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Responding to Royalguard11, Melchoir was kind enough to fix things up. I'm going to also add, "this does not include fixing egregious formatting errrors." Does that help? Further feedback is appreciated. I'm sorry I didn't see your reply until now. —Viriditas | Talk 05:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

...in popular culture

My watchlist is mostly fruits and vegetables (I'm a farmer and these are the things I'm interested in), and many of these seem to have rapidly growing sections on "trivia" or "this fruit in popular culture".

I hate to be the stick-in-the-mud complaining about how fun (and often silly) trivia isn't really encyclopedic, but fun (and often silly) trivia really just isn't encyclopedic. (For the latest example, see radish). --SB_Johnny|talk|books 23:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

People are obviously more interested in this kind of stuff than the actual encyclopedia article though, half the time. I guess that's a testament to the modern attention span. I think a good compromise is a "WikiTrivia" or something, much like WikiQuote, so this stuff is no longer on Wikipedia but people who are interested in it can still easilly find it, and in probably a better format anyway. If we are determined to compile a list of every pop culture to everything (as we seem to be), well we might as well create a place where that's fully appreciated.
In the meantime, I say if nothing else, remove the stuff from articles if the teeming masses will let you. It will stay in the page history. Of course, if it can be converted into meaningful prose, that's a better option. --W.marsh 00:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a Good Article reviewer, a designated Trivia section or bullet point "In popular culture" list is generally frowned upon. Ideally anything that is relevant or encyclopedic about the topic should find its way into the main sections of the article. However, I have seen well written "In popular culture" sections that are presented in a prose format instead of the bullet point list. Agne 00:04, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's a brilliant idea actually - a fork of wikipedia that could be solely based on trivia. Someone should propose that :). Cowman109Talk 00:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is no actual policy on trivia additions, specifically. Instead, there is wide precedent for trimming/removing it. The author's complaint is valid. One of the first articles I rewrote after getting to Wikipedia was parody. All that stuff in there about the history of the term and literature is me. Immediately, people began adding in "list of parodies." The list was out of order, biased toward whatever was on television at the moment, and preserved genuinely forgettable things. I didn't want to squash the egos of the editors, but, at the same time, that thing was ugly and unhelpful. It's best if you announce on the talk page first that the trivia section is getting hairy and that you'd like to give it a trim. Wait for comment a couple of days. If there is no objection, go ahead and tame the mess. There is little question that trivia sections (and most "in pop culture" sections) are just folks tossing in whatever they can think of, and it's not good to be brutal, revert, or insult them. Geogre 01:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have a style guideline at Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles that is part of the Manual of Style. The nutshell version is "Lists of facts, as found in trivia sections, are better presented within the context of the text rather than in a section of unrelated items." We have a proposed inclusion guideline at Wikipedia:Trivia, while it is more for trivial complete articles than material within an article, it also contains some suggestions on what to do with overextensive trivia sections when found at Wikipedia:Trivia#Practical steps suggestion. GRBerry 01:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wikitrivia actually sounds like a good idea... but if there was such a thing, would links to it be "legal"? I'm not sure how effective a solution that would be though: if you've ever mentioned on a talk page that an article (or sections of it) might belong on wikibooks or wiktionary... --SB_Johnny|talk|books 15:01, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The craziest thing I can think of is all of the pages which have a section called "X in popular culture" with an entry where X was the subject of a throwaway line or joke on the Simpsons. If you want to see something crazy, check out the Special:Whatlinkshere/The_Simpsons and you will see what I mean -- I count about 7000 links and the vast majority of these topics have nothing at all to do with the Simpsons. Spebudmak 04:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Simple restatement of our goals

I think it's getting to the point where perhaps we all need to touch base and work out where the common ground on this project is. Our policy and guideline pages are growing out of control and becoming areas of focus as much as the actual encyclopedia is, and I think maybe it's time to rewrite them and try to keep it simple. It looks like we have gone too far down the road of trying to detail every possible instance of what might be an unreliable source, or what might be original research, and maybe it's time to just let the pages breathe and trust our own common sense. Steve block Talk 12:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, this is an encyclopedia and I have seen lots of examples of WP:OR. I asked for comunity feedback on one recently. There is a large issue especially in relation to WP:OR that many editors do not understand. We as people learn new things and want to express those, some people want to express them here. They do not take the time to just report what others say, they attempt to draw links. I am involved in an AfD that involves a user connecting two arab men because one of their names are similar and the user wants to connect them because arab names are hard to illiterate. This user has no outside source stating that they are linked, just proof that arab names are hard to illiterate and proof that both are wanted criminals. WP:OR would normally prevent this, but WP:OR perhaps doesn;t go far enough to explain what people can and cannot add. I would almost hope to see every sentence reference unless it shares a previous reference in that same paragraph.
I think the rules here need to be clarified further, not less, there leaves to much middle ground and gives those enforcing the rules too much leeway in determining when and where they enforce their understanding of the rules. Could you imagine if you lived in a country where the law simply said, donig bad things is illegal ... it would be chaos of police abuse and disorderly citizens. --NuclearUmpf 12:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I fail to grasp your point. Yes, this is Wikipedia, it's an encyclopedia, and original research is not accepted. Nowhere have I suggested anything else. Your current problem is not with the Original research policy page, it is with a user who, based upon your summary, cannot grasp what original research is. Whether you explain that to the user at their talk page or the article talk page makes no bones to the policy itself. And if people are seriously asking that every sentence be sourced then I think we've lost the point here a little. The whole point is that every sentence can be challenged, not that it is referenced within the article. We build by challenging. You are showing that now by challenging the information. If it is as you state, then the original research is removed. Fail to see the problem. Steve block Talk 13:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
People's interpretation of the rules is causing problem is the point, making things less detailed leaves more room for interpretation. Simple is not better. --NuclearUmpf 23:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't matter how you write the rules, we have WP:IAR. Interpretation is always going to be an issue. Keeping it simple allows us to focus on what we want from an article, not what we want from a debate. Steve block Talk 14:00, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation

I'm forever frustrated by not learning from any reference work other than a dictionary how the headword is pronounced. I often consult encyclopedic - or reference - dictionaries, which do give a pronunciation guide (because they are chiefly dictionaries and follow the dictionary format). Would it not be an idea for Wikipedia to be (if, indeed, this is the case) the first to do so? Those people who have contributed articles (and I realise some will have contributed a lot) could go back and add a small edit, and, over a couple of years or so, articles would have a pronunciation guide for their headwords.

Andy Armitage

That might be a good idea, except for the fact that not everyone knows ho to read and write pronunciation guides. I know I don't. Some of Wikipedia's articles currently have pronunciation guides, and I often find myself with no more idea how to pronunce the word then without one. Some other articles have little things you can click and hear the word pronounced, and that's better (imho), but not all browsers support those features. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That is an interesting idea. There is a whole series of specialized marks which represent speech sounds. Are you thinking of (what I would call) "commonly understood" pronounciation guides ? Such as "spigot, rhymes with bigot" or "automobile, auto + Moh-beel" ? Or are you thinking of linking to wikidictionary (which really should have pronounciations) ? Terryeo 15:51, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was referring to the series of specialized marks, which is what I was referring to when I said I had no idea how to read or write them and when I see them in an article I have no more idea how to pronounce the word than I would without them. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia already uses the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in some articles, but it's a little arcane and hard to read for many people. You may want to view Wikipedia:Pronunciation for more on the subject. -- nae'blis 19:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think the best solution is to include short audio recordings for terms that have unclear pronunciation. Nothing explains how to say something better than hearing it said. Of course, we still need to include written pronunciation for print. Deco 23:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But "correct" pronunciations vary all over the place. For example, the way a New Zealander says "pen" is very different from the way I (a northeastern USAian) say it. FreplySpang 15:26, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The GFDL version 2!

