Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss proposed policies and guidelines and changes to existing policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.
If you have a question about how to apply an existing policy or guideline, try the one of the many Wikipedia:Noticeboards.

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

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Historical logos

Hello!

I would like to propose clarification on a current policy that seems to me to already be de facto in use, but which often leads to arguments. The practice invariably survives if it develops organically, over time, but I have found it to be immediatelty deleted if created in one go, such as happened to me here

My proposal is to clarify usage of historical brand logos. Wikipedia usage shows that old, historical logos are often used in articles –

• either in gallery form – e.g. Microsoft, British Telecom
• or interspersed throughout the article – e.g. Atlanta Hawks, Microsoft Windows, LA Clippers
• or, in the case of big companies, to split off the logo page as a separate article – e.g. BBC, NBC

I am told that, if possible, one should include written information about the logos within the articles they appear in, and I'm all for that!

Often, however, one cannot do this immediately (WP:REALLIFE :-) or at all, as is the case with the BTK logo, which has been used for around half a century in Bulgaria under the communist regime, but has no info on it, as "brand" was not a concept under totalitarianism. No one even knows who invented it. Hence I cannot, for the minute at least and maybe never, reference the logo, except as merely "having existed". In fact, even many capitalist logos don't ever get discussed anywhere, either. They also merely exist.

In any case, we need to reconsider the way "fair use" is applied in the context of historical logos and designs. Current usage as seen in the above varied examples, including my own vivacom example, do not contradict –

• fair use and minimal use – they are thumbnails, which are only used in one article on the entire Wikipedia Also, all logos in such an article have the same legal owner (e.g. they are all Microsoft logos)
• contextual significance – just as the writing in the history section is an essential part of a company's history, its brand logo is an essential visual part of that history & recognizeability.
• indiscriminate use and not a repository – same arguments as in the above 2 points
• notability – this is more to do with separate articles, but some people use it to delete sections of articles. WP practice has shown, and I clearly agree, that logos used for years by a company are a notable enough part of its history for inclusion in the company's WP article.
• use in galleries – states "this is usually unacceptable, but should be considered on a case-by-case basis", and here is the crux of my proposal, and I believe that even gallery use is "fair use", because I do not believe that three 80-pixel thumbnails in a 1000-word article about a 100-year-old company infringe on any of the abovementioned Wikipedia rules.

My main argument for supporting and wanting to make official the current situation is that historical logos are often more recognizeable than a current logo.

Yes, Wikipedia's third pillar states that "Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit, use, modify, and distribute", but there are clearly thousands of copyrighted images available on en:wiki and on Commons, therefore the mere existence of copyrighted images does not infringe on this pillar. However, the fifth pillar is that "Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are not carved in stone and their content and interpretation can evolve over time", hence why I am writing this proposal.

Finally, my main contention is that people do not merely remove a logo section and flag the image for deletion...but rather to add an "expand section"/"please cite references" template to the logo section, because otherwise a double standard is created.

I would like to underline that my proposal does not aim to sidestep copyright policy. What I am contending is that Wikipedia's already established practice is clearly legal, and I would like jobsworth editors and administrators such as User:Stefan2 and User:B to realize this and not propose that all such copyrighted images be immediately deleted.

I would like to thank you for your attention, and look forward to hearing your opinions!

BigSteve (talk) 11:20, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

See WP:NFG you need to meet WP:NFCC#8 usage in a gallery rarely if ever meets this. Werieth (talk) 10:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I outline my argument for WP:NFCC#8 above. BigSteve (talk) 14:14, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes that usage is acceptable under fair use, however Wikipedia operates under a non-free content policy which specifically avoids the usage of the term fair use, and is far far more restrictive than fair use. Werieth (talk) 14:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with BigSteve that historical logos are important for identifying the branding and documenting the identity of a company, and that deleting it would be detrimental for understanding the topic. But in order to meet WP:NFCC#8 -to be contextually relevant- the company's article should have a History section; recent or small companies for which history cannot be documented do not merit having their previous logos listed in it.

For long-term companies where their history can be documented, a gallery with a selection of the major logo changes is certainly adequate and contextually significant. Only for the case where there's enough content for a separate section for each period of the company there's a need to separate the logos, one for each section throughout the company's history (see Atlanta Hawks for what I mean). Diego (talk) 14:13, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

It is almost impossible to have the sourced discussion necessary to meet WP:NFCC#8 included in a gallery format. You also need to factor in WP:NFCC#3. Yes these logos make the article look better, but rarely meet the #8 requirement. Keep in mind we need to separate two pieces here, there are both free and non-free logos. The usage of logos in Microsoft#Logo is completely allowable as they are free media, the usage of non-free media is what is really restrictive, and prevents the gallery usage and requires a significantly higher standard to merit inclusion. Werieth (talk) 14:26, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

P.S. please remember that Wikipedia's usage of non-free media is far more restrictive than that required by law. It is done in order to comply with the m:Mission to create a free encyclopedia. Werieth (talk) 14:28, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

The gallery in Microsoft#Logo would be perfectly acceptable even if it wasn't free media - each one of the images is met with direct commentary about the logo itself. So, no, it's not "almost impossible to meet" the criteria - the only requirements are that the content is described by reliable sources and that removing it is detrimental to the understanding of the topic. For articles where different periods of history are documented, identifying each one is not against WP:NFCC#3, since each version of the logo is used for a different purpose. Diego (talk) 14:43, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Precisely because we want a free encyclopedia does WP:NFC allow the inclusion of non-free images. If the mission was exclusively to produce free content then non-free images would be forbidden, just like is done in the Spanish Wikipedia and some others. Please remember that the NFC defines the exemption doctrine policy to "facilitate the judicious use of non-free content to support the development of a high-quality encyclopedia." Diego (talk) 14:45, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Historical non-free logos may only be included if there is sourced discussion about the logo itself. Just because an entity changed logos over time does not mean we need to document the older logos through visual means. If there's no discussion about the logo, then there's little significance of the logo to the article, per NFCC#8. We require sourced discussion about historical logos, at a minimum, to allow for their inclusion as to assure NFCC#8 is met. The Foundation's resolution on non-free media prevents us for being a visual medium historical record even if that record can be shown factually true. We require that the images be very significant to the discussion on the topic, and that requires sourced discussion to include. --MASEM (t) 14:56, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Uh, no, there's no requirement in the NFC policy that the context defined by NFCC#8 is visual in nature; images can be used to illustrate content in the article even if that content doesn't explicitly discuss the aspect of the image. When the article describes the historical period in which a logo was used, the logo is very significant to the company's branding and corporate identity during that period, which is enough to meet the NFCC#8. Branding and visual identity are found to be valid indicators of significance throughout the whole project; this is not an exception. It's true that the NFCC are a higher standard than copyright law, but there's no need to apply standards which are even stricter than what the policy actually says. Companies without a history section? Sure, you can't have a historical record of the brand there. But in articles with several documented periods? Each section provides enough context for one logo, provided they're not just very minor visual variations. Diego (talk) 15:03, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

If there is no text describing the importance of the historical branding of the entity in question, NFCC#8 fails, because omission of the image does not harm the reader's understanding of the article. And the only way to demonstrate that historical importance without violating content policies like NOR is ascribing the importance to reliable sources. The use of the current logo on a entity's article is allowed as it carries the implicit branding of the entity at the present time and thus can be used without discussion (assuming the entity is notable itself), but that assumption doesn't apply to historical logos. --MASEM (t) 15:45, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

As you know full well, the test set by policy is understanding of the topic, not understanding of the article or the article text.

Secondly, as you also know full well, WP:NOR applies to propositions and theses being developed by the article. On the other hand, relevance to reader understanding is an editorial question, typically discussed on talk pages or policy pages like this one, where editors are free to develop their own argumentation and thoughts, unconstrained by WP:NOR.

You know this. Why then do you persist with comments like the above, which seem to be deliberately misrepresenting the starting point in policy? That's not to say that historical logos are either a good idea or a bad idea, but at least represent the policy framwork straight, so there can then be a properly informed discussion. Jheald (talk) 19:47, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I did put this from a policy framework. There is no way you can justify the use of old logos just put on the page with no discussion about them coming from reliable sources that would make their include necessary to understand the topic. There has been no rational put forth for using old logos without question, beyond "well of course it's important, because I say so". That is a slippery-slope argument that breaks NFCC#8 completely. And I am talking NOR on the article page - that is, to try, in the article text, to put in language that would satisfy NFCC#8 but without bring in to sources to support that. --MASEM (t) 19:58, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

That separate treatment of present and past logos would require that there's a logical difference between the importance of branding between the current and historical logos. What is that logical difference that makes the importance of past branding not apply to historical logos? Diego (talk) 16:05, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Because WP keeps itself up to date, it uses the most recent branding for any entity that has a logo. If older branding is important to understanding the topic, then sources should exist to explain this (which do happen in some cases, and there are academics that make brand changes over time part of their study). If it's just "but this was it's old logo, we need to show it", that fails NFCC inclusion. There has to be some reason that helps the reason to comprehend the topic that omission would hamper. For most old logos, this simply doesn't exist. --MASEM (t) 19:58, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

You can see the gallery that is in dispute here. The old logos are being used in a gallery in their own section and clearly do not add anything to the text. We don't need to have a gallery of old logos in order to tell you about a company. I'm unclear of what policy change is being proposed here. On the sliding scale from "okay" to "not okay", something like NBC logos where the logos are the subject of sourced commentary is clearly okay; Los Angeles Clippers where the historic logos are used in context when the team that existed at the time of the logo is discussed might be okay; and galleries of copyrighted logos with no accompanying text are clearly not okay. What about this is there a proposal to change? --B (talk) 20:11, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

You say "The old logos...clearly do not add anything to the text", but the policy wants to know whether they adding anything to the readers' understanding of the subject. Do you know something more about the company (specifically, about the company's self-presentation and marketing) if you can see the old logos, or is your knowledge of the company's branding and marketing exactly the same after you receive that visual information? If you get "more" from seeing it, then you've got a good possibility of meeting both fair use and NFCC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:56, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

This is a slippery slope argument and one we can't use. Even just considering fair use (not NFCC), there's a transformational aspect to whether use is fair use or not. Just plastering a number of images without comment is not transformative. Is WP likely going to be in trouble for old logos like this? Probably not, but again, it is a slippery slope argument that if you say "well it's fine for old logos, what other types of works?" you can't put a stop to it.

In specific NFC terms (assuming we're well past fair use considerations), the same problem exists with the slippery argument. Of course adding any image a reader will get "more" from seeing it with the text. That would give justification for filling, say, movie and tv show articles with dozens of screenshots from the work, without comment, to go along with the plot; among other examples. This is why NFCC#8 is two-parted, as the second part assures that only those images critical to understanding the topic are included. No one has shown how, to a general reader, how illustration of old logos without any discussion on them is necessary to understand the topic about the history of the entity. Hence the above argument simply cannot be accepted. --MASEM (t) 18:59, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the first half of that - the "transformative" question, I think that just the fact that we are using the logos in the context of our article is sufficiently tranformative for purposes of the law. If we're trying to use some guy's photo as if it were free clip art, that's not transformative - that's just a copyright violation. But an official logo of the subject of the article? I think that clears the transformative hurdle easily. In my mind, the only question is NFCC#8. Our theory (good bad or indifferent) for inclusion of logos in an article is that they help the reader recognize what company the article is about ("oh, that Microsoft"). As the theory goes, one (and only one) logo is needed to help the user understand which Microsoft this article is about. Unless or until we change that theory of fair use logos, we really don't need multiple ones unless they are the subject of sourced commentary (like the NBC article). Personally, I've never even been comfortable with the way that we claim some logos are in the public domain - we really ought to be treating all logos like fair use images and the threshold of originality should only come into play when you have a derivative work (ie, a photo of a bunch of cases of Coke). I've never been comfortable with telling someone a logo is public domain - trademark protects it just as much or more than copyright protects it and it's absurd to think that anybody's logo is "free content". --B (talk) 22:42, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

@Masem: No one has shown how, to a general reader, how illustration of old logos without any discussion on them is necessary to understand the topic about the history of the entity. It helps readers to recognize how the company was branded in the past, to identify old promotional material, advertisements, or any other historic document that was associated with the company in an earlier period - i.e., paraphrasing B's words, to answer the question "oh, it was that Microsoft". I thought this was obvious.

The argument that we should only document the current branding is lame, since Wikipedia aims to provide a complete understanding of each topic throughout time, not only of its most recent incarnation. Old logos must be included at least for every company article with a History section. Diego (talk) 09:36, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

If some sources discuss the old logo(s), I think yes, the inclusion in Wikipedia is justified as fair use. Otherwise, probably not. 5.12.84.31 (talk) 12:33, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

The argument to include historical images because to helps the reader to identify the company is a false premise for any NFCC image use. Yes, I'm not questioning that they potentially can do that, but there's still part 2 of NFCC#8, that the reader's understanding is harmed by their omissions, and that's simply not the case with old logos. --MASEM (t) 21:52, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I would like to thank you all for contributing to this topic!, and have read everything in detail. I have had to be away for a few days but will post tomorrow. I'm only writing this note as I know Village Pump discussions sometimes get archived really quickly – so, please, dont :-) BigSteve (talk) 21:24, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi again!