The first draft of the new version of the GFDL (which all Wikipedia text content is licensed under) was released yesterday. If you are interested in Wikipedia licensing issues, please visit this page and join the discussion. This is very exciting news for Wikipedia! Kaldari 23:08, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an interesting except from the GFDL2 draft:

Kaldari 23:15, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The evident purpose of this clause is to push wikis into using the new GNU Wiki License by effectively relicensing all existing GFDLed wiki content under that license. It's probably aimed at Wikipedia in particular. The language is not terribly precise though and could conceivably accidentally include open source projects. Deco 23:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's also important that Wikipedians take a look at section 6a:

This section was ostensibly added to placate Wikipedia so that individual articles could be excerpted from Wikipedia without having to include pages of licensing material. The problem is that "20,000 characters" is tiny. An average Featured Article weighs in at about 50,000 characters, and longer articles often exceed 100,000 characters (e.g. Vietnam War: 142,958 chars; Paleoconservatism: 190,236 chars). Also 20,000 characters in the Chinese Wikipedia counts for a lot more information than 20,000 characters in the English Wikipedia. We should lobby to have this limit changed from "20,000 characters" to "20,000 words". Kaldari 00:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the GNU Wiki License? I couldn't find it on GNU.org or the FSF site. Peter O. (Talk) 01:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't available yet. It's expected soon though, so watch the gplv3.fsf.org site for details. Angela. 12:11, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Foreign language sources and translated quotes

Hi. An editor at Talk:Vlaams Belang (a Dutch language Belgian political party) came up with the interesting remark that a number of quotes, used in the article, are in fact translated from Dutch into English by a Wikipedia editor, which according to him might constitute WP:OR.

Another remark, noted several times before, is that this article (and a number of other articles on Dutch language subjects) used quite a lot of foreign (Dutch and French) language sources (that are not being translated, of course).

I don't seem to find a policy about this. Is there ?
What is the general feeling ? Does using self-translated quotes constitute original research ?

Thanks. --LucVerhelst 20:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I elect not to answer the OR question, but I propose this at least: If we present someone's words in another language as a quotation in English, we must also quote the original language. Whether this involves italics, parentheses, footnotes, etc. is up in the air, but the untranslated quotation should be preserved somewhere. Melchoir 20:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. That seems to be the policy, too. It seems I'm up to some work, then. --LucVerhelst 20:57, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit conflict)
Hm. I was too fast again. I found this at WP:CITE:
But the issue still remains. Wikipedia's quality is what it is, because of the mutual verification by all the participating editors. When using sources in other languages, this verification process is narrowed down to those editors knowing the language in question. May be there should be a task force or a project or something where the help (in this verification process) from bi- or multi-lingual editors could be found. (This is something entirely different than WP:TIE.) --LucVerhelst 20:55, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(Another edit conflict) I think untranslated foreign language sources should be usable. It's not optimal, but otherwise we'll have even more problems with systemic bias. If translations are OR should probably be decided on a case by case basis. If a native speaker translates a simple modern text, that is not OR in my view. For me, translating such texts from German is not different from paraphrasing an English text. Someone translating a text from ancient Aramaic is something else... --Stephan Schulz 20:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Now, if we would have a list of Aramaic speakers, that might be helpful. --LucVerhelst 21:08, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But translating a political statement isn't like translating a scientific statement. A quote where someone says they deliberately lost a case for propaganda reasons, for instance, could very well have nuances of wording which make it not mean exactly what it seems to mean. A scientific or historical quote won't.

It's true that summarizing an already English quote raises similar issues yet is accepted. But my guess is that if the quote was originally English, we would have recognized the issues and not summarized it either. When a quote is used to condemn someone by their own words, we quote, we don't summarize.

(I don't know Dutch. If the original is so clear that the translator doesn't need to interpret it, ignore this...) Ken Arromdee 21:24, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The thoughtful procedure is always to translate the quote in the body of the text, giving the original in a <ref></ref> note. That way the reader deficient in that language is not slowed or daunted. The idea that translations might be either "original" or "research" is a bit dense. --Wetman 00:09, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Quite. You shouldn't call it original research. But it is true, as Ken Arromdee says, that sometimes nuances of wording don't get translated, or that the wrong nuances are translated.
I still believe this problem warrants a more structural solution. --LucVerhelst 07:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Danny" from the "Office"

Does anyone know where Danny Wood went to law school? What bar memberships he possesses? --GreenCommander81 03:09, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be willing to be that user:Danny would know such details. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah whatever, brah... GreenCommander81 03:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have some point you're trying to make? It might really help to speak more plainly. Specifically, why do you care? He is one of 6 employees of the Wikimedia Foundation (see Wikimedia staff), and is not the Foundation's legal counsel. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Danny does not have a legal degree but he often acts upon the advice of the Foundation's counsel. JoshuaZ 03:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • so are you saying that he's an attorney that didn't go to law school? I'm confused... /GreenCommander81 03:59, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, Danny is not an attorney. Are you confusing him with Brad Patrick? Angela. 12:13, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To the best of my knowledge, Danny is not a lawyer. To the best of my knowledge, he also doesn't claim to be one. Is there some kind of point you're trying to get at here? Shimgray | talk | 12:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Danny is most certainly not a lawyer. I think Angela is right - GreenCommander81 is probably confusing him with Brad, who is a lawyer and is Wikimedia's interim executive director. Raul654 12:57, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trolling?

Well the point i'm trying to make is why does everyone think, not only on Wikipedia but also on Slashdot and other forums, that people trolling are bored young while males? Haven't you noticed that the average troll is quite articulate and intelligent? I posit to you, kind sir, that many of those you deride as "trolls" are indeed college graduates, and even some professionals. I know of a troll that operated on this very medium last year to be a retired County Court judge in Florida. Just a thought my man... let's tee it up! --GreenCommander81 03:58, 29 September 2006 (UTC)![reply]

your point being? If they are not teenagers, all the more shame on them. dab (ᛏ) 11:40, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Asking provacative and pointless questions [8] [9] [10] [11] in as public of a venue as you can get [12], and then walking away can certainly count as trolling. --Interiot 14:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When is something a copyright violation?