I see your arguments, and I guess I will always strive to find some sort of written material about any logos, just to be on the safe side. I would like to answer a few of the points made, however –

On the issue of what piece of information is "critical to the understanding of the subject/topic/article". I agree – old logos are not critical to that…but let’s be frank – the current logo is also not critical to that, either! It is merely an additional piece of info which adds an extra layer of understanding and, equally importantly, adds color to an article – (after all, WP is not meant to be stuffy and b&w, is it) – but no logo is "crucial" to the understanding of any company article. So, if we are to follow NFCC#8 to the letter, we need to get rid of all logos.

I would like to thank Diego, Jheald and WhatamIdoing for your support on this, I thought I would be alone!

One of my main arguments from the start has been, which Diego reiterated, that a historical logo is often better-recognized than a current logo, so even B’s argument that logo inclusion is solely needed to help the reader understand what company is being discussed...doesn't fly – because even the current logo might not recognized by many readers!

So, Masem and B – your arguments on this point are intentionally exaggerated, and you know this!

But my point is – history and being reasonable – i.e. following the spirit of NFCC#8.

Historical logos are just that – parts of a company’s history and the mere discussion of a certain period of a company’s history is enough to reasonably merit passing NFCC#8, as in LA Clippers, Atlanta Hawks.... Any argument to the contrary is not black-and-white, but is just as much opinion as my arguments here – the point is to be reasonable. And, Masem, no, I don’t think this is a "slippery slope argument" – you are using weasel words, because you are not saying why you think it’s a slippery slope argument – the rule I am proposing can be applied quite strictly. Also, Masem, including several historical logos is not equivalent to "including dozens of screenshots of a tv show" – it’s the equivalent of adding a show’s old logo, and you know it! So let’s not use straw men to attempt to win our arguments here, fellas! BigSteve (talk) 16:14, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

The slippery slope is that the argument to use historical logos when no sourced context is given amounts to the rationale: "I think it's important to show" or effectively meeting the first part of NFCC#8 about helping the reader's comprehension. I can use that same argument for nearly any type of non-free media on any other page, and thus argue that we've been far too restrictive of non-free because of that. That's the slippery slope. That's why we have the second part of NFCC#8 that talks about harming the reader's understanding of the topic if the images are omitted. When there is no sourced discussion about the importance of an old logo (in general, get to that in a moment), then there's no harm in not including the logo since the reader is not missing anything. I'm sure that in many many cases the branding/logo changes over time for specific cases (NBC, Pepsi and AT&T come to mind) have been well documented by sources, so it's not an impossible barrier to meet. But the bulk of logo changes go unannounced, so it just happens, and there's no documentation to give importance to that. Ergo, there's no need to include them.

Now I say that these require sourced discussion, though this is the case 99% of the time. There can be limited cases where consensus believes that the images can be used without having sourced discussion, but this must be done on a case by case basis, and cannot be used to justify all non-free historical logos, as being requested here. I'm of the opinion that if someone says "but this logo was a corporate identify for X years and ppl have known it like that", then there's either got to be sources to back that up, or its just a wishy-washy attempt to justify inclusion.

A final point: we need to remember that WP is not the end-all, be-all of knowledge. Nor should we be. Aspects such as our free mission and non-free minimizing need to take priority when the information is not critical to the reader to understand the topic. --MASEM (t) 17:22, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Masem! I understand your point – and in most capitalist societies you will get some documentation on logo changes. However, as both myself and User:B pointed out, this discussion was born out of a case study – BTC (see logos section). My particular worry is that sometimes the documentation simply does not exist. In up-and-coming capitalist societies (as in Bulgaria) logos don't get discussed and, esp in the first case – BTC old logo, it was developed during communism, when no one ever got credited with anything, because everything was state-owned. My point is to be able to include stuff when such exceptions arise, as this here logo (and many others like it) existed for decades with zero recognition of the artistic value of the logo. Hence this is the logo most people over 40 identify the company with. The next logo has an even weirder story – it only lasted about 5 years...but – this is the period that the company made major investments and today, this is the logo that is still seen all over the country on public payphones and phone-cable manholes in the street, despite its now well-established new logo.

Hence I believe including the old logos as thumbnails next to the relevant history paragraph (which, granted, is not yet written) should merit inclusion – as with the Clippers, the Hawks, etc. In fact, I believe the mere caption of "BTC logo 1950-1995" should be enough "explanation" of the logo itself to merit inclusion, especially if next to the relevant paragraph. Because, after all, how much "explanation" is required to satisfy inclusion? There is no objective minimum!

Now, I still contend, and you have not answered, my two points that a) historical logos are often better-known than the current one (case in point - MS Windows), and b) following NFCC#8 to the letter should have us remove nearly every single logo off Wikipedia. Because, while the Windows logo enhances my understanding of the product (which I see every day when I switch on my computer), I certainly do not need the Microsoft logo to understand the company (btw - I am talking about the general principle, please do not shift the argument to the fact that these particular logos are in the public domain).

Something else no one is mentioning - how does "fair use" or "minimal use" preclude past logos of the same company being used in the single article about that company? It's not like they are being overused. Each logo is used once only on the entire Wikipedia. Nowhere is such usage mentioned in the NFCC rules, hence I truly feel like you are reading more into the rules than is actually written in them. (I contend that it does not break rule NFCC#3a, because since historical logos refer to different periods of history and do not overlap, one logo will not "suffice" for a full understanding of the company's history.)

Finally, as per what Diego said – can we not attempt to get Wikipedia:WikiProject_Companies and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Business to adopt an "exemption doctrine policy" (2)(3) on this matter? BigSteve (talk) 19:08, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

NFC is site-wide policy, Wikiprojects cannot carve out exemptions from it.

There is an acceptable objective minimum for inclusion - sourced discussion specifically about the logo from sources (even if first-party). That said, in line with cover art or equivalent for published works, the community has stated that showing the present logo of a company on a stand-alone article to that company is implicitly helping to associate the company's choice of branding/visualization in connection with the discussion about the company - but only that one image gets that distinction of not otherwise needing more detailed discussion in the article body; with cover art, for example, additional covers must pass a certain level of sourced discussion to be included.

I still have a hard time believing that sources don't exit to support the entity's identification of that logo if you say that is the case. They may be print sources and in other languages ,but if it seems obvious that there was a brand identity with the old logo that was lost when it changed, someone would have talked about it. Otherwise, it's personal speculation.

Again, per the Foundation, we aim for minimal use of non-free images. The current logo is sufficient to represent the company's current marketing aspect, the historical logos, without any sourced commentary, do not, and thus exceed minimal use. One needs to remember that "zero" non-frees is an acceptable solution to, but by no means am saying to remove current logos).

And while I won't do anything about the MS Windows article, the use of the logos there is improper too, particularly when each OS version has its own page where the logos are proper to use. But that's neither here nor there. --MASEM (t) 19:27, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

The current logo is sufficient to represent the company's current marketing aspect, the historical logos, without any sourced commentary, do not, and thus exceed minimal use. This is a red herring. The historical logos represent the company's historical marketing aspect, which is a different use than showing the current one. When non-free images serve different purposes in an article, they don't exceed minimal use. It's your opinion that only the current marketing is relevant, but that should be decided on a case-by-case basis for each company article; where editors agree that omiting historical logos would hinder understanding, i.e. for cases like the BTC logo mentioned by BigSteve, there's nothing in the NFC policy opposing that conclusion. Diego (talk) 15:44, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

When there is nothing to describe the branding or marketing in light of a stand-alone article on the entity, we are already on a tenacious argument for including one non-free image to show that. This is the same argument for cover art of published works, which the use of a single piece of cover art has been confirmed as understanding of the implicit branding nature. But there, no one argues for any more than one cover presented without discussion, save for reasonable exceptions made for alternate covers by the Album project. One could argue that to implicitly understand the entire marketing and branding of a published work, such as an album or movie, we need to show all the various types of branding used if they are somewhat different, but this is not a position anyone takes, in part that we're talking implicit recognition of the branding. Hence, why published works get one "free" non-free cover image to use; any other cover work has to be the subject of critical discussion in the article.

Entity logos do not get any more a free pass than cover art, since 99% of the time they too are presented without discussion. Since we can be up to date, we always go with the most recent logo that an entity uses. Historical logos presented without discussion as part of implicit branding simply fail all elements of NFCC#8, among others. Again, the insistence that when the company changed its logo that it changed its identity to many people is either a statement you can cite (though may be difficult to find the citation), or simply one of speculation and thus invalidating the inclusion of the logo as part of the implicit branding. Knowing that the first case - where sources exist - is not a rarity when companies switch logos, it is not an unreasonable barrier to expect editors to meet to justify historical logos.

Again, I stress: NFCC#8 has two parts, and most historical logos presented without discussion fail part number 2, about harming the reader's understanding of the topic. The section where that historical logo goes is understood easily with or without the logo, and ergo it fails NFCC#8, even though the first part of #8 is met. --MASEM (t) 15:55, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, please read what I have repeated repetitively –

I am not attempting to carve out any exemptions from NFCC.

What I am attempting to do is demonstrate to you that you are reading the letter, and not the spirit of the law. BigSteve (talk) 19:21, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

p.s. And that even the letter is subjective! BigSteve (talk) 19:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Both the letter and spirit of the policy are to follow m:Mission to create a freely reusable encyclopedia with limited amount of non-free material when deemed necessary. Galleries of non-free logos are not necessary and are counter to the mission. When using non-free media the bar for inclusion is raised higher every time you want to include more media on the same page. (see the minimal usage clause on WP:NFCC). Allowing galleries of logos requires a special exemption to WP:NFCC. There has been a consensus that a single logo/cover image is acceptable for identification purposes, beyond a single piece of media justification for the usage must be met (see WP:NFCC#8) In the case of historical galleries the inclusion requirements are rarely met. The letter of the policy isnt subjective, minimal usage means zero. (files for BLP's and others) Werieth (talk) 19:30, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

@Masem. Historical logos presented without discussion That's where we disagree about how to use the policy. The requirement that the logo is included with commentary on the logo itself is beyond the policy requirements; WP:NFCC#8 requires that each image is present in context, and historic commentary of the company is adequate context.

The section where that historical logo goes is understood easily with or without the logo, and ergo it fails NFCC#8 Again you're exceeding the text of the policy - the criterion is not that you can understand the text without the image, is that you don't get the same understanding but a significantly decreased one.

@Werieth the bar for inclusion is raised higher every time you want to include more media on the same page This is where you got policy wrong. The NFCC are crafted so that each image is evaluated independently of all others; it's irrelevant to the criteria how many images are in the same article, what's important is that each usage is included only once throughout the whole project.

minimal usage means zero And yet again the English Wikipedia is not like other languages when all non-free content is forbidden, it allows for non-free images when deemed necessary, so using encyclopedic non-free images to build a quality encyclopedia is also a way to follow the Mission. <tongue-in-cheek>There's also the argument that in a hundred year or so, all these images will be poured into public domain, so by including them we're increasing the amount of free content for future generations. See? if you stay away from what the policy actually says like you do, there are many ways to justify following the spirit of the project, you don't have the sole possession of it.</tongue-in-cheek> ;-) So the best way to apply the policy is to evaluate each particular case for whether the images provide an improvement to the article, not to enforce overarching inflexible rules like "you always need sources about the logo itself" or "more than one logo is forbidden" or even "you can always include logos if there's a history section"; those may be common conditions to assess, but they're not and should not be definitive. The mission is to maximize free content, not to minimize non-free one; those are different goals, and non-replaceable non-free images that serve a purpose don't interfere with the first goal; the idea that they must removed at all cost is contrary to the spirit and letter of the NFC policy. Diego (talk) 21:49, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Wrong on several counts:

• No one has demonstrated how a reader's understanding of a topic is significantly harmed by omission of a historical logo that is presented without any other context. Note that we are talking about the average reader, not a specific type of reader. I can understand that arguing that a reader from Bulgaria may recognize the company more by its old logo than the new one, but that's a very small fraction of our readers. Me, as a non-Bulgian reader, see nothing that's not understandable without the logo, and therefore "signficantly harmed" has not been demonstrated. A counter-argument I may consider reasonable is using the older Windows logo against the newer Windows 8, given how large of a fraction our readership is likely aware of the Windows brand. But that's not a universal argument.
• NFCC#3a specifically requires minimal use across several areas including per page. The bar for inclusion of additional images does increase with each additional image that is added; if one image can do the same as two, we only use one image. Other facets of NFCC are image-by-image, but NFCC#3a does apply to an entire article.
• The Foundation's goal is to minimize NFC and requires use to remove offending content in a reasonable swift time. We are not going to be leaving on non-free images that will eventually become free due to copyright expiry particularly considering how in the US at least copyright had been continually extended via law.