I ask this question because I bumped on the article Piet Keizer, which in its first version was a literal translation from [13]. The text has been rephrased later, but some sentences still are a literal translation and it is very obvious what inspired the article. Taka 18:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's ok to literally translate certain things, especially relevant names or facts. As long as the article isn't a carbon copy it should be fine. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 18:13, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. That works the other way around too? I mean translating a wikipedia article, shuffle a bit with the text and then claim it as my own text? Taka 18:22, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't work that way in either direction. A translation is a derived work, and in most copyright jurisdiction is even explicitely named as an exclusive right of the copyright holder. Names or facts are not protected (by copyright, names may be trademarked), of course, independent from the language they are expressed in. Free paraphrasing is fine, translating is not. --Stephan Schulz 18:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well I don't know the exact degree to which this is copied. It seems to be a little too close for its own good, and could probably use a rewrite. As for the other thing, Wiki is GDFL, so you could do just that. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 18:42, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Um, no, you could not...text licensed under the GFDL remains under copyright and derivative works must be properly attributed as stipulated in the license. You could not claim it as your own text. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:23, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Er, that's not correct. A translation is a "derivative work", and may only be copyrighted with the permission of the original copyright holder. Otherwise, it's still a copyright violation. However, with permission from the copyright holder, presumably a translation could be GFDL and the original version not. --W.marsh 18:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can I be please ask what the above users are basing these opinions on? I suspect User:W.marsh is right, but my speculation is simply that: speculation. Does any one have any case law, statuory, or administrative law they are basing this advice on? If you would all like, I can ask my law professor on Monday if no one can provide this information. If User:Taka was simply asking what is current wikipedia policy, it would be pretty easy to answer, as User:Christopher Parham does well, but User:Taka is asking much more than this, he is asking a legal question. Are you confining your question to wikipedia User:Taka ? Because most of the responses, other than User:Christopher Parham is legal advice. Travb (talk) 20:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notability

I've found myself thinking that we need to have a discussion, is notability something wikipedia needs? Please note that we are not asking how to determine notability or whether or not certian criteria regarding notability is correct, just if the concept is needed on wikipedia. Does notability stand on its own two feet? Notability has been a proposed policy for a while, yet we have never really discussed it.  ALKIVAR™ 05:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is something that we need, in what form and how it is done, we can work out later. I like the idea of talking about the general merit of notability. I hope that is the direction this debate goes in. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 05:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Wikipedia is not infinite shows there are theoretical bounds to how much we can hope to tackle (eg. that WP:V and WP:NPOV alone allow for an infinite set of possible articles). User:Worldtraveller shows that there are practical limits to how many articles our community can hope to maintain at a given level of quality. --Interiot 06:09, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In terms of the actual guideline, I think a discussion of proposed changes would be great. However, the general idea of notability is important and an integral part of Wikipedia. Without notability guidelines, Wikipedia would turn into MySpace. hoopydinkConas tá tú? 06:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see notability as having a few main functions:
  • It ensures that an article or portion of an article has a significant enough public benefit to justify its overhead in maintainence and space/organization. For example, one could reasonably expect many people to benefit from information on eagles, but very few people could make use of information about your pet goldfish, unless they happen to live in or visit your house.
  • It helps to ensure that more editors will be interested in the article, so that it remains up-to-date and high quality, since notable subjects attract the attention of more people.
  • It helps ensure that policies such as verifiability and no original research are met (which unlike notability are policy) by selecting subjects that tend to be better documented and well-established.
Some have suggested starting a separate project for non-notable subjects, if only to have a place to move these things. I would suggest that, due to the factors above, such a project would have to have a stricter editing system, to prevent degradation of information on topics about which few people are interested. Deco 19:57, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Test2a and "removing content"

I'm concerned about the misunderstandings and potentials for abuse arising from this template and its series Template:Test3a etc. The text of these warning templates implies that "removing content" is automatically "considered vandalism". This is in contradiction to Wikipedia:Vandalism#What vandalism is not, and it has given rise to a widespread myth about a non-existant "don't-remove-content" policy. Please comment on Template talk:Test2a. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:06, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just minorly reword it to be safe. Blanking content is vandalism, any section of a page where an unexplained blanking would not be vandalism would be a section that was not encyclopedic content to begin with. Personal attacks in articles, incomprehensible nonsense, and other forms of vandalism are probably the only things that should ever be blanked without giving a reason. Even the removal of unsourced negative info on a BLP would at least merit an explanation on the talk page or a detailed edit summary. --tjstrf 08:09, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Derivative works and license compatibility

So I'm planning to start up a small, focused public wiki (non-commercial) that I anticipate will have at least a little bit of overlap with Wikipedia.

As a part of the process of bootstrapping and seeding it with starter articles, I was thinking of grabbing some relevant content from Wikipedia and adapting it for my needs. I assume, for starters, that doing so is in keeping with the GFDL, provided it's republished under GFDL.

Likewise, my hope would be that we would eventually develop content that might be appropriate for a general interest encyclopedia, which we could then port to Wikipedia (pruning it down to general interest length). Again, I assume this is not an issue if ours is published under the GFDL.

But let's say I don't wish to encumber future iterations (print edition?) with the unweildy GFDL manifesto and opt for something like a CC share-alike license...

I take it that the first half of the above (copping Wikipedia content) would be right out—that GFDL content simply can't be republished under CC-by-sa. (Or is there some viable work-around?)

But what about republishing CC-by-sa content to Wikipedia? CC share alike says "you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one." Does Wikipedia's GFDL qualify as "identical" in this respect?

75.21.89.221 18:55, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No. Any pair of copyleft licenses are fundamentally incompatible. What you would actually want to do is release your new work under both licenses. The articles derived from Wikipedia articles must remain under GFDL and only GFDL, even if significantly modified, unless it so happens that all authors to that article multilicensed their work (which is extremely unlikely). Deco 20:01, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There needs to be a careful considered of what *derived* means. In this case *wholely derivative* being perhaps redundant is significant. If you get 10% of your information from wikipedia, and cite it, and 90% from your own seperate research, then your new work certainly does not need to be licensed under GFDL. Derivative in this case, would mean, "consisting of material entirely retrieved from another work". Wjhonson 20:15, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For articles with no anon contributers and only a few registered authors, you can request that the author release their contributions under another license. If you can get this for all the authors, you can re-publish that article under another license. --Carnildo 21:06, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Deco writes: "Any pair of copyleft licenses are fundamentally incompatible."

Are there no copyleft licenses that are flexible enough to allow relicensing under other, similar copyleft licenses? Or would that just be fundamentally too flexible?

Wjhonson writes: "In this case *wholely derivative* being perhaps redundant is significant... Derivative in this case, would mean, 'consisting of material entirely retrieved from another work'."

I'd actually think that "wholly derivative" would be the opposite of redundant—perhaps oxymoronic. At any rate, are there any law-minded individuals out there, with the actual patience to read the GFDL, who can back up what Wjhonson says above?

Carnildo: "For articles with no anon contributers and only a few registered authors, you can request that the author release their contributions under another license."

This seems impractical for a wiki, though I suppose to address my second concern it could be dual-licensed from the start. (Or triple-, quadruple- or poly-licensed?)

75.22.206.71 21:25, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I would add ("I" being both 75.21.89.221 and 75.22.206.71 from above) that the share-alike portion of this CC-by-sa draft reads, "you may distribute the resulting work only under this license" where the final version says, "... a license identical to this one." This change at least suggests to me that CC might not view their license as necessarily "fundamentally incompatible" with other potential copyleft licenses.

So I'll ask again: can CC-by-sa content be republished under GFDL? Both are considered share-alike licenses in some respect. Where does "identity" between licenses begin and end?

Where my law dogs at?

64.109.248.198 00:09, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Generally copyleft licenses are incompatible because of the copyleft aspect itself - GFDL but not CC-by-sa requires distributed derivative works to placed under GFDL, while CC-by-sa but not GFDL requires distributed derivative works to be placed under CC-by-sa. This might be immaterial if the other terms of the licenses were identical, but they're very different, and may become even more different in future versions. Deco 02:10, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rudeness

Moved to WP:ANI, as there doesn't appear to be any actual policy question or discussion taking place. Ξxtreme Unction|yakkity yak 20:31, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Subnational entities in town-twinning

Check out this diff. I put it in, two days later it got removed.