And to be clear, while you are true policy does not say "critical commentary" or "sourced discussion", these are the most objective and easiest ways to demonstrate the need for an image. There are other routes but they become extremely difficult to justify and require a consensus to include on an image-by-image basis. For example, there are rare cases for television episodes that a screenshot is deemed appropriate to use to explain a plot point that is difficult to explain in words alone but otherwise not described in sources. But it is very rare. The same logic is used for alternate album covers due to how the work is marketed in different major regions of the world. But this are the exceptions, not the rule. Basically, in practice, only those cases specifically listed at WP:NFCI are the ones that can be used without sourced discussion, nearly every other allowable use that falls outside of NFCI requires the sourced discussion. Historical logos have no exception from this. --MASEM (t) 22:40, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

NFCC#3a specifically requires minimal use across several areas including per page. This is simply NOT TRUE. The words "page" and "article" are not used in the NFCC to describe the number of uses of images. The only place where several images in the same article are mentioned is at WP:NFLISTS in "articles and sections of articles that consist of several small sections of information for a series of elements", and even then they only discourage it, not forbid it. The bar for inclusion of additional images does increase with each additional image that is added Again something that is not included anywhere in policy. This is what we mean when we say you're exceeding both the text and spirit of policy - you're using meanings and words that are not implied by the text nor the accepted consensus, doing it once and again, building a much higher inclusion standard than either the legal requirements, the Foundations desire to minimize legal exposure, or the already strict NFC policy requirements. only those cases specifically listed at WP:NFCI are the ones that can be used without sourced discussion This is a terrible, terrible thing to say, and it's squarely against the WP:CONSENSUS pillar and the WP:NOTBUROCRACY policy. Insistence to rely on WP's "legal precedent", instead of editor's judgement for each case, is a problem that's harming the project on all levels. Surely direct coverage by RSs is the best way to achieve that consensus, but editorial discretion is always the final arbiter. require a consensus to include on an image-by-image basis Now we're getting closer and speaking the same terms; though so far you were denying even the possibility of that consensus. And the policy interpretations that raise the bar beyond the policy text don't help, either. Diego (talk) 06:00, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

NFCC#3a has always been applied to the article/page level - that's been the intent of the policy at all times. If you can do the same with one non-free that you can do with two on the same page, you must use one. If you can do the same with zero non-free on a page instead of one, you use zero. There is no logically way that NFCC#3a would be in policy if it didn't apply there.

And you selectively quoted my words on the NFCI part. I said in practice, meaning that I'm fully away there are exceptions determined by consensus. But the default position has to start that the best way to justify an image is some type of discussion about the image in the article, and making exceptions from there. Further, I've never said anything about legal precedent, though part of the mission is to protect the Foundation from being sued from over-use of non-free media. It is to focus editors to develop a free content encyclopedia. The fact that I can present an article on a corporate entity without having to rely on showing its historical logos is towards developing free content. Remember, NFC is a very high bar policy and one demanded by the Foundation, whom consider that non-free use should be exceptional, not included by default. It may not be as strong as our BLP policy (which does have more direct legal ramifictions) but it is one that must be taken seriously. The reasons stated to try to justify the historical logo in this specific case do not meet that. --MASEM (t) 06:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It was not my intention to misquote you, sorry if I did. You said "in practice", and that's my worry - current practice doesn't seem adequate to me nor reflecting the purpose of NFC policy; even agreeing with the very high bar set by NFC, many are exceeding it.

If you can do the same with one non-free that you can do with two on the same page, you must use one. If you can do the same with zero non-free on a page instead of one, you use zero. That's true, but that should be independent of how those images are laid out in pages; it doesn't make much sense that including two images for different purposes depends on whether they're placed on the same or different pages; that should depend only on whether each independent use is legit or not.

the default position has to start that the best way to justify an image is some type of discussion about the image in the article See, I don't agree with that at all. There are uncountable cases when the image includes visual identification and characteristics of a subject that is critically discussed in the article with reliable sourcing, and where those visual characteristics are important to understanding the topic; that's an very good reason to include an image even if the sources don't discuss the image itself; and the NFCC#8 allows for those situations, but the practice you allude to is usually discarding them, which is not a good outcome. Diego (talk) 06:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

On the first point, that's wrong though. This does lead to cases, say commonly a film and its soundtrack where the cover of both are nearly the exact same image; we would only allow one if both were discussed in the same article, but would allow both if split across two articles, but that at least puts onus on the fact that the soundtrack must be notable to have its own article and ergo we've got sourced discussion about the soundtrack to justify that. This is how NFCC#3a has been handled from its inception.

On the second point, again I point this is a slippery slope to allowing any NFC if some editors simply feel an image is important, more than just beyond historical logos. Again our default position has to be to require a more objective metric by default and making limited exceptions on case-by-case basis. --MASEM (t) 06:55, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The mission for a 'free' 'encyclopedia'

I'm concerned by the legalistic interpretation of the NFC policy - I have a strong feeling that the current practices at NFC review have expanded beyond what's healthy for the project, and that they're not fully supported by policy either. The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation, which I wholeheartedly support, has the goal to maximize free content while building a worthwhile encyclopedia. So many people interpret this as a need to minimize non-free content, but that doesn't follow logically; the requirement is just to limit it in so far doing that improves free content. But excluding non-free content where it provides a proper encyclopedic function does not serve the goal to produce more free content (at least not when such NFC is not replaceable - "modern artworks" which are "hard to discuss in an educational context without including examples from the media itself"; "a non-free work is needed to discuss a related subject"...)

The NFC policy is not to minimize non-free content - if it were, all non-free content would be simply forbidden; this policy is what allows us to include such educational content in a way that facilitates reuse when a free alternative is impossible, while encouraging creation of free content wherever possible. The strict requirements of license tagging and copyright attribution are strong enough safeguards so that non-free content with an encyclopedic purpose doesn't need to be removed just because; doing so won't improve the availability of free content, and thus that removal hurts the project. I would gladly have a discussion "on principle" to review how the mission is implemented both in policy and in practice, and the interpretations by various "factions" on how to best use NFC. In particular the subjective NFCC#8 is too often used at image deletion discussions to remove content with what I consider a valid functional purpose, and there's no way to achieve a consensus by good-faith editors; current practice offers no ways to compromise in such cases. Diego (talk) 06:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The NFC policy is not to minimize non-free content - Absolutely wrong, this is the purpose of NFC, and more broadly, from the Foundation's resolution ("Such EDPs must be minimal.") We have to start from a position "Do we need this piece of NFC?" and require proof that it is needed (ultimately determined by consensus) than the assumption that it's okay. If you feel this is too strong, you're free to start a separate wiki with a more open non-free policy, but we're bound by the Foundation to minimize non-free use and consider it exceptional, and hence why we need to be hard on its inclusion. (This is a far separate matter from previous issues of the exact harsh mechanics of performing non-free content administration which has been a problem before) --MASEM (t) 06:43, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I have to back Masem here. When NFC was first created (at the behest of the WMF), it was specifically designed to curtail the use of non-free content. NFC was the compromise, allowing us to use NF material when necessary, but not beyond that. That's the actual spirit of the policy, both from a legal perspective and in the design of a free encyclopedia. "Fair use" is a difficult thing to pin down, and erring on the side of caution is necessary. This really isn't something the community can loosen without consulting the WMF first. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 12:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Let's get the history straight here. The NFC policy was created by en-wiki. (See WP:NFCHIST for a view of some of its evolution). From the start it has been closely influenced by the U.S. legal fair use position, especially for our commercial large-scale content reusers. The outlook is very clear in edits like this one: [1]. Jimbo's position has also been similar. The policy in its current form is largely unchanged since October 2005.

The Foundation licensing resolution was adopted in March 2007, long after en-wiki's NFC policy was already in place. Foundation members such as Kat Walsh specifically denied that the intention of the licensing resolution was to "tighten up" NFC practice on en-wiki. Instead, en-wiki's NFC policy was seen as a model approach, and the intention was to spread this best practice to other wikis.

It may also be worth remembering that a past WMF general counsel was specifically asked about historical logos, and responded that they shouldn't be a problem. (Though he was then sharply reminded that that made it a decision for en-wiki to take, and it wasn't for him to say what should be allowed here).

Regarding our "mission", I think Diego Moya has it exactly right: "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation, which I wholeheartedly support, has the goal to maximize free content... So many people interpret this as a need to minimize non-free content, but that doesn't follow logically." The Foundation was put on the spot very early as to whether NFC conflicted with the GFDL, and ruled very firmly that it did not, because the NFC is clearly severable, and so can be regarded as additional material.

As regards the WMF licensing resolution, things like the word "minimal" seem to be there deliberately to evoke the way the word is routinely emphasised in the context of U.S. fair use law -- not to mean zero usage (which minimal could be held to mean), but rather "no more than needed for the purpose identified" (where this purpose may be implicit -- cf eg Graham vs Dorling Kindersley). Jheald (talk) 15:25, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Let me put in an indent here just as a break, and give my own thoughts on the question.

I've previously demanded a pair of historical logos that somebody wanted to remove be taken to WP:FFD, and they were kept. In my view what is relevant is context, and policy thankfully (like U.S. law) is deliberately crafted to allow that flexibility. It should be a question of proportion.

In the past there were a large number of very short stub articles on local US TV stations, that were little more than stubs, but accompanied by very extensive galleries of essentially every logo tweak since they they went on air in the 1960s. That gave a very disproportionate sense of the tail wagging the dog, when the articles were so short and stub-like, and I think it probably was right to get rid of them. There is real value in WP preserving an overall perception of our being appropriately cautious and sparing in the NFC we use, because it very much strengthens the legitimacy (perceived and legal) of the fairness of the use of the NFC that we do use. On the other hand, where we have a full-length long article devoted specifically to the history of a company, it seems entirely appropriate to show how the company's self-presentation evolved by showing some of its historical logos, even if those historical logos are largely left to speak for themselves. And I think the same probably goes even in a main article on a company, if a very substantial part of that article is a lengthy review of its history. (This was the case for the logos I talked about above that went to WP:FFD).

My take is that it's very much about perception (because legally our use here is unlikely to be a problem). If the reader feels that a survey of the logos is a small, useful addition to a detailed presentation of an organisation's history (or if the development of the logos is the very topic of the article itself), then I think use will be perceived to be in balance, and adding something valuable to reader understanding of the topic of the article. On the other hand, if like those stub articles, old logos are really all there is, almost dominating the presentation, then I think that can come over as gratuitous, as imagery added for its own sake, rather than as a useful addition to a detailed treatment of the organisation's history.

I think our present policy has a lot to be said for it, leaving the question for the community to decide in the context of a particular article, rather than laying down a line "all historical logos okay" or "all historical logos not okay", neither of which is probably appropriate. Jheald (talk) 15:25, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

No one in any of these arguments is aiming for zero non-free use. Just that with the Foundation, in its own language (not that borrowed from NFC) pushes on terms like "minimal" and "exceptions" (even US fair use doesn't use "minimal", though of course its implied [2]). "Minimal" can be zero non-free as at the German wiki, but that'll never happen here at en.wiki. We should always be striving to find classifiable edge cases where we can improve the free content mission by identifying where non-free content is really not needed under the Foundation's and our NFC policies so that we can minimize them. Of course there's always a final decision by consensus, and there's always the need to follow proper discussion routes (as we are doing here) to determine when NFC is inappropriate (as opposed to the hard-handed means some admins had used in the past) but we have to start from the position of trying to justify why the NFC is needed and delete if not answerable to keep NFC minimal, rather than the approach to ask why an image might fail NFC and keep as default. This is counter to the standard "keep by default" for text/free content contributions, but this is necessary to continue the free mission. --MASEM (t) 15:51, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, the "free mission". Diego's point -- and I think he's entirely right on this -- is that (providing it does not lead to legal or reputational risk that might impact on WP's ability to go on serving free content), our NFC is essentially orthogonal to our free mission. In fact, if appropriate use of fair-use materials enhances WP's value and reputation, making people more disposed to write for it, I would argue that appropriate use of NFC actually supports our free-content mission, by making more people more likely to bother to write more free content. The actual wording is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." Judicious use of NFC doesn't go against that, which is why we don't ban it. This rhetoric about conflicting with our mission originated with the likes of Durin (talk · contribs); I have never seen any evidence that it's the Foundation's view.

WP:NFC is intended to be a balance, with "adding to reader understanding" an important objective too. It's a clear mistake to see it as some one-way ratchet, devoted only to finding new classifiable cases where non-free content can be removed. Jheald (talk) 16:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Simplifying NFCC down to "Adding to reader understanding" does not accurately reflect its purpose. That single part of NFCC#8 is a easy barrier for inclusion and if that was the only one, I could justify tons and tons of non-free images for inclusion even with only semi-relevance to the topic at hand. That's why there's part 2 of NFCC#8 to determine if omission harms that understanding. This makes it a two-way test to assure that NFC if used is relevant and essential to the topic. That assures that we are using NFC in a judicious manner that meets the Foundation's resolution on non-free media, that we are making exceptions when it can be shown with little question that its reason for inclusion is sufficient and necessary. What's being argued in terms of the logos is the sufficiency for inclusion but not the necessity for inclusion here. --MASEM (t) 16:57, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Policy doesn't talk about "necessity" or "being essential". Policy talks about "significantly adding to reader understanding" -- an addition to understanding that would be lost if the image wasn't there. That choice of that phrasing is quite intentional, and hasn't changed in seven years. Misrepresenting it is not a sign of confidence in your position. Jheald (talk) 17:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes it does. " Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." Emphasis mine. There are two separate independent tests and both have to be met to use NFC. --MASEM (t) 17:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

And the only thing that last clause can refer to is "the understanding the reader would have of the topic if the image were there and not removed".

Removing an image can't, by definition, affect the understanding of the topic you have without the image. It can only affect the understanding of the topic you would have with the image.

Which is what I said above. Jheald (talk) 17:24, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

That's not how we use the test or how its stated; it is two different tests. Part 1: we consider the understanding of the article without the image (as if we have never seen that article before), and then with the image. There's a delta of understanding (some quantity we can't actually state but recognize its a metric) that we determine. Then Part 2: we consider the article with the image (as if we've never seen the article before) and then without the image, again, some delta of (lack of) understanding is obtained. Both deltas have to be "significant" (again quantifiable) to allow the image to be used. The approach you're saying automatically would allow inclusion because I can nearly always show that an image improves understand compared to whether it wasn't there. The key part that you are missing is that if we consider if the image was there in the first place and how much we lose if it was removed. These are not reciprocal tests. --MASEM (t) 17:35, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

To the uninitiated observer, that sounds like nonsense - the two deltas must surely be equivalent (or one is minus the other). Can you explain how this is not the case? Victor Yus (talk) 18:31, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

No, they are different given the starting case. I can nearly always argue that my understanding of a topic improves when I add in a relevant picture without any additional context, simply because most people are visual rather than verbal learners, and visual association can be strong. On the other hand, if I start from an article that has a picture present without additional context, and then subsequently remove that picture, I have lost no understanding of the topic. Commonly this can be the shown through television screenshots on episode articles - sure the image may help a reader identify the episode quickly, but most of the time it is not essential to understanding the topic and thus fails NFCC#8. --MASEM (t) 18:44, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

But you never know when a reader is going to come to the article for the first time. You can remove a picture and claim that you haven't harmed the understanding of those who read the article earlier while the picture was there - but you'll still harm the understanding of those who come to read the article later and don't see the picture at all. (I'm not even sure this is what you mean, but I honestly can't conceive of anything else you might mean based on what you've written.) Victor Yus (talk) 19:06, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It is a test on hypotheticals, since you can only visit an article for the first time once. Consider if we have two equal visitors and one (Visitor A) visits a page about a TV episode that has a screenshot of a scene but otherwise not discussed in any type of context, and the other (B) visits the same page without that image. A may have a bit more appreciation about the topic, but B has not lost any comprehension of the topic compared to A, just visual association.

That's basically the problem here. People want to include NFC based on the merit of visual association alone (like the BTC logo above) but that's not something that meets NFC's requirements. Visual association is not the same as comprehension and understanding. It would be great if we could (and I strongly support using free images whenever possible help), but that's an explicit case we disallow in NFC#UUI (The rose picture one). --MASEM (t) 19:16, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that's clearer now. (Though the explicit case is only in our guideline, not in the Foundation's policy, or even in our policy, so we could easily change it if "we want".) Victor Yus (talk) 19:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

One other thing that I want to respond to (if you'll forgive me another self-indent) is Masem's line far above that "Note that we are talking about the average reader, not a specific type of reader. I can understand that arguing that a reader from Bulgaria may recognize the company more by its old logo than the new one, but that's a very small fraction of our readers." I think this is a dangerously wrong-headed attitude. Just as the internet is the network of networks, so WP is the encyclopedia of encyclopedias -- we're not just a general encyclopedia, we aim to be everybody's encyclopedia, integrating a multitude of specialist encyclopedias. So e.g. WP:ITSLOCAL is not a good deletion argument, and some of our mathematics coverage is frighteningly involved. But if that particular specialist area is what you need to know about, such articles can be fantastically useful. We commit to try to make our articles as accessible as possible, particularly in the leads and early paragraphs, but it is simply not true that they are all pitched at some mythical "average" reader. Instead the question should be how useful we can make our articles to the reader that has been motivated to seek them out. Very often, that will be a reader that may already know a fair amount about the subject, because those are the sort of people who are motivated to come specifically to this article to find out more -- much more so than the mythical average reader. It's those people we should be seeking to satisfy, and for them we should be asking how valuable a particular image is. Jheald (talk) 16:12, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

But this also comes back to the point that WP should not be the end point for someone motivated to learn about a topic - we're the gateway, not the terminus. We cannot nor should not cover a topic in such exacting detail that no other sources need to be referenced, and in fact should be encouraging the reader that needs to know more to seek out those references (that's why WP:V is about verifyability and not so much truth). That's why we should be general and put ourselves in the general reader's shoes and not the specialized reader. For the more technical articles like higher maths, we do have to start from a presumed specification in that field, but that's far different than when describing the history of a foreign company which can be described easily to the average reader without having them to be a resident of where that country is located. --MASEM (t) 16:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

And to the point of non-free, we don't have to show the reader every image or media file that may be relevant to the topic if there are (or at least should be, if we are covering the topic) sources that go into more detail that we simply can't do here. --MASEM (t) 16:29, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Straw man. We never will be the "end point" for someone who wants to know everything about a topic -- not in the 32k of a target full length article; nor even in the 96k of an exceptionally long one. Our aim though is to give thorough, comprehensive, balanced treatment of topics. WP:ITSLOCAL specifically rejects limiting ourselves to write for the "general" reader. We must try to make as much as possible as accessible as possible for as general a readership as possible, certainly. But that's not a limit on the ambition of what we should cover, if we can and remain readable. So if something is of particular interest to an Australian or an Indian readership, or a reader from the furthest corner of Tennessee, or to somebody who has specifically Googled the subject, and it's something we can review verifiably, we shouldn't hold back just because the "average" Brit or American might never have heard of it. Jheald (talk) 16:55, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but unlike a technical article where it is almost impossible to write about it without assuming the reader has knowledge of advanced topics, articles on local topics can always be written accessible to anyone in the world. These articles on local topics should be written from the viewpoint of someone who has never been to that locality, and not a local. Hence the need to evaluate the article's content including non-free on that global basis. If an image is only going to have relevance to the small fraction of readers that visit the article (this in the case where no context is otherwise given in text), then we're not using NFC appropriately. --MASEM (t) 17:04, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Your thinking on this is simply wrong. Articles on local topics should be written to be useful for someone who has never been to that locality and for a local -- and should go into as much detail, and as many sub-articles if necessary, as anyone can be bothered to write, so long as they're balanced and and can be reliably sourced (and preferably written in a fairly terse, condensed, encyclopedic style). If there's a significant likely proportion of the article's readership for whom the image would be useful, meaningful knowledge, then that's a reasonable audience to assess NFCC #8 for. Jheald (talk) 17:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, encyclopedia - tertiary source. We summarize, not go into detail. I'm not saying we're ignoring anything local on an article about a local topic, as local sources can help to expand coverage from more regional/global ones, but as an encyclopedia we should not be going into detail that has only specific interest to local readers. --MASEM (t) 17:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

We summarise, yes, but we also aggregate. I can think of many examples where the Wikipedia article is the best account available on a subject: Malkin Tower springs immediately to mind. Malleus Fatuorum 19:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I've felt both resentment and support towards this. I support the objectives, but also see that this is the area of Wikipedia where the enforcement process breeds the most resentment. I think that while it is not fair to the hard working folks who sincerely work at this, but in my mind I keep thinking that this is the one area of Wikipedia that has nasty enforcement squads going around unreasonably smacking people. I have come to the conclusion that the root cause of this is blending of two different topics. #1 is areas where a placement of images etc. might create legal violations. This is an area (similar to wp:BLP violations) where is it reasonable to expect some pretty stringent and categorical rules, and empowerment of even Barney Fife-types or to categorically enfoce them and smack people. #2 Is areas unrelated to any legal violation, and just is against wp:nfc content objectives. For example that parts of Wikipedia's "fair use" rules that have nothing to do with the real world definition of "fair use". In those areas people (IMHO rightly) expect the normal nuanced non-categorical guidelines, fuzzy/ discussions/consensus based interpretation and enforcement. IMHO it has been an error to blend the two together, which then invokes the "pretty stringent and categorical rules, and empowerment of even Barney Fife-types or to categorically enfoce them and smack people." type stuff in areas where there are no legal issues. I think that starting to divide the two and handle them differently would be useful. North8000 (talk) 17:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

The issues around enforcement (that is, not going to channels like FFD or discussion pages and strong-arming removals) is a very different topic to this and one I think we've resolved for a while. To be clear: save for a few mechanical NFCC requirements like use outside mainspace and the need for #10c, NFC enforcement is not free of 3RR-type editing restrictions. --MASEM (t) 17:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Huh... I always thought that the statement that Wikipedia is a "free" encyclopedia was referring to the fact that users do not need to pay any money to access it (unlike, say Encyclopedia Britannica). Blueboar (talk) 17:23, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, fellas...as per what The Hand That Feeds You said above – let's consult the Foundation. Anyone know how to get to the lawyers?

And, when you do, allow us – i.e. myself, Diego, Jheald, etc... to put across our side of the story as well. Because, as Diego said, the strict overbearing BUREAUCRATIC attitude of many editors is, in my opinion also, harming the encyclopedia. So – please someone get on line with the lawyers. BigSteve (talk) 18:59, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not a legal issue - in that the images that are under question certain well and truly meet US Fair Use law (as on the Foundation's servers) and we're not arguing removal for legal purposes. It's an issue at the entire Foundation and their ultimate goal. And they have been approached before to clarify their resolution and remained quiet (no response) on any clarification. --MASEM (t) 19:06, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

So I suggest that in any area where we have doubt, we just let the Foundation know that we plan to liberalize our policy, and see if they object. If they don't object, then we can cheerfully go ahead and liberalize it. Victor Yus (talk) 19:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

For the record, this was the then General Counsel's view in 2008.

(Logos tend to be legal quite easily, because (i) they were deliberately crafted to be very widely used and reproduced as an identity for the company, (ii) our use here in no way conflicts with that, and (iii) the context of use, in writing a neutral article about the company, rather than use by the company to promote itself, is pretty much exactly the kind of transformation specified in the statute. Which is why, compared to various other types of NFC (see eg WP:NFCI), we've traditionally accepted a fairly liberal standard for the added understanding needed to pass WP:NFCC#8 in order to sufficiently balance the copyright taking.)

But of course, as Masem points out, just because something is legal it doesn't mean we should go ahead. It's probably likely that the Foundation will leave this up to us to judge -- they care very strongly about NFCC #1 (replaceability by free content), and in the past have moved very decisively on that; and also when people have filed DMCA takedowns -- but so long as what we're doing is legal, and not thought likely to tarnish WP's reputation, in the past (eg for those tv station logos), they've left the fine details of what lines the image policy should draw to us. (eg with the licensing resolution, leaving it up to us to discuss and set the fine details of our policy and its implementation).

My own view is as I have set out above. I think use of material like this needs to seem "in balance" with the rest of the article. If a major part of the article is devoted the history of an organisation, which is reviewed in detail, then IMO the historical logos have a place in that, and it's reasonable to include them for the same reason that we include logos in infoboxes -- because this is the identifier the organisation chose to present itself, and that in itself is a relevant part of its story. On the other hand, if all that it is proposed to tell about the organisation's history is just its logos, then IMO that's out of balance, and can even make us look no more than a pasteboard for other people's pretty things. In that respect, for the TV station stubs, I think it probably was right to get rid of most of the historical idents when that probably was out of proportion to anything else we were saying about the stations' histories. (Though it would have been better if they had been moved to e.g. Logopedia rather than deleted). It's a question of what makes us seem responsible, judicious and balanced. Jheald (talk) 19:35, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Jheald, that's also exactly my view. This would lead to a guideline in the same line of the one for non-free content galleries - an article's section with only logos without context would be clearly not allowed; historical logos with direct commentary by RSs are clearly allowed; and IMO sparse use of historic logos to illustrate the well-researched company's major periods should be usually considered in line with the mission. There's no slippery slope in this approach, just two valid extremes and an intermediate grey area to be decided by case-by-case evaluations. Diego (talk) 20:02, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Just to add to Jheald's comment on the Foundation and legal issues, they did stand firm when the FBI tried to order their logo removed from WP. Basically, if there is a legal issue, we will likely hear it from the Foundation - along with their planned course of action - before we ourselves would have to take steps. --MASEM (t) 20:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Jheald – I have to say, some proper philosophical reasoning in some of your above comments, really enjoyed reading them!