Cons to allowing subnational entities in sister cities: many.

Pros to allowing subnational entities in sister cities: nobody knows where "Faribault" is (it's in Minnesota).

Discuss! Zweifel 10:46, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Seems to be a lot of confusion there. The "Rochester, US" one is especially meaningless. Depending on where you live that can mean any one of a dozen towns at first glance. I see no problem in putting in the state. The place's name is not "Town, USA", it is "Town, State, USA", and if others want to improve the locations in other countries, they should. But they should not remove what is essentially more precise information. Sparkhead 12:01, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Using hide/show in navboxes

Is there any policy for or against hiding information in navigation boxes? For example the nav-boxes used on United States. →AzaToth 15:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've only seen one such navigation box discussed at TfD. There a persuasive argument was made that it made the articles the template was used in unwieldy for handheld devices and took too much time to load. I'd suggest that any navigation box not to be initially shown probably should be linked to or put on a sub-page where it is appropriate to show it. GRBerry 19:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Help needed

The recent (and I believe worthwhile but that's beyond the point) proposal to replace the old notability essay with a guideline page reflecting the actual use of notability in the deletion process has led to a lame revert war among experienced editors and admins. The edit warring concerns whether or not the proposal is a proposal or a guideline. One can see that the talk page has become a nasty screaming match where people have pretty much stopped to listen to one another. I think this urgently requires the intervention of cooler heads. Pascal.Tesson 21:36, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Information gathering poll regarding notability

Wikipedia's very own dreaded "n-word" is being discussed over at the proposed rejected disputed Wikipedia:Non-notability. I've just set up a sort of straw-poll thingy at Wikipedia talk:Non-notability#Information-gathering straw-poll, and I invite people who are interested in this issue to contribute their opinions so we may gauge how the community of Wikipedians feels about notability as an inclusion criterion.

Have a great day, and remember, voting is evil! :) -GTBacchus(talk) 22:17, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User talk redirects

I now have user accounts on three Wikipedia projects: en, fr and commons. I don't visit each of them on a daily basis, so would it be acceptable to redirect the other two to my talk page on en? My concern is that users would then be unable to sign their names appropiately without explicitly typing in their signature. Is there a better solution to this? (Please reply on my talk page.) --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 07:40, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

moving pages through wikipojects

I can't find a page explainig if it's a policy about moving pages i.e. from wikipedia to wiktionary. We just added on It.wiki and I would to compare it between the mayors project. Bye The Doc post... 13:45, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Newcomers

I'm going to say it because it is true. Wikipedia is crap if you happen to be new like me and here's why:

  • I've twice started working on articles, and twice been mugged by all I can describe as Vultures descending to watch a newcomer struggling.
  • There is no indication on the "start a new page" that tells you; you will be mugged for daring to start a page without being "in with the lads".
  • The help facility is useless to me if I can't even search it. I've tried "search" at the left but it just returns articles on "stub". I can't see a search on the help pages.
  • I can't find anything about the preferred style for reference quotes. I can't find anything about "needs reference", I can't find anything ...
  • I've raised requests for help and advice in numerous places, not one has come back! How come a pack of vultures were quite ready to kick me in the teeth but no one will help when I ask it?
  • As a newcomer, I'm struggling even to edit the pages. What I need is protection from these vultures to get an article to a stage where I'd welcome a few comments. Why isn't the facility to have "page under construction" even if it is time limited?
  • Ok, the page was rubbish, but it was bound to be because I cut and pasted some stuff to get an idea of where things would go .... but, now everytime I go into edit there is a huge ... I mean absolutely huge mass of rubbish at the beginning of the article. My wife’s comment when I asked her to check the spelling was "I can't do that...".
  • Why when I start a new page aren't I offered a series of helpful templates instead of a blank page (which as a newcomer I've got to fill with something)
  • But most of all why is Wikipedia so hypocritical "come in an edit you say", when I do that I get beaten up ....
  • I posted almost similar comments months, maybe years ago on an article on incrementalism which I left in disgust. What happened? Bugger all. Why?

Mike 14:25, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'd love a smell checcer as well!

Mike 14:28, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Mike. Wikipedia has a strict policy of not biting the newcomers, but unfortunately not everyone is completely receptive to new users. My suggestion is to start an article in your own Sandbox (which you can create by clicking here) so you can work on it at your own pace. Then, when you feel it's ready, you can copy or move it to the Wikipedia namespace. You can get the attention of helpful editors by placing {{helpme}} on your talk page with a specific question. I know that it can be frustrating to learn this new system, but please try to remember that the editors here are doing their best, and that includes deleting articles that don't meet Wikipedia's standards. Calling them "vultures" is a breach of our rule concerning civility. If you have any further questions, you can talk to me on my talk page, or you can put the helpme tag on your own talk page to get someone's attention. Good luck! -- Merope Talk 14:44, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The vultures in question can be found here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lords Reform Ξxtreme Unction|yakkity yak 15:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mike. Unfortunately your first experience of Wikipedia is typical of what happens to newish editors contributing their first article. They are by far likely to run afoul of WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:RS until they've spent quite some time here. I disagree with Merope somewhat, what happened to you was not a case of WP:BITE as you weren't targeted in your personal capacity. However the articles that were nominated were done so absolutely correctly. If you spend any amount of time on NP Patrol and saw the sheer amount of dross coming into the 'pedia you'd understand why some editors have a "shoot on sight" attitude. Most of the time, it is the only effective way to remove unencyclopedic content before it can "fall below the radar" of the community. Zunaid 12:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merges and histories

What's the policy on en.wikipedia regarding the histories of merged pages? Are the histories merged into the destination, or do they just go "poof"?

I'm actually asking this as a wikibooks admin... I discovered that this could indeed be done several weeks ago, but I'm not sure whether it's worth the bother and/or potential upset if an editor comes across the page during the process of merging (it involves merging the stuff into the destination, then deleting the article, then moving the merged article to the space, then restoring all versions, and finally updating to the most recent version). Is it done here? --SB_Johnny|talk|books 15:41, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I'm very much a GFDL hawk, which is why I think it might be worth the trouble. --SB_Johnny|talk|books 15:43, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, histories should almost always be preserved. From a GFDL standpoint it's a good idea, and moreover it simply helps editors to be able to see earlier revisions and track the history of an article. An article should always be moved such that the history is preserved... copy and paste moves are a bad idea. A history merge can be done in about 30-60 seconds really, so the impact on readers is minimal. --W.marsh 15:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, that's what I figured :). Is there a policy page lurking somewhere about this I could copy? The other WB admins didn't even know this could be done (and I'm relatively new, so it obviously hadn't been done earlier). --SB_Johnny|talk|books 16:14, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:How to fix cut and paste moves might be a place to start... I'm not sure if there's an official policy page anywhere. --W.marsh 16:25, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's prety much what I was looking for. --SB_Johnny|talk|books 22:46, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I assume this doesn't count for merges like explained in Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages? The backlog of merges is already big enough that one doesn't want to request admin help every time for a history merge. Garion96 (talk) 22:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually the admin action would take place after step 7 on that page. I just did a couple on wikibooks, more like 45 seconds of work if you just move/delete in one step, then restore in the second step. W.marsh is right, regular readers and editors wouldn't likely hit the page when it's in progress. --SB_Johnny|talk|books 23:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I found a particularly disturbing yet interesting comment buried in WP:AN/I