Anyway, I think Victor Yus has a point – propose to the Foundation that we want to expand the rules and see if they abstain from disagreeing...

I also agree that gratuitous galleries, especially in short articles, are wrong. And I will myself always strive to intersperse logos through history sections, although that sometimes takes time and I believe that a reasonable gallery (with a "galleries discouraged - please expand article" template) should be allowed. But slapping a delete notice on a tiny thumbnail logo six hours after I uploaded it is, I think you'll agree, outrageous.

And, once again – can we not attempt to get Wikipedia:WikiProject_Companies and/or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Business to adopt an "exemption doctrine policy" (2)(3) on this matter? And NO, Masem, you lie! when you say that "NFC is site-wide policy, Wikiprojects cannot carve out exemptions from it."!!! I am angry about this straw man lie of yours, because the second paragraph of WP:NFC states "The policy allows projects to adopt an exemption doctrine policy allowing the use of non-free content within strictly defined limitations"! You keep bare-faced-lying in your argumentation!!! STOP IT. BigSteve (talk) 20:55, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid "projects" there means the various different-language wikipedias. The language is straight from the Foundation licensing resolution. There is only one EDP for en-wiki, and that is the ten points of WP:NFC. Wikiprojects can't evade those. From time to time they have come up with more detailed guidance (often stricter) than that set out at WP:NFC, interpreting the ten criteria as they apply particularly to the sort of questions that will be faced by articles the project cover -- WP:COMICS, WP:FILM and WP:MUSIC have all done this. But WT:NFC is the central talk page for discussions in this area, together with global fora like this one, and individual wikiprojects can't just decide to do their own thing and ignore it. Jheald (talk) 21:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

A possible compromise

Clearly, there is agreement that galleries of non-free historical logos don't work (in other words, an article like PBS Idents is problematic since few of the logos are presented without context outside of what some editor has described to explain what the logos are - not sufficient). My concern has been that just dropping historical logos without context even outside of galleries can lead to excessive non-free where it is not needed.

I can see that a midpoint here is the case of when a company had undergone a significant identity change, which specifically I'm thinking is pretty much a change in name, or a massive revision in logo identity, from something that has well-established (> 5 years?). The BTC case easily qualifies here, as is the PBS one (from NET to PBS). In such cases, a logo to represent the established identity may be appropriate. There is just reason here as such identity changes from something that has been around that long rarely go unnoticed by third-parties or even the company itself, though it may be initially difficult to find literature to support that, but under good faith, that seems acceptable.

I think there could be a few qualifications on the naming or logo aspect but it should be a clear difference. To use a example , using AT&T's logos [3], there is a clear change from the 1970-1983 logo to the 1983-1996 logo (transition from the phone to the globe image), but not between the 1983-1996 and the more newer logos (same globe, just different weights/spacingetc.) Consensus can decide when those are significant, but there's clear examples what lines are required to draw from.

But I want to stress the point of one unqualified logo use per identity change. I can accept one to show what the company's older identity was , but I have a problem when more than one is used indiscriminately ala the PBS ident page. Without a significant shift in name or identity - eg mostly just updating the logo for newer aesthetics - its hard to justify how this contributes to the company's past identity after the first image. This is no way prevents additional logo images that have clear sourced discussion to be included, just those logos where there is no sourced commentary.

This would 1) prevent non-free logo galleries or the equivalent while 2) still allowing representation of older but well-established identities to be shown while respecting non-free content. Also we should not be afriad to include links to logopedia, a wikia dedicated to tracking logo histories, if that's deemed necessary. Exactly how to codify this, that's a different question but this case would allow the BTS logo to be used on that article, or in the PBS idents, to have one example of the NET period, and a few from the more recent PBS period due to sourced commentary on a few of the logos (eg the head shape being pulled into the newer logos). --MASEM (t) 21:36, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

For another example, consider History of Qantas, in particular the Company logos section right at the end. Two of these logos (or rather their png forerunners) are the logos I mentioned above, that were kept at WP:FFD, when the material was still in the original Qantas article. (One of the other logos is out of copyright; and the current logo was not nominated). In my view, these logos are appropriate to present to readers (a) given their longevity, (b) given the developments of a consistent theme they show, and (c) given that they are being presented in the context of a very extensive presentation of the history of Quantas, in which IMO its self-identity is something that it is appropriate to cover.

I can see and basically agree the point you're making about the PBS and AT&T logos -- we don't need to note every minor refresh of essentially the same image (though I'd include the current AT&T logo, as being the current version; and also because I think it is quite a substantial re-working of what went before). I'd also see the Qantas logos as being sufficently different that those that are currently presented are each worth including.

I can also see the tabular format might raise questions; but here I think it works well, and in this case I think is not a bad way to go. The classic objection against tables is for pictures where our legal fair use case really depends on commentary directly on the picture (at least that's the reasoning presented at WP:IUP. Here that's less of an issue, because we're really relying in the image for itself to justify fair use, rather for any commentary we may be making on it. There's also the issue that presenting the images together in this way makes them be perceived more as a single unit, and so less visually obtrusive. Some might see that as a bad thing in itself, taking the view that if the images were forced to be more visually obtrusive, then we would accept them less easily and so tolerate fewer of them. That's essentially a view that sees the use of the images themselves as a bad thing, rather than the reader perception of them. But in a case like this, where there isn't really a fair-use issue, I think the key issue probably is visual perception, and so IMO trying here to present the images in as easily-swallowed, low-key, unobtrusive a way as possible I think overall probably is the right call -- as well as allowing them to be most easily compared.

But I wonder if this fits with Masem's thinking? Jheald (talk) 23:14, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Qantas' logos are probably a bad example because I have no issue with them, since they are either free or have sources to explain the changes and rational why. (I'm curious if that information was there prior to the FFDs).

But to address other points:

On a company's page, the current logo is always appropriate, irregardless of what historical ones are given. If the history of the logo/identification is on a separate page for some reason (like PBS idents or the History of Qantas) and there is at least one historical logo there, it is reasonable to include the current one again if it is not already included in an infobox.

It's not so much the actual format of presentation (gallery, list, table), just that putting all logo changes without context is an infodump regardless of the format. As long as what logos shown are chosen with some discretionary rule (eg major identity change if otherwise not sourced), they could be in a gallery if the text about the logos is right next door as it is for Qantas. But if its the case that the logo hasn't gotten a lot of attention and being added per my significant identification change, the logo image should really be in the section of prose talking about the previous identity the logo identifies. So in the BCT case above, this idea would prompt the inclusion of the old BCT logo in the section aboun when the company was named BCT, and certainly not as a gallery at the end of the article. --MASEM (t) 00:01, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Technically

We should have an image like this in articles like this. We can't claim fair use with the criteria that no free use image is available. If we get an image of the statue licensed by the copyright holder of the statue, or host an image taken where FOP is allowed then they are available. Should I email the Academy for a licensed image before or after we remove the illegal one? Canada has FOP so we can have pages like this with very nice images.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok, based on what Jheald said at 21:10, 3 April 2013, I understand. My mistake – Masem, I apologize for my rant. Re-reading your later posts, you have been very reasonable. Also, Masem, I agree with your argumentation on the AT&T logo (you probably believe no more than two should be used; I'm more liberal, but I certainly don't think more than 4 are necessary). I actually really like the Qantas logos section, as it is brief, sourced and to the point – something I would always strive for in any logo section, because the most interesting thing about a logo change is that there's a story behind it (the whole reason I began this discussion is that sometimes that story is difficult to find in sourced material).

On the "visually obtrusive" comment by Jheald – I believe it's about a stylistic decision. Since the Qantas logos are all based on (semi-)major reworkings of the same logo, I think it works better as it is, as it allows the reader a clearer vision of what the changes are; in a case like the Atlanta Hawks, however, the logos are all fundamental changes – I believe the interspersed style (the way it currently is) is the best way to go in that particular case. So it's all to do with having reasonable reasons to do what is done.

And I agree that the BTC logos, being so different and especially considering the name change, should be in a history section and would hope that to develop within the article. Anyway, I'm glad all of us are on speaking terms now, rather than arguing! BigSteve (talk) 17:38, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, again, to show the reader the changes in the logo but without any text to support that is not acceptable. I can accept the old logo, without necessary discussion of the logo, in context of other text talking about the company's previous identity. Let's consider the case that this all started from Vivacom (where the use of the old logo of the former name of the company was the point of contention that started this). Now, as it is, I have a hard time saying that the BTC logo can be used primarily because there's very little history of the company mentioned. I mean, we're told that Vivacom came out from BTC, but there's almost nothing the founding and history of BTC, which itself should be reasonably documented to some degree. Everything in that article is about Vivacom, and not BTC. It would be hard to even consider the BTC logo there. But that said, if a more proper history of BTC prior to it becoming Vivacom was included, then I would consider the justification of the logo. I'm not asking for a long article or a lot of sources, but enough to show that BTC was an established service provider for years and then switched out to Vivacom, as part of the documented history. In that case, irregardless of what information can be found on the logo, I would say the single BTC logo that has been requested could be included under non-free. To contrast, compare this with the Qantas article, which had a detailed history of the business on its separate page even. Even without the sources that discuss the logo changes, there is just cause to include one from the pre-1984 (where the logo's 'roo still had wings) and one post-1984 (the 'roo sans wings). Of course, we've got two free images and sources that allow more than that, but I am hypothetically considering this case.

In other words, to use a historical logo which is non-free, and where there is no apparent sources that describe the logo, it is reasonable to include one non-free logo only if the logo is radically different (in design or due to name change), and is accompanied by a summarized history of the company that covers the period where that older logo would have been used. Mulitple historical logos lacking sourced discussion would have to be judged case by case but we should strive to avoiding including logos that are little different from other logos shown or that are not part of a well-documented history section. It is not as strong a requirement as having sourced discussion for the historical logo (though this should always be preferred), but it is better than just flat out allowance for inclusion. --MASEM (t) 22:38, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, it will take me some time, however I will gradually work on finding sourced history material and including it in the article, so that the logos can fit in appropriately. I don't see though why two of the three logos listed for deletion a couple of weeks ago - namely BTK old, BTK new and Vivatel – were deleted while this discussion was going on, and I fear that the third will also be deleted soon. I think it was wrong to delete them, as I had pointed out (see end of linked section) that the discussion was going on here, on this page. I would like to ask if we can at least do something to stop the last logo (BTK old) from being deleted, as it will save me from uploading it again in future, once I have found some historical info for it.

I also feel that the Vivatel logo was unreasonably deleted, since Vivatel used to be a completely separate company, which has its own article and the logo used on that page was therefore fair use. I feel that at least here I am correct in believing this... BigSteve (talk) 10:11, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

When I find the time, I'll re-upload the Vivatel logo for the above-outlined reason. BigSteve (talk) 11:48, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

"Succinct" Captions

How long should a caption on a Wikipedia image be? Please help solve a dispute (and clarify the meaning of a guideline) in this discussion. Thank you. - X201 (talk) 08:56, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

This is a proposal to change the guidelines so that captions inside infoboxes be limited to the fewest possible number of words. The edit wars precipitating this discussion involved video games, with one side favoring "Official box art" and the other side favoring "Official box art depicting ____". There is a proposal that all infobox captions (not just captions for video game artwork) be limited to a single line. Multiple recent featured articles have had multi-line captions in the infoboxes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:41, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Babel boxen on user pages for long-time vanished users

I have a need for help from someone who speaks a particular language. Something would be nice would be to use the babel box templates to find such a person. Unfortunately, you have to click through a whole bunch of people who have been gone for years to find one person who is still here. I know that this has been discussed for other reasons and has always been shouted down, but for the sake of being able to use the user categories and babel boxen for what they are intended for - finding a user to help you - what would be everyone's thought about auto-deleting or auto-blanking pages of users who have zero edits for some lengthy period of time (like a year)? If the user returns, they are, of course, welcome to have their user page back, but for the sake of being able to find an active user, I think removing pages of inactive users would be a useful thing. --B (talk) 23:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. I would also add that if the Babelbox/category is in use only by a or a group of inactive users it should probably be deleted. Kumioko (talk) 01:20, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

A userbox like "this user loves eating fish" or something, yes, that should be deleted if nobody is using it. But the babel boxes for languages shouldn't be deleted ... just because nobody right now today speaks, some obscure language at an intermediate level doesn't mean that a month from now someone won't. --B (talk) 02:52, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Delete the whole user page? No, not for this reason. Remove the language (and similar) categories, which may mean removing the babel userboxes from the userpage? Meh. Another idea would be to get them to sort under U+10FFFD (the last character in the Private Use Area, which will sort at the very end of the list) or something like that, although that may take some work if templates are still explicitly specifying {{PAGENAME}} for the sortkey. Anomie⚔ 13:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe we could add a parameter to the babel boxes like "nocat=1" that says to remove it from the category. I was thinking about this and there are probably some users whose home wiki is somewhere else but just have a user page here with nothing but babel boxes and a statement like "contact me on the xyz language wiki". So removing their user pages would be a pointless and counter-productive exercise, but maybe we could have a bot de-categorize the babel box for us. It's really obnoxious the way it is now and renders the babel boxen pointless - I needed someone who could move an image from fa: to Commons and I clicked through all of our fa-4 and fa-3 boxes and only found two people with edits in the last month. (Fortunately, I found an admin there who speaks English and he moved it for me.) It just seems like these categories are completely useless if they are predominately people who have been gone for 5+ years. This didn't used to be an issue back in the day, but now that Wikipedia is over a decade old, we have a lot of people who have been gone for a really, really, long time and it would be very useful to remove their babel templates from the respective categories. --B (talk) 13:47, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Comment I have on occasion also needed help from a user who speaks a particular language (besides English). I share User:B's sentiment that it can be hard and frustrating to find a person. Long term, Wikipedia's gonna have to do something dormant accounts; they are just accumulating. Jason Quinn (talk) 22:38, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the nocat idea is good. It might be possible to have a bot add a nocat to all cat-containing inactive userpages. (I'd use a very long definition of "inactive", like no edits for two years.)

WP:Translators available is another place to find people by language. and we cleaned out inactive folks about a year ago. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:24, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I did a spot check of templates at Category:Language_user_templates and it looks like most of them are set up to use the nocat parameter. Are there any objections to asking a bot to add nocat=1 to all userboxen of users with no edits in the last two years? --B (talk) 04:16, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Why are deletion notices automatically transcluded when a template or file at XFD is used?

I find it annoying that when a file or template is up for deletion and the notice placed on the file or template page propagates to all pages (in an abbreviated form) to all pages that use the file or template. Why is this done? —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 01:40, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

So that the readers who would be affected by its deletion are invited to the discussion? Kilopi (talk) 02:40, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

These notices make more sense if they appear on the edit page as an edit notice (like "This page contains the following template, which is nominated for deletion..."), rather than in the article, where they would detract from the content. —DragonLord^{(talk/contribs)} 05:17, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

That would value the opinions of editors over readers. I'm not sure that not letting readers know that the template being used to provide them with information may be deleted is a sound call. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:38, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, most of our editors are also readers, or at least read far more pages than they edit. I'd want to know about a TFD even if I didn't click through to edit the page (or even if I didn't pay attention when reverting vandalism or making a minor edit). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Skin change

Why the hate against Times New Roman??

This change is really pissing me off. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Capnned (talk • contribs) 21:43, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Context, please? I don't remember ever seeing Times New Roman, so I don't know what change you mean. Nyttend (talk) 03:30, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi! Perhaps your web broswer had a change in the font settings. See if that helps. Good luck! --NaBUru38 (talk) 16:05, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Citations: Should the original url= be required when using archiveurl=

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived: As a question of policy, there is not question. You can not have archiveurl without the imbedded original URL. The real question is should the bare url field of the template be populated? That is a question for a different forum. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:28, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

---

In working on the migration of citation templates to use the new Lua module, we've encountered an inconsistency between {{cite web}} and the other citation templates (e.g. {{cite book}}, {{cite news}}, etc.)

The citation templates generally allow one to specify both an original url= and an archiveurl= that is intended to have the same content on an archive site.

Example with both url= and archiveurl=
{{cite news | title = My news | newspaper = The Daily News | url = http://news.com/ | archiveurl = http://foobar.archive.com/ | archivedate = May 25, 2005 | author = Doe, John }}
Doe, John. "My news". The Daily News. Archived from the original on May 25, 2005. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |notracking= ignored (|no-tracking= suggested) (help)

When using {{cite web}}, one can specify archiveurl= without specifying url=. In other words one is allowed to link to an archived copy of the website even if you don't provide a link to the original website. By contrast, all of the other templates consider this to be an error. If you try to link to an archive site without including the original url, you get an error message.

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived: close template continued, does not like to have tables in the template

---

In brief discussions, our small technical group generally feels that the behavior ought to be made consistent across the various templates, but we are of mixed opinions about which case to adopt as the standard. Requiring that the url= field be preserved whenever archiveurl= is present would help maintain information about the originating site, and could be especially important if the archive site ever goes offline. However, retaining the original url= also means indefinitely preserving a link whose content may be dead or changed in such a way as to no longer be relevant. In the case of a long-term dead link, it might make sense to only preserve the archiveurl= and discard the original url=.

So, opinions? Should the original url= be required whenever archiveurl= is present, or not? Dragons flight (talk) 18:39, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The inconsistency comes about as a bug in {{citation/core}} and affects other templates such as {{cite conference}}. The problem is when |IncludedWorkTitle={{{title|}}}. I barely looked at the affected markup, but the apparent intent was to apply the same error check to all cite templates. I see no reason for these templates to be different. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:03, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Given the concern for an archive site to possibly go offline (scary thought), I would agree with the thought that the url must be present when the archiveurl is present. --Izno (talk) 19:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Right now webcitation.org is begging for money or they'll stop taking submissions at the end of 2013.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 21:17, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The WebCite issue is being discussed at meta:WebCite. Cheers. 64.40.54.241 (talk) 06:58, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• I prefer to have the original URL be required. It may help somebody to provide a better reference at some future point. 64.40.54.241 (talk) 06:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
• Sometimes the original URL may go live again; often the original URL is required or makes it easier to find an archive. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:33, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
• And sometimes there is a web archive when there never was an original on the web. I guess
  "Condemnation of a Railway Viaduct". Thames Star. 17 January 1881. Retrieved 5 April 2013.
  is an example. Of course, as here, one can give the url of the archive as if it was the original. Thincat (talk) 14:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

In this context, the document located at the original URL is the original source. Online archives of newspapers don't have an original URL. --  Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:56, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Require that the original URL be kept. My most recent experience with this was Chartbot, and it was able to recover about 80% of dead links to Billboard, and it couldn't have done that without the URLs.—Kww(talk) 15:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Logically |archiveurl= must require |url=. If there's no original URL, it's not an internet archive. Rjwilmsi 22:30, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I've been using archiveurl without the URL parameter in many of my articles that use the Pandora Archive, an Internet archiving service run by the National Library of Australia (e.g. footnote 2 of the Tracey Cross article). I always felt it was unnecessary, because the links have probably been dead for a decade or more anyway, and the original URLs can easily be found by chopping off the first part of the archive URLs. Graham87 09:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

courtesy link policy

A source can be good enough to source a citation while not good enough for a statement of fact. There are also materials that can not be used as sources but are still valuable to the article. We have no policy or guideline for this. For clarification: wp:rs has us pretend the material is a source. Such distorted logic is not necessary. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 07:06, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow your question here. Wikipedia does allow for the use of "general references" (i.e. not used in footnotes) or "further reading" sections. Many, many articles contain such sections, and they are mentioned at both Wikipedia:Citing sources#General references and at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout. What sort of action do you think we need to take, or what is unclear? I want to help, but I don't know what needs fixing, as the sort of sources you note, "There are also materials that can not be used as sources but are still valuable to the article" are explicitly dealt with on multiple policy and guideline pages. --Jayron32 22:48, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Basically I want a policy for it in stead of vague guidance. But I didn't run into the style guidelines that do indeed describe how we usually do this. There is an essay under fabrication for External Links. I suppose those should just mature into the thing I was looking for. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 10:27, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

The unregistered user asked this question at WT:RS, where it was answered. S/he was looking for WP:FURTHER. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:49, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Gender neutrality on policy pages

I was reading this and I thought - well, we all know that Wikipedia is 85% male, we want to change it, and the gendered language is probably one of the things we need to address. Do we have any policy, MoS, or even an essay about good practices when writing in the Wikipedia namespace? As in, do we prefer "his or her", "they", or something else? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:13, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I think "they" would be the preference, it's just easier than saying "his or her" over and over. EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:02, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

That would be grammatically incorrect, as "they" is plural. We could say "the editor" or something similar. SMP0328. (talk) 04:19, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Wrong. Singular they. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 06:14, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

That article addresses one of my main linguistic pet peeves (it's been more than once that I've been told that "they" is plural and shouldn't be used). Thank you for linking to that, Melodia. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:58, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Gender-neutral language is the best you're going to get. They is indeed "wrong" but sometimes acceptable to avoid he or she three times in quick succession. My opinion is to be wise, mindful of how a sentence sounds to all readers, and to err on the side of inclusion. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:39, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:GNL says:

The Manual of Style section on gender-neutral language states, "Use gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision."

Are you proposing a change to:

Either gender-neutral language or generic he is acceptable; please use gender-neutral language ONLY where it can be done with clarity and precision; otherwise just use generic he. Georgia guy (talk) 15:30, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Is this aimed at me? If not, disregard. If so, I think I was unclear. I meant to be wise, mindful, and err when deciding between his or her, his/her, or they. Using just the male pronoun is never acceptable. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:10, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

It is entirely acceptable to me ;) - Sitush (talk) 16:24, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Using just the male pronoun is not only acceptable, it's the correct usage when the gender is unknown. "They" is a plural, and all these "his/her" and "xe" things are awkward.—Kww(talk) 16:50, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

'They' is primarily plural, just as 'he' is primarily male.

'The fact that the primary meaning of he contains the component "male" makes it an unsatisfactory pronoun for use in a secondary sense that covers females as well as males.'[The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey Pullum, ISBN 978-0-521-43146-0, p. 492]

--Boson (talk) 17:21, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

There's certainly some authorities that endorse the use of singular "they" and disparage the use of the gender-neutral "he". Search around, though, and you will find that it's far from unanimous.—Kww(talk) 18:13, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you'll find the recommendation that "he" is "the correct usage when the gender is unknown" in any book recent enough to have a barcode, though. Formerip (talk) 18:18, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

William Satire discusses a similar issue in his paper "A Person Paper on Purity in Language". --Boson (talk) 20:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

We don't have any official guidance. We do have a lot of people who believe that singular they is an abomination. My usual solution is to write in the plural whenever feasible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:58, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I am pretty adamantly opposed to the singular they, but there is nothing as wrong or endemically damning as eliminating half of the world's population. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 23:55, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

The use of "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun does not eliminate half the world's population. By it's very nature as a neutral pronoun, it embraces all.—Kww(talk) 00:42, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Except that the idea that "he" can be used gender neutrally is counterfactual under any linguistic analysis.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:49, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Books have been written on how exclusive that usage is. Language is a subtle psychological instructor, and from an earlier age the language we use affects people's perception of themselves and the world. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 05:46, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

(ec) I think we can easily get by with the Singular they, if we don't like the gender-neutral "he", especially since it's so easy to convert from a singular "they" addressing one editor to a plural "they" addressing several. Actually I've never understood the aversion to the "singular they". It's so much less obnoxious than some of the alternatives like "his or her" which can get clunky if it appears more than about once in a sentence, and "one" which is just plain pompous. And don't even get me started on that awful invented "xe" and "xyr" crap. Reyk _YO! 00:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I personally use genderpointy "she", which is favored in many of the humanities.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:55, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

If "she" is acceptable, than why is "he" being gender neutral counterfactual? If "they" is used, then the affected material should be written in the plural tense. SMP0328. (talk) 02:41, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Genderpointy was the operative word there. Pronoun affirmative action, if you prefer. The fact that "he" was for so long accepted as the go-to has lead to a movement to emphasize the use of the feminine pronoun. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 05:46, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The way I do it is my first imaginary person is female, my second is male and so on.