Admittedly this borrows a bit from the farming and selling of accounts for use in online gaming such as "Worlds of Warcraft" but I must admit that my idea is rather crafty: Employ several impoverished people (better yet children or students) at a pittance to register new accounts on Wikipedia. Have them make simple yet helpful edits to articles daily over four to six months. Start having them post simple votes on AfD and other forums to improve their visibiliy in the Wikipedia community. Once an account's edit count is 1500+, they will nominate themselves for adminship, and once a few are made admins, the new "farmed" admin accounts can nominate other prospective accounts for admin. Granting of adminship is almost guaranteed since all the new accounts have a substantial edit history both in article space and participation in Wikispace, with no controversial edits. Once adminship is granted, sell the account name and password on Ebay, a la the online gaming schemes. PROFIT!! A similar scheme requiring less time and investment would be the "farming" of "established sockpuppet" accounts, for sale in bulk . . . say, oh, fake accounts aged over a month with an edit count of 100 or so. Like put a lot of 25 to 50 of them on Ebay for sale to the highest bidder. Sockpuppets with a false history would be much less obvious than your "created yesterday with no edits" normal sockpuppets. Just use them from an open proxy and voila! And I'm sure you can imagine how much havoc could be wrought with the farming and selling of admin-level accounts en masse... Quite a lucrative and devious scheme I dare say.

Scheme removed per WP:BEANS. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:10, 2 October 2006 (UTC) [reply]
Added it back in because it's sort of annoying trying trying to figure out the beginning of the movie from watching the middle. --SB_Johnny|talk|books 22:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I did not write this, just stumbled across it. Courtney Simpson 18:33, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't work, chances are an honest soul would notice the auction and tip us off so we can shut the acount down. And that is asuming random edits by "sweat shop editors" will be sufficient to become an admin in the first place wich I kinda doubht. --Sherool (talk) 18:56, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ha! That's just excellent. I must say whoever thought of that is certainly a creative fellow. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 18:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
yeah it would be very difficult to pull off and how would you sell them on ebay without identifying them as "bent" accounts? They'd be shut down before the auction had finished. --Charlesknight 18:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not economically feasable unless accounts go for a lot more than I'd expect. Account farming works because it can be done by unskilled labor. Adminship isn't just a matter of getting enough experience points: you need to make good edits and become part of the community, both of which require someone reasonably fluent in English, and English speakers don't come cheap. Further, because an admin needs to be part of the community, the personality change when the account is sold would clue people in. A back-of-the-envelope estimate is that an account would need to sell for at least $10,000 to be worthwhile, and would have a high chance of being blocked as a stolen/compromised account shortly after transfer. --Carnildo 19:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Look, don't you realize that the auction on Ebay wouldn't identify the account by name? Jeez...Courtney Simpson 19:02, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Worse case scenario, someone buys this and starts abusing it. They'll get found out quickly and the account will be disabled. They can't really do anything _that_ bad, and combining money with the scheme pulls this out of the range of all but the most dedicated, rich prankster/griefer. Beans beans beans beans, it's not that big of a deal. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 19:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why would someone believe that the seller had a legitimate account, then? Blind faith? Besides, once one such account came to light, all the rest would get nailed by CheckUser. Meanwhile, the account buyer would effectively be paying the seller to make a few thousand good edits to Wikipedia. Go find something useful to do, Courtney—you shouldn't be using a new account to stuff beans up your nose. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:10, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am sure it would take someone less time to get made admin then it does for someone to get to 60 in World of Warcraft, 312 hours of commited work. There is also the Rank 14 payers that pay for even more hours of work. Also while they will need to know English, the level of their work really isnt difficult, its a matter of scouring news and filling in information that is missing to take care of mainspace edits. --NuclearUmpf 19:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • And just remember, its not just Chinese people, but anglophone students can be paid do to it too. Courtney Simpson 19:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why on earth would someone pay money for an admin account? --SB_Johnny|talk|books 22:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But isn't this just how adminships on Wikipedia are gotten, by posting senselessly, but not destructively, all over the place to up your edit count, like the Wiki administrator who put up hundreds (or thousands) of expand tags on articles that already have stub tags on them? Oh, and also added expand tags on articles that don't necessarily need expanded, upon the theory that every article on Wikipedia always needs more, more, more? Then deleted, er archived, all references to this on his talk page? So you wind up getting adminstrators that are commercially interested with a scheme like this? Is that worse than getting people who have the time and the will to simply increase the volume of Wikipedia without any sense of what an encyclopedia is--it's not the Internet, more isn't always better on the Internet, either. It seems like the worry is just getting a new variety of folk on a system that already offers plenty of ways to do what they're trying to do. By the way, I always agonize before I save a page that I have everything correct, so I only have to do one Save page. Today, I made a little error that had to be corrected right away, did I get two edit counts for that? As long as it is about quantity not quality there will be tons of ways to get an adminship with little in the way of real contribution. KP Botany 23:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is interesting. An obvious market would be to banned users. So long as the seller didn't specify the account name on the auction site, it would be difficult to identify it once it had been sold. However, if there were a few such auctions, all we would need do would be to look at recent adminships (and there aren't a huge number to trouble us) and check for patterns. As well as that, I think that the changed pattern of editing once the proud new owner had taken up his admin account would be a bit of a giveaway. Just how many new admins immediately go from being quiet and productive beavers to obnoxious POV-warriors?
Er, that last was a rhetorical question. --Jumbo 23:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another scenario

Expanding on the above idea, consider the following scenario (which is harder to track for meatpuppetry that the above one): A millionaire from a foreign country pays 150 people, each with a different IP adresses, to edit articles on Wikipedia a few times every day for three to four months. These users are told not to contact each other and that they should try to mantain different editing styles and attitudes. Then, on every week after the first four months, each of these 150 users are nominated one by one on RfA with most of the other 149 users supporting him. Eventually, this continues onwards until all 150 users are admins or possibly even bureaucrats and stewards. The accounts are then given to the millionaire, who uses it to influence articles related to him, whether negatively or positively. Since he controls over 150 admins (each still with their own IP adress), he can recieve a majority consensus in support from any of the debates he is involved in, with the other admins powerless to stop him... --TBCΦtalk? 23:44, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Again, do people really think that wikipedia articles are worth millions of dollars? (And do they really think that wikipedia is made by admins?) All sounds like a lot of paranoia to me, but maybe some didn't realize that our buddy Colbert was kidding (as comedians are often wont to do). --SB_Johnny|talk|books 23:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think such mind control on such a massive level is likely to happen for a while. And if it does, I think we can wake Jimbo from his deep slumber busy schedule to settle it. Fagstein 05:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
All of these scenarios assume that a high edit count or even adminship is worth buying. I'm not an admin, but I can not picture anything that they would have that be worth paying money for. The "power" of an admin is tied into his/her reputation and that is only acquired through a demonstrated commitment to positively impacting the Wikipedia community--something that can not be bought or "farmed". Whatever trolling destruction the admin tools can do are short lived and would soon be reverted and the account banned. What a waste of time and money. Agne 23:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If a millionaire wants to pour gobs of money into getting hundreds of people to make hundreds of thousands of good edits to Wikipedia, I'm not going to lose sleep. If a hundred-strong cadre of admins goes insane, Jimbo can start pulling sysop bits. Meh. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If Bill Gates or Rupert Murdoch want to destroy Wikipedia and are willing to spend millions to do it, they can probably figure out a simpler way than that. Hell, it would be cheaper and surer to start your own competing project and add the paid minions openly. Robert A.West (Talk) 03:51, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I became admin after about 8 months of steady work. I wouldn't have paid for something I can get for free. Also, admins are trusted users of the community and anyone who buys such an account lacks the experience or trust to act as an admin. If they make enough stupid mistakes or get found out through Checkuser, they'll lose their admin account and basically lost their money. - Mgm|(talk) 10:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with you here, although I am new enough that maybe I'm missing something. The administrator who put up all the "expand" tags on pages that already had "stub" tags appears, imo, to lack the experience or trust to act as an administrator. Her/his page is about editcountitis and number of pages "created". However, if you run through the new pages this administrator claims for the over 500 new pages count you will see that they're close to 100% stubs, or need serious work on their English, or are simply copied from other pages on the Internet, or were NOT created by this administrator according to their histories. This is a lot of pointless, poorly written, poorly conceived or unusable fluff added to Wikipedia by an administrator whose stupid mistakes are not getting found out and whose purpose is solely to increase his/her own edit count and pages created count. There are already plenty of means of becoming a poor administrator at Wikipedia, it seems to me, so that creating expensive ways to do so may just simply be a waste of money. KP Botany 18:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal, navigational boxes