Is genderpointy a common word for this, or just one you made up? Formerip (talk) 09:43, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree that singular they is good enough (and shorter than "that person" which would be my second choice). Then again, english is not my first language so I don´t feel strongly about it. I fully understand if some people react like many swedes do to our recent word "hen". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:11, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

It seems pretty clear already that it will not be possible to agree on a house style. But maybe we do need a guideline stating that "they" and "she" are not wrong and should not be reverted as such, on policy pages at least (in mainsapace, "they" should be used only with caution). Formerip (talk) 09:43, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Blocking offensive usernames

If a user with an obviously offensive username is blocked, their name can still cause offense as it appears in edit histories and search suggestions. I therefore propose that editors blocked for offensive usernames have all their edits over sighted (I doubt someone who chooses an offensive username has much constructive intentions) and their talk and user pages deleted. They can still appeal their block by emailing an admin or Unblock Ticket Request. 84.13.131.123 (talk) 18:56, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

What about simply over sighting the offensive username, but not the edit (unless there is a separate ground for over sighting the edit)? SMP0328. (talk) 21:28, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I find it disturbing that some people are so sensitive to being offended that seeing a username in an article history would set them off. My response to such people is "grow up and deal with it". Usernames that take the form of personal attacks against specific people are oversighted already, and all that leaves is curse words and hate speech, both of which exist readily on the internet already and which the average (read: not home-schooled) child is exposed to by middle school. If someone is really bothered by a username, they have way, way bigger problems than Wikipedia is equip to handle. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:33, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with everything you just said, Sven. EVula // talk // ☯ // 02:47, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

• The answer is to go to User:Oversight and send a message asking for the account to be blocked with suppression (which removes the username from logs and histories) or to email oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org if you are not logged in, and make the same request. Examples of suppressible usernames would be those that out users, those that allege a person (whether wikipedian or "civilian") is guilty of a serious crime (child abuse, rape, murder, etc) or purports to reveal something about another person's orientation ("XXX sux dix"). You will note the pattern: in most cases, there needs to be a personal element to the username. There are some exceptions, and each request is looked at on a case-by-case basis. Risker (talk) 00:43, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

In cases where the username is aggressively offensive, but does not meet the standards for oversight, it can still be revision deleted from edit histories. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:58, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It's also possible to move the account to a different username. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:01, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

• I'm not sure I can support this proposal as I believe our current processes handle the job adequately. We already have the Oversight and Revision Deletion tools that can selectively remove usernames from public logs, and with those tools there is the option to hide the usernames but to keep the edits intact. While it's true that it's unlikely that someone with an offensive username will contribute constructively, it does occasionally happen and we don't want to remove those edits. Furthermore, when it comes to tools like Oversight, we need to approach them with the attitude that they should be used as little as possible, because we do not want to slip into the business of censorship, and because it is important to keep problematic users publicly accountable to the so-called Wikipedia community. Moreover, it must be remembered that 'offensive' usernames exist on a spectrum...depending on their severity, they may require suppression, redaction, or simple blocking. It wouldn't be appropriate to suppress all of them. NTox · talk 17:00, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I think your second to last point is absolutely critical. It's imperative that administrators be as transparent as possible, and allow the wider community to see what an editor did to earn his block, unless there is a special reason those actions should be hidden. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:57, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

CNN Transcripts

Can CNN transcript pages be used as reliable sources? Searched Wikipedia but could not find an answer. Here is an example of what I'm referring to: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1304/14/fzgps.01.html 24.90.152.15 (talk) 02:28, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, CNN is usually considered a reliable source. For specific questions on how that source should be used ask at the reliable sources noticeboard.--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 02:42, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

There is no policy against citing a video source (we even have a template for that, {{Cite video}}). A transcript of a video would be considered as reliable as the original video. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:44, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Trying to find out why we do things the way we do

A question has come up at WT:AT asking why we use "Sentence case" for our article titles (as opposed to Title Case). So that I can give accurate background information to answer this question, I am trying to find out exactly when we made this decision ... I know it's been the way we have done things since I first joined the project (back in 2006), so any discussions that resulted in our decision would have taken place before then. I assume it was discussed at WP:MOS, but I have not been able to find the discussion in the archives (I am still looking). Of course, we were a bit more free-wheeling in the early days of Wikipedia, it's possible that it was discussed on some other page and then applied to the MOS based on that other discussion. Any help in tracking down the "when" (or early discussions of the "why") would be appreciated. Blueboar (talk) 13:52, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I've replied to you at the other discussion. — Hex (❝?!❞) 15:01, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Using date of death as disambiguator?

There has been a discussion going on at Talk:William Leveson (mercer)#Requested move There the author is requesting the page be moved to William Leveson (died 1621). So far, three people have weighed in on the discussion and here is a summary of their arguments.

• User:NinaGreen (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  • The proposer of the move has offered these reasonings (PLEASE don't take my word for it, follow the link above and see!):
    • There is another William Leveson, also a mercer, who is often confused with this William Leveson, and since this William Leveson was William Shakespeare's trustee in the transfer of the Globe Theatre shares in 1599, it's obviously helpful to Wikipedia users to make it immediately clear which was which, and since both were mercers, the easiest way to differentiate the two is by date of death.
    • Moreover it would be very unusual for Wikipedia users who are searching for articles on persons who lived in the Tudor period to search under an occupation such as 'mercer' since most people in that period wore many different occupational 'hats'.
    • What most Wikipedia users searching in that period of history are looking for is a quick way to determine whether they have the right person, and date of death is one of the clearest and quickest ways of doing that (date and place of birth aren't feasible for persons from this period because both are usually totally unknown or very uncertain).
    • Most standard references such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography put the date of death right after the person's name at the beginning of an article.
    • As I've mentioned before on this page, the birthplaces and birthdates of notable figures of the Tudor period are often either entirely unknown or very uncertain, and the use of them as disambiguators for people of that period is thus highly speculative. Dates of death for notable figures of the Tudor period, on the other hand, are often known with certainty because they are stated in inquisitions post mortem. Since most notable people of the Tudor period held land of the crown by knight service, an inquisition post mortem was taken by officials appointed by the Crown for the purpose, and the date of death of the deceased was invariably stated in the IPM. These IPMs provide dates of death which are accepted by reliable sources.
    • The ODNB does disambiguate its entries (particularly now that's it's online, but it disambiguated by date even before it was online; entries for persons with the same name in the print DNB were arranged chronologically by date of death).
• User:Technical 13 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  • Me as first opposer:
    • Typically, pages are named in response to disambiguation by location of birth. If that is conflicting, they may be named by occupation. If that is conflicting, perhaps date of birth. I've never seen them named by date of death. As there are no other William Leveson's with the occupation of "mercer" on this encyclopedia, I see no reason to move it.
    • The current one could be possibly moved to William Leveson (mercer of London) and the new one could be William Leveson (mercer of ''birthplace'').
• User:Necrothesp (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
  • As second opposer:
    • Date of death is a very poor disambiguator.
    • The DNB does not disambiguate its entries. It therefore has no disambiguation policy. We, on the other hand, do commonly use disambiguation and do not use dates to disambiguate unless there really is no alternative. If there really is no other alternative for these two gentlemen, then William Leveson (mercer, died 1593) and William Leveson (mercer, died 1621) would be the normal disambiguation style. There does need to be some indication as to what they were; the date of death alone is fairly meaningless as a disambiguator. However, there is no need to add the date until and unless the article on the second one is created.
    • You mistake my meaning. The DNB does not disambiguate as we do. If you perform a search you get a list of names, followed by dates and occupation or role for all results. That is not actually title disambiguation. It is simply a list of results similar to our disambiguation pages. We, on the other hand, actually add a disambiguator to our article titles, but only if they need disambiguation. You seem to be proposing a sea change to the way we do things, which has been long established and works very well.

These are the main points, and I will post on that discussion page that I've summarized here in hopes of getting more opinions and building a better consensus. Thank you Technical 13 (talk) 01:25, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Article ratings/evaluations

At least some articles used to have a rating option at the bottom. This seems to have been eliminated. Where can I find the discussion leading to this change?Kdammers (talk) 03:32, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

You are referring to the Article Feedback tool, about which there was an RfC two months ago here. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 03:52, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Replaceability of "fair use" photos of the recently deceased

WP:NFCC#1 requires that photos be used under a claim of "fair use" only where no free equivalent exists nor could be created. We consider "fair use" photos of most living people to be inherently replaceable but this leads to photos of deceased people - no matter how recently deceased - being uploaded with little or no regard to the possibility of finding a free photo. I have offered a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#Required search to satisfy criterion 1 for the recently deceased to require that users desiring to upload a photo of a recently deceased person make a good faith effort to locate or obtain a free photo before uploading a fair use one. Please see that page if you would like to opine on this proposal. --B (talk) 04:24, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Similar issue with File:Oscar statuette.jpg. We can get a free licence image if the rights holders release an image under a free licence or we take a picture of one in Mexico. Mexican FOP doesn't require permanent public display for FOP.--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:44, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

See also the two links I put in File:Copyright information image.png in the other version thumbnail.--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:58, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:NFCC#1 requires that "no free equivalent is available", not that "no free equivalent exists ". Thincat (talk) 14:05, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

"Available" is far to vague a word. That is where we need to clarify the policy. I have had great success emailing subjects and others related to articles and had many images sent back with proper licensing. I doubt anyone can contact the family of Mr. Dorner. The LA district attorney may still be trying to find an image we can use with a free licence but since they think we have one now they may not. Did anyone ever try to contact the academy to see if they will licence an image of their award? Some sculptors have emailed commons to release images of their statues under a free licence on their rights. The photographers then release their rights. File:NewarkJustice1.jpg is one such image. Some at commons still didn't accept that and whined in the deletion review on it. We need to either clarify the policy, enforce the policy, or change the policy. As it stands now it is just a big drama fest every time an image is uploaded under fair use. I am quite sure that File:1953 Playboy centerfold.jpg is public domain as many were published before 1977 without proper copyright notice. I have contacted a collector and one of the top experts on her to help verify this. If we find an image of the academy award that was published before 1977 then that should be public domain as well and we wouldn't need a fair use image here. The image would probably need to be published under permission of the academy or by the academy but those should be very common and available. A simple Ebay search may turn some up.--Canoe1967 (talk) 14:35, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

That didn't take long. Published by the academy with no proper copyright notice on the image.--Canoe1967 (talk) 14:48, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

How do you know there's no copyright? The image doesn't have to have any sort of copyright notice. I don't see anything on that page that makes it clear that it was published without a copyright notice. Ryan Vesey 14:50, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Since it is for sale I would assume that it is copyrighted. Werieth (talk) 14:53, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

You can sell public domain material, but in any case, it's up for deletion at Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Academy Award Winners 1972.jpg. Ryan Vesey 15:10, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

A point to remember is that when a photograph is taken of a 3D work, the copyright holder of the 3D retains any copyright on that photograph they may have (if there is any). The Oscar statuette is copyrightable (as a non-utilitianian object) and copyrighted by the Academy. So in this case, we have two copyright, and while the one on the photo may have disappeared to PD, the Oscar one remains as such, so the image cannot be treated as free. --MASEM (t) 15:21, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd think the statues qualify for de minimis. The subject of the photo is the oscar winners, not the awards themselves. If the awards were magically erased from the photo, it's purpose wouldn't be lost, which I believe is the essential requirement for de minimis. Ryan Vesey 15:27, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd argue the opposite -the only reason we can tell they're Oscar winners is that they are holding the statuettes, specifically in a manner to display them for the shot. --MASEM (t) 15:39, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with Masem here; displaying the sculptures seems very much the point. I would also note that it isn't de minimis if it's being used to illustrate that very thing. :) I think this would pretty clearly fail Commons:Commons:De minimis#Guidelines. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:25, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Yep, I suppose it fails "Copyrighted work X is a key part of the subject (eg it is the reason for taking the photo). Removing it would make the derivative work radically different, but potentially still useful." Ryan Vesey 17:53, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

What I am wondering is if the image itself is public domain. The Academy published a photo of a 3D work that they have the rights to. This wouldn't make the statue PD but doesn't it make the image of the statue PD because the rights holders of both the image and the statue published the image?--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:07, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Do we have any friends or Wikipedians near the FOP ones on List of Academy Award trophies on public display. I think FOP is allowed in Germany, UK, and the Netherlands. We may be able to email the GLAMs on the list to see if they wish to take a pic and email or upload it.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:48, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

They wouldn't be free in the US, and thus cannot be used on Commons (which requires universal "free"), and would be treated as non-free for the US if on en.wiki. --MASEM (t) 22:51, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Sitewide policy on pages/sections for music from TV series and/or films?

Hi, I was wanting to start a discussion on possibly having a sitewide policy on pages/sections for music from TV series and/or films. Two specific examples I was thinking about were Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Jackass, with both of these series having quite notable soundtracks. The article for BTVS used to have a page on the music from each episode but was deleted by the following vote- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Buffyverse_tracklist

I would say that many of the arguments used for the above deletion actually do not apply and that specific pages for music from tv series and/or films would be completely in line with the purpose of an online encyclopedia. For example, music soundtracks for tv series/films (whether official or unofficial) are notable, they are not 'in universe' as the songs are real-world entities in their own right, they are not 'cruft' since while they play in a show they are not of the show, soundtracks are neither directories nor statistics, and they are relevant for addition to Wikipedia simply because it seems like it would be a fairly common occurance that someone who is watching a movie or tv show might want to know what the name of a song(s) in a given episode might be. To me, examples of 'cruft' would be how many vampires Buffy stakes in each episode, lists of puns made after stakings in each episode, etc. and not a comprehensive soundtrack listing for the series.