See: Wikipedia:Navigational boxes →AzaToth 12:46, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An unusual request for participation...

I'd like to ask any wikipedians who are interested in the transwikiing of "how-to" type articles and/or wikipedians who are hawkish about the GFDL to please express your opinion about enabling import from wikipedia to wikibooks.

For those unfamiliar with the import tool, this allows import of wikipedia articles to wikibooks with the page histories, as opposed to the current copy-paste method which either copies and pastes the material (e.g. b:talk:Transwiki:Dishwasher Repair) or just leaves a link to the original page history (e.g. b:talk:A Wikimanual of Gardening/Rosa multiflora).

There hasn't been much support voiced on wikibooks because (a) most wikibookians aren't particularly interested in policy, and (b) most wikibookians aren't too thrilled about having things transwikied (and then summarily abandoned as stubs) from wikipedia (though I' plan to do a bit of userpage spamming there over the next few days to get support... the only other person who voiced support so far only did so to support me (personally), and plenty of others will vote for that reason since I'm the only admin who gives much of a hoot about our how-to books). (← please don't read any bitterness into this, I really like the "bedroom community" quality of wikibooks (part of why I'm much more at home there than here), it's just that the foundation asked me to rally support, and I'll get more votes quicker asking the wikipedians than the wikibookians. This affects us1 (the "us" that includes me as a wikipedian) probably more than it does us2 (the "us" that includes me as a wikibookian... I lead a confused double-life as far as wikizenship is concerned).

Enabling import on wikibooks would achieve 2 important goals:

  1. It would make the cleanup jobs connected with Category:Articles containing how-to sections and Category:Copy to Wikibooks a lot easier on us 1.
  2. It would be (IMO) more in following both the letter and the spirit of the GFDL (especially considering the sometime soon universal logins across wikiprojects).

Just to clarify why I'm the one making the request here:

  1. I'm the only current WB admin who is active on both projects (I'm also an active admin on wikiversity, which is why I'm familiar with the import tool).
  2. I feel strongly that WP contributions of a how-to nature are made in good faith by (usually new) users who are unaware of the WP policies related to this sort of material, and feel strongly that these contributions should be honored and kept.
  3. Having used the import tool and understanding how it works, I strongly feel that copy-paste transwikis should be depracated: not only are imports easier, but (again) they are also more in harmony with the spirit and letter of the GFDL.
  4. I'm probably the one who will be doing all the work.

Just a note towards a further discussion (assuming the tools are enabled): the "main actors" of the wikibooks community would be a lot more comfortable about hosting transwikis from wikipedia if we1 made it a policy that all transwikis be done this way, since this would ensure that an admin (who at least in theory is familiar with stub-tagging and the WB categories) will make sure it goes where it should, rather than just sitting there. --SB_Johnny|talk|books 16:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Signature Lengths

I'm guessing this is one of those items that comes up repeatedly. I know there's a recommendation of signatures being "one line while editing" (which I would say make 80 characters in HTML), but is there any policy? Been seeing more and more 200+ character sigs and would think a policy would be appropriate. Thanks. *Sparkhead 20:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you point to an example? I haven't found this a problem where I've been editing. AndrewRT - Talk 21:22, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather not shine the spotlight on any one individual in this context. There are two immediate instances of 200+ html character signatures I can think of, and I'm certain I could find a few more. I'm just curious with respect to any sort of established policy. *Sparkhead 23:51, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you need an example, there's always my joke signature at User:Carnildo/sandbox. As a more general case, any user with a color gradient in their sig. --Carnildo 01:26, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blocking policy?

I have to say that something occurred to me lately. Last year, it was standard policy here that only vandals could be unilaterally indefblocked, while those engaged in "trolling" sans-vandalism could only be indefblocked by Jimbo or the ArbCom. see Wikipedia_talk:Dealing_with_disruptive_or_antisocial_editors (a debate from 2004) In 2005 and before, there existed much long-term obvious trolling, and many of those accounts became somewhat notorious, as ArbCom could literally take months to ban even an obvious troll (see User:Lir, User:Rainbowwarrior1977, User:CheeseDreams, and many other "old school" trolls). In some cases, the arbcom would only warn an obvious troll, like that "Anthony DiPierillo" guy or whatever his name was.

Now, however, many attempts at trolling are blocked in the bud by admins before the troll accounts have time to establish a trolling reputation and nobody complains. I remember people would raise holy hell about "process" and "only ArbCom can do that" when a well-meaning admin would unilaterally ban an obvious troll as late as the fall of 2005 (like User:Wiki_brah). In fact, the only "notorious" troll in 2006 that seemed to defy being quickly banned outright was User:Mistress Selina Kyle, who indeed ended up being banned without Arbcom sanction in the end. So what caused this change? Was there an official policy shift? Pardon me, I've only been observing Wikipedia infrequently this year (new job, etc). Thanks in advance, --Yolanda82 23:05, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does it really matter so long as they end up banned eventually? --tjstrf 23:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • There was not an official policy shift, nor is your characterisation of the past strictly accurate (although things were different in the past). AfD is generally for questionable cases involving users who have contributed productively to the project, especially where the right thing is not at all clear. When someone is clearly misbehaving or if they're very new, it makes more sense to let admins handle it simply, so that's what we do. --Improv 23:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Redlinks not found harmful

Seriously, all you folks who spend your days hunting them down and eliminating them.... where will new articles come from? Gzuckier 16:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Hunting them down and eliminating them" we will have to. The whole idea of a red link is to remind us that no article exists with that name, and that we should create one. It's not an obsession. Dieter Simon 22:59, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe Czuckier's talking about people who de-link them? Not really clear. If I'm editing an article and see a redlink that doesn't look like a decent article topic I'll often de-link it, but I've never gone out "hunting" for them. Fan-1967 23:05, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's true of course. I should have said "coming across them and doing something about them", that would be a better (if also a slightly weasely answer (;-) Dieter Simon 23:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't get where this anti-redlink phobia comes from. As noted above, they serve a vital purpose in pointing out articles that do not yet exist -- or articles that are possibly misnamed. Thanks to people removing redlinks, we have ridiculous situations such as writing an article on a book and finding out later that no link existed from the article on the author of said book. It just adds needless work for people creating articles. I'd much rather see a vendetta against all the unnecessary mundane wikilinks that people think need to be added to every other word. 23skidoo 01:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think many redlinks serve a very useful purpose, as you say, as a signal: "This is an article that should exist." But, sometimes they server a less useful purpose, as a signal: "This is an article that should exist," when it really shouldn't. Fan-1967 02:02, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Legal/Medical Opinions

While reading Bankruptcy it occured to me that many wiki articles offer information that could be misconstrued as Legal or Medical advice. It seems to me that it would be a VERY good idea to include a template for a header saying something along the lines of "This article contains information on a Legal/Medical topic. This article is informational only, and under no circumstances should serve as a replacement for professional advice." And then have a little picture of a Caduceus or Lady Justice. That or something like the spoiler warning, except we'll call it a liability warning. Does this seem important to anyone else? --Niro5 17:13, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates. This idea has already been turned down, as they would duplicate the information already available at Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer and Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer. --tjstrf 17:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's also the problem of how the omission of such a template may be interpreted (omitted either because they've been removed, or never placed on a new or orphan article). If some articles on legal topics have disclaimers that the article does not constitute legal advice, then doesn't that suggest that other law-related articles that lack the disclaimer could constitute legal advice? We're better off with the general disclaimers tjstrf pointed to. Postdlf 17:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And I see Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates already makes this point: "The lack of the disclaimer on certain pages as opposed to others might open Wikipedia to lawsuits." (might as well waste more bytes pointing that out) Postdlf 17:33, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Understandable, but I was unable to find these disclaimers until they were pointed out to me just now. I have used Wikipedia before, and I couldn't find them; what about new users? I understand that the lack of a disclaimer where there are disclaimers might lead to trouble, but perhaps the blanket disclaimer should be easier to find.--Niro5 18:05, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what things are like with the Monobook skin, but with the Classic skin, there's a link to the general disclaimer top-and-center on every page. --Carnildo 18:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In monobook, I think it's at the very bottom, centered, along with "Privacy policy" and "About Wikipedia" ++Lar: t/c 19:33, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very rough idea

A very rough idea, born of the discussion on Wikipedia:Expert Retention.

It's Wikipedia:User versions, for an idea on a way to deal with edit creep, and better enable expert editors to monitor content in their subject area. Among other things. It's an extension/generalization to the "stable versions" system. And it's completely democratic, and in the wiki spirit. I'm mentioning it on both VP:POL and VP:TECH as it has implications for both.

It is very rough at this point, so please don't consider it a proposed policy, yet.

--EngineerScotty 19:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting but my initial reaction is that this is too complicated. Technically, it might be a complex overhead, especially because of the proposed delegation system and in practice, I'm afraid you would find that the preferred version is ancient, even though the article has been through a definite progression since or (even worst) articles with low traffic in which an unacceptable version becomes the preferred one because a handful of sockpuppets have deemed it as such. Like it or not, random users will see the preferred page as a mark of confidence. I much prefer the idea of stable versions where the complex process partly ensures that only articles of high importance are tagged. Pascal.Tesson 20:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The base version shouldn't require much more server/database overhead than the watchlist feature itself, which needs to maintain a large set of {user, article} records in the database. The delegation system might involve overhead; I'm not sure exactly how much. At any rate, I hope you don't mind if I copy these comments over to the talk page. --EngineerScotty 20:52, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox-only articles

What's the best way to deal with articles that have no prose whatsoever, and only consist of an infobox or a track listing? I run across a surprising number of these. (examples: [14] [15]) I've heard that some people delete them under CSD-A1 (Very short articles providing little or no context), though infoboxes usually make it unambiguous what the article is about, and infoboxes do take some time to fill out. On the other hand, these are extremely unsatisfying articles... a random visitor has to do too much work to figure out what the intro sentence should be, and it's not clear how long the article will be in a prose-free state, and the original author could have spent a very short amount of time to enter an introductory sentence. I usually tag them with {{context}} to try to urge people to add a single sentence. What do other people do in this situation? --Interiot 08:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Meaningless edits

There is a group of wikipedians making edits whose meaning escapes me. For instance, User:Edton routinely makes edits like this, this, or this. When I ask him to explain his grievances, he responds in a defiant tone. Is there any policy behind these edits? How should we distinguish helpful edits from meaningless? --Ghirla -трёп- 11:02, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In this edit, he/she is refining the category (in addition to moving things around inexplicably).
I dunno. I've asked. -- Hoary 11:25, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=207.74.23.67

After lots of warnings, and one block, his new, preferred form of vandalism appears to be to vandalise a page, and then undo the vandalism two minutes later. I guess it saves the rest of us the bother, but it's not exactly helpful. Someone may well have been viewing the page at that point. It seems to be behaviour deliberately designed to vandalise without being blocked.

Merlinme 14:59, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That type of editing is actually fairly common, and I just assume it's testing when the self-reversion occurs so soon afterwards. Note that there are several days between each pair of edits, and no similarity between the content added or changed, so there's no reason to assume it's even the same person using that IP. Postdlf 15:02, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are we looking at the same user? The four most recent 'contributions' of 207.74.23.67: 1) change the Italian definition of Duce to be 'woman', 2) change it back to 'leader' literally one minute later. 3) Add the name 'Doug Beyer' to the Seven Deadly Sins section on Sloth. 4) Remove it one minute later.

Merlinme 15:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a school IP, so I would assume that it's an (unusually tidy) assortment of students. FreplySpang 15:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, I guess. And going back down the contributions, there are a few useful edits. How do you know it's a school IP?

Merlinme 15:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did a reverse DNS lookup using http://www.dnsstuff.com, which reports it as "server.zeeland.k12.mi.us". "k12" is a common component of school domain names, and pointing my browser at http://www.zeeland.k12.mi.us confirms that the domain belongs to the Zeeland (Michigan) public school system. FreplySpang 23:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So much for the IPs. Back to the first chap: he now promises to double or treble his efforts. Clearly a man (or woman) with a mission! -- Hoary 15:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ownership of articles....

Wikipedia prides itself on being a collaborative venture and often states that anyone can contribute. This does not take into account the proprietary attitude which some editors display to what they regard as their articles. This can lead to the alienation of potentially useful new editors, who often see their work deleted and labelled irrelevant or inappropriate. One way possibly of tackling the problem of "ownership" might be to limit the number of edits which any editor may perform per day on any given page. It would ensure that most editors are careful about only hitting "save" when they are certain that they have finished editing a particular article - the history logs of articles are littered with records of editing that are trivial or malicious. It would also take some of the traffic pressure off Wikipedia servers. The number of edits per day per article could also work on a sliding scale where edit allocations are made according to the editor's history (good or bad) and according to their Wikipedia function. Details would have to be worked out by better minds than mine, but I do think the idea could be made to work well, with very few negative consequences. Have an excellent day....Paul venter 13:25, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have had numerous problems with other editors (a couple in particular) who seem to think they own articles that they either started or have edited extensively. One editor in particular has absolutely refused to let other editors make any additions, corrections, or changes of any kind to "his" articles, to the point of becoming abusive when other editors attempt to do so. This is extremely discouraging, and one reason why I have all but given up on being able to edit articles in a field in which I have a certain amount of knowledge expertise. I wish I could offer more optimism, but this is a problem that will get worse, not better, as Wikipedia acquires more editors. MrDarwin 17:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who's been working hard to bring an article to featured status, it often involves me making a number of minor edits to catch small typos and style changes that I missed. While ownership of articles is an interesting problem, I don't think limiting the amount of edits is the answer as much as people being more vigalant in getting intervention in situations like that. Limiting edits would do nothing more than create prolonged edit conflicts and angrier disputes as they boiled long-term. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The problem I have with this is that I often make many minor changes. I like to fix citation format in articles for references. This is extremely hard to do and frustrating if I had to do them all at once. Would also make finding duplicate ones quite difficult when attempting to remove multiple entries to the same citation. You can see an example on Thaksin's page [16] of how I go about the proccess. Limiting a number of edits would make it quite difficult for me to carry out this procedure in a careful manner. Also something to consider is when i add citations, a bad type out of the ref code can cause large blocks of the article to vanish, having to do 20+ citation fixes will lead me to not know where I made the mistake as easily as well. While your idea is in good faith and smart, I think it would cause too many issues in the long run. --NuclearZer0 13:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm also not convinced that ownership is a problem that can't be solved by discussion. As Bdj said, it's so much more convenient to edit articles typo by typo or at least subsection by subsection that limiting the amount of edits is also likely if not more likely to lead to the alienation of competent and well-intentioned editors. As for reviewing a whole string of minor changes, you can always do diffs that span a whole bunch of them. Pascal.Tesson 14:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not to mention the increase in edit conflicts that would probably ensue on the high traffic pages. --tjstrf 16:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This would only create more problems (edit conflicts, good editors not being able to improve articles, sockpuppetry, etc), without actually solving the original problem. Ownership problems result arise when someone's been working hard on an article for a long time, not from making lots of edits all at once. -- Steel 16:10, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why there should be any more edit conflict problems if the total traffic on Wiki is less..... As for correcting typos, the "show preview" button is very under-utilised. Obsessive ownership of pages is often shown by a high frequency of edits by the party guilty of such behaviour. Reverts are often disguised by simultaneous trivial edits to the article. Lechaim Paul venter 16:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Making a small number of large edits that affect an entire article instead of a large number of small edits that are each confined to a single section can cause additional edit conflicts in two ways. The first is by making article wide edits instead of section specific edits another edit anywhere in the article will cause a conflict instead of just edits that affect the one section. Second is the extra time required to perform a large, multi-part edit is much longer than the time to perform a small section specific edit and thus creates a much large window of opportunity for conflicts to arise. The reduced number of edits will probably compensate for one or the other of these two factors, but is highly unlikely to compensate for both. --Allen3 talk 16:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The show preview button is useful. We should encourage, but not force, its use. -- Steel 16:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A high number of edits per day on one article may be common when there are ownership issues. But it's also a common characteristic of some of the really good editors and, as badlydrawnjeff notes above, good collaborations. I don't see what it will do except encourage an "owner" to make their revisions in single big swoop edits intstead of lots of little ones. I think this proposal is a blunt and hard restriction that would have a lot of collateral damage, and would only have a small impact on the actual problem.--Siobhan Hansa 16:48, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The worst thing about a rule like this is that it might force you to leave an article vandalised because you are out of reverts, or if you screw something up, you may be unable to fix it. And, of course, as has been said already, it will also increase the likelihood of edit conflicts, if you are copy-editing an article. Article ownership, as described here, is already limited by the 3-revert rule, so any change would restrict editors to 2 or fewer edits per page per day. That is unworkable, and totally disproportionate to the problem. Guettarda 17:04, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • As pascal says above, we can simply remind people they do not own articles when needed. Rules like this would be very inconvenient and fails to distinguish good edits from bad. --Improv 17:31, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm against this idea. WP:OWN covers it. When I'm on a roll I often make strings of minor edits to the same page. It's fine. AndyJones 18:04, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wholly against it. I often save work in progress, because it's a really sensible thing to do. Hitting an article edit limit would be seriously aggravating. I would say several very rude words about the parentage of the people who imposed it. As an idea it is amusing but not very good. - Fiddle Faddle 23:35, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jaranda Abuse

Jaranda blocked me without cause and refuses to discuss it.

All of the blockers are on the extreme left— Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.188.117.10 (talk • contribs)

What username were you using that Jaranda blocked? Fan-1967 17:04, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

incomplete AFD

Aroma amore was tagged for AFD but not completed. Do I complete it or do I just remove the tag? It doesn't document why it was nominated, which makes completion of the nomination difficult. RJFJR 21:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'd remove the tags, and also from the other three tagged by the same IP. If s/he really wants to AFD them, s/he can register and do the process right. Fan-1967 21:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. RJFJR 21:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does the new spam policy prohibits AMG, Discogs, MusicBrainz, Last.fm?

Someone has created an account to delete all external links to All Music Guide, Discogs, MusicBrainz, and Last.fm, calling them "massive spam" (diff), hence its name of User:NoMass.

Personally I couldn't care less about MusicBrainz or Last.fm, but AMG and Discogs had always been valuable resources and external links for music articles, providing infos about stuff we don't or can't have (such as complete discographies with each edition and variant).

Are they now forbidden on Wikipedia? Is that a side-effect of the new tougher-on-spam policies and quick deletion of spam pages? 62.147.86.81 22:48, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Looks to me like that account has existed for 18 months, and has edited one article today (Contribs), and removed links from two others in the last month. No sign of any wholesale removals anywhere. Maybe s/he just felt the links in that particular article were excessive? Fan-1967 22:55, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
His talk page was empty with a "welcome" from 2006, and he deleted "massive spam" with a "NoMass" name, that was enough for me. I wouldn't waste hours investigating more for someone like this, who doesn't provide any actual edit-summary rationale for his wholesale deletions of valuable links. Since you seem to imply there's no actual new policy against AMG/Discogs/etc., it should be up to him and his ilk to delete links supposed spam one by one, with an refutable (Karl Popper) edit summary for each of them. Any troll or vandal can delete 4 useful links wholesale, claim a blanket "massive spam" in edit summary, and either waste hours of editors' time to figure out if there was a good reason to delete them, or have them stay wrongly deleted. 62.147.86.81 23:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I replaced the AMG link, as I think that's widely recognized as a valuable off-site resource. I'm not familiar with the other links NoMass removed, but unless they provide substantially different content from AMG four such sites was excessive. 62.147.86.81 (if that is your real name) needs to be cautious of crying wolf. Postdlf 22:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I put back the Discogs links [17] too, because they have what AMG doesn't have: an almost complete discography of each edition, version, variant, special edition, remix, etc., plus "lone tracks" that appears on compilations or somebody else's album. But my earlier point was about if sites such as AMG/Discogs/etc. are now forbidden by Wikipedia. 62.147.86.81 23:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Um, no. We just have guidelines about what links are appropriate. Postdlf 00:06, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Just to belatedly provide a better context:
  • Usually, I would have simply reverted wholesale this guy's wholesale deletions, since he didn't provide verifiable rationales in the edit summary.
  • But because of that recent article Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-10-02/More_CSD about new antispam policies, with some pretty martial rhetoric about "blatantly commercial - shoot on sight", I was unsure of the current rules, if Wikipedia considered the above sites are commercial, and it was now OK for someone to bulk-delete them as spam. Happy to know that's not the case. 62.147.86.81 00:50, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Automated Blocking Bot

There is currently active discussions being held on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TawkerbotTorA and Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/TawkerbotTorA related to creating an automated account to be give sysop rights. Currently there are no such accounts. To prevent a ForestFire please comment on the aforementioned pages if interested. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 05:08, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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