IMO the most and/or only compelling argument against adding pages for music from TV series/films would be that there are often no official soundtracks for tv shows as there are for films, however this seems like it would basically be the result of the high costs associated with producing such a soundtrack for an entire series and not due to lack of popular interest. As an example of a double standard in this regard, the page for the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off has a section on the music from the film even though there was no official soundtrack, so why can't BTVS, Jackass or other TV shows have such a section/page? See- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferris_Bueller%27s_Day_Off#Music

The reason I'm asking for a sitewide policy on this subject is that it would be a shame to do a lot of work on this only to have it deleted at a later date as I was thinking about starting a page on the music from Jackass episodes but don't want to start without knowing whether it would be allowed to stay. Sorry if this isn't the right forum, please feel free to move it to whereever it needs to be if it's in the wrong place. Thanks a bunch.

We're not a fan guide, and there's better wikia/other wiki pages out there that do a better job of this than we can do, if the music itself is otherwise not documented in third-party sources. TV shows and the like can have sections about the show's music that is sourced, but unless the music is documented by third-parties, spinning off separate articles is not appropriate. And actually, there are official soundtracks for many TV shows - I have one for the musical Buffy episode on my iPod, in fact. It's just a more recent trend and not one in older shows. --MASEM (t) 14:11, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTFBI

In this discussion on the Boston Marathon bombings talk page, it was suggested that we need a WP:NOTFBI. I agree, and I've created it, with the suggestion that it be made into a subsection of WP:NOT. It can also be viewed as a special case of WP:OR. -- The Anome (talk) 10:16, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• If this is kept as its own page, it needs a non-US specific title. WP:Not law enforcement, for instance — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks -- good suggestion. I've moved it. -- The Anome (talk) 10:37, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
• Is this not more aligned with WP:NOR? (Eg the shortcut falling under WP:NOT#OR?) I can see the idea but I would try to broaden the concept that we should not be trying to help investigate in any situation - whether a bombing, or a simple lost friend finder - as we improve the encyclopedia. Document the current investigation, yes, but not participate or attempt to correlate data or follow leads, etc. --MASEM (t) 14:07, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
  • I added a quick note about the potential BLP consequences of this, as well, which is the salient point in my mind. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:12, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
    • I don't want to touch that article, but I think that a note of some kind referring to WP:CRIME should be in there as well. Technical 13 (talk) 14:18, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
      • I wonder if we should also put something in our general disclaimers - just like we're not to be used for medical advice or legal advice, we should also say that we're not here as a law enforcement agency or equivalent and any information reports cannot be considered appropriate to use for ongoing investigations. (this may be something to pass by Legal to make sure). --MASEM (t) 14:46, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I would also add a pointer to WP:NOTNEWS. Blueboar (talk) 14:41, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Ambassadors: are they notable?/followup

Further to the discussion about diplomats, now archived here, I have sent five test case articles to Afd:

• Roy William Blake afd
• Miyoko Akashi afd
• Jostein Helge Bernhardsen afd
• Olav Berstad afd
• Khalnazar Agakhanov afd

Would anyone like to comment there? Some people think that ambassadors are automatically notable, even if they are only referenced by government sources. Others are in favour of more rigorous criteria in line with WP:DIPLOMAT (which refers to participation " . . . in a significant way in events of particular diplomatic importance . . . ") and indeed those for other professions. --Kleinzach 00:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Update to policy for Wikipedia:Ignore all rules

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived: Closing this discussion as a waste of time. I opened it in good faith with the desire to discuss clarifying a vague policy that is often abused by adding some simple clarifications. Not to be insulted and told I am too stupid to understand a simple policy. Just another example of the problem with this place. Kumioko (talk) 19:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Welcome aboard. I've discovered that policies are not there to be understood, they're there to be manipulated by the in-crowd (and the ability to tell others that they "don't understand" the policy is a key part of that manipulation). Clarity in policy threatens their ability to do that, so will always be vigorously opposed. Victor Yus (talk) 20:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

---

Ignore all rules is not only a Wikipedia policy, it is one of the 5 pillars and is often abused by users and admins trying to make their point. It needs to be clarified.

I recently attempted to update the Ignore all rules policy to reflect the 5 areas that past discussions and comunity consensus have determined to be exempt from the Ignore all rules policy but I was twice reverted. So I am bringing it here for discussion.

Below is what I suggest be added as a new section to the Ignore all rules policy. Nothing here is new and is documented in other places. It just clarifies the policy on the policy page rather than having to go to multiple locations to get additional information. Adding this to the policy will clarify it and potentially eliminate some future confusion.

“ Past community discussions have identified five areas where it is normally innapropriate to invoke IAR.

#If it violates another policy. In particular the other four pillars.

1. When using Bots - Due to the nature of bots, Ignore all rules does not apply.
2. When using AutoWikiBrowser - Similar to bots AWB can make many edits very quickly and some within the community feel IAR should not apply.
3. In response to sanctions by the community.
4. In response to sanctions by the Arbitration committee.

”

Any comments about this are encouraged and welcomed to help clarify this policy/pillar. Kumioko (talk) 14:45, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose IMHO this proposal makes the mistakes of thinking that the title of the policy is the policy, and of misunderstanding how wp:iar actually works. North8000 (talk) 14:54, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. As North8000 noted, you've misunderstood IAR. You referred to "exceptions" on its talk page (and used the word "exempt" above), thereby disregarding the policy's actual text. If there's consensus that an action doesn't serve to improve or maintain Wikipedia, it doesn't fall under IAR in the first place. —David Levy 15:03, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  With respect, I understand what you are both saying but this is not my understanding of IAR. It is what has been accepted in multiple venues in the past include the arbitration comittee, ANI, AWB and the bot policy. My understanding or lack of understanding really doesn't apply. I am only trying to "copy" what has been stated in multiple other places into one location to eleviate misunderstandings. I would also add that if any of the above 5 examples are not exempted from IAR then this may be a good time to discuss and clarify that as well to avoid future confusion and abuse. Kumioko (talk) 15:12, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  No, you evidently aren't understanding what we're saying. Your list doesn't comprise "exceptions" or "exemptions". It describes actions that the policy doesn't cover in the first place. They're merely examples of the countless ways in which ignoring rules doesn't aid in Wikipedia's improvement or maintenance. By your logic, we need to list "vandalism" as an exception. —David Levy 19:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• I am strongly opposed to item 1, as that's not descriptive but an attempt to abolish IAR almost completely. The other four items just describe cases in which it is common sense that applications of IAR are almost always wrong. I would be fine with these, so long as the wording is tweaked a little. (E.g., replacing "generally considered" by "normally" or "usually considered" would do it for me.) However, I doubt that something like this is needed and would much rather see IAR replaced by a policy to the effect that all policies exist to facilitate the building of an encyclopedia and can be ignored in special cases in which common sense requires this. And that editors doing this do so on their own risk, as there is no guarantee that the community will have the same idea of common sense. Hans Adler 15:50, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Saying that IAR should not be used to violate some other policy blurs the distinction between violating the spirit of the policy and violating the policy as written. Of course IAR is used to violate policies as written--by definition, that's all it's ever used for! Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:54, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  If anything, IAR needs to be expanded. The problem with the current formulation is that you're only allowed to use it to improve the encyclopedia. This means that, for instance, it can't be used to protect living people in BLP-like cases, since protecting people isn't improving the encyclopedia. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:57, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  IAR was used recently to delete a list of Big Brother participants after one former participant had second thoughts about having participated. Count Iblis (talk) 16:08, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - It's simple and not confusing to anyone who isn't trying to lawyer or game the system. The policy means what it means...and more words aren't needed. --Onorem♠Dil 16:06, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
• I agree that current IAR is ambiguous. According to IAR If a rule (= Wikipedia policies and guidelines which are based on consensus) prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, you can ignore it. So anyone having attitude of knowing better than the others, can easily (mis)use this policy to do whatever he wants. I think adding specific examples (like AWB and bots) is not really needed, but a more general explanation could be helpful. [4] 2.180.62.150 (talk) 16:08, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. You really need IAR in the unambiguous way as it is written to make sure that the rules and policies won't eventually move Wikipedia from being primarily an encyclopedia to some social site with rules that are enforced just because the members like it that way, without there being a rational argument based on what is best for building the encyclopedia. Arguably, the present ArbCom system is already incompatible with IAR, but that's an argument for replacing ArbCom by a better system, not for changing IAR. Count Iblis (talk) 16:22, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Eventually...? I thought we were far past that point already. Victor Yus (talk) 16:45, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
• Nope nope nope. What you want to do is expand Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means (which is fine), not change WP:IAR itself; the beauty in the latter is in the simplicity. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  Again folks, just to clarify. This isn't changing anything. All this is doing is documenting what has already been established. Arbcom already stated a couple times IAR doesn't apply to sanctions they or the community implement. Bot policy and AWB have both been repeatedly identified as being exempt from IAR (i.e. IAR does not apply if you are using AWB or bots). Everyone here seems to be under the impression that this is a suggestion to "change" something but its not. This is only updating the documentation of things that haev already been adopted. If you don't agree the IAR doesn't apply to AWB, Bots or Arbcom and community sanctions that's fine and we can discuss that. But that isn't what this is about. Kumioko (talk) 17:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  So then what you're really suggesting with this is that we explain what IAR means, correct? You're just wanting to make sure that people understand the policy, or maybe to make some suggestions on how to best implement (or not implement) the policy? EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:28, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  Well since you brought it up what I would like would be for all of those disparate and muddy IAR related instructions to be combined into one, clear and comprehensive page that people can understand without having to click around to a whole bunch of different links to "try" and get a clear answer by putting all the puzzle pieces together. But I know that is not going to happen. So what I was trying to do was to document a couple of the obvious traps that people get into right there on the main policy page. This really shouldn't be such a big deal but then again every edit in Wikipedia these days is a fight. So why should this be any different! The problem is that IAR is heavily abused by those in power if you want the truth. Admins and some editors are allowed to use it when they want and then refute it when others use it. I have not, in a very very long time, seen someone invoke IAR where the edit is allowed to stand. Its only used, it seems, when someone wants to do something there is no clear consensus for. Kumioko (talk) 18:47, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  If someone is abusing IAR, putting up a bunch of bullets after the policy isn't going fix that; it's a behavioral issue that needs to be addressed (like at AN or ANI). If you want a consolidated IAR-related page, make one; your post here made it seem like you were seeking to change the policy page, which is why you have so many people opposing. If you'd said "hey guys, I'm writing a corollary to IAR that highlights improper cases of IAR so that we can avoid it in the future, what do you think?" you would have gotten a very different reaction. It doesn't help that I haven't actually seen any instances where bot or AWB edits were being declared "fine" because of IAR (not saying that it doesn't happen, just that I haven't seen it), so this looks at first glance like a "I want to fix something that isn't necessarily broken." EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:08, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  KumiokoCleanStart definitely seeks to add the list to the WP:IAR page. He/she initiated this discussion after doing so twice (and getting reverted by two different editors). —David Levy 19:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  So what your really telling me is that most of the ones opposing didn't read it and just assumed I was trying to change the policy? And then you want me to beleive that people are reading the policy and all the essays that go with it? Surely not. Actually what I am saying is that bot edits and AWB edits are usually declared not ok when IAR is mentioned. And this isn't a fix, its just clarifying. But that's ok, we can just let it continue to be abused by those in power when and how they want. Its been going on for years, no reason to put a stop to it now right! May as well just get used to it and live with it. Its ok, I tried. Its clear that a simple clarification of an often misinterpretted policy is too much to ask in the Wikipedia culture. No reason for me to dwell on it. Kumioko (talk) 19:31, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  Most valid applications of IAR are silent and go largely unnoticed. When IAR is loudly "invoked", there's a good chance that doing so doesn't aid in Wikipedia's improvement or maintenance.
  You'd have known this if you'd bothered to read the relevant discussions before edit-warring to "clarify" a policy that you don't understand. —David Levy 19:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  The pages you link to are marked as "essays", which gives the powerful another tranche of leeway to excuse themselves for doing whatever they may choose. Victor Yus (talk) 18:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  And putting bullets at the bottom of the page doesn't do anything to dissuade "Wikipedia's diehards" from abusing the policy. I'm not saying IAR doesn't get misapplied at times, but your comments thus far have smacked of "I got into a disagreement with someone and 'lost' and am pissed about it and everyone's a bully," and as a result I'm having trouble taking them seriously. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:08, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  Please cite some examples of this occurring. —David Levy 19:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  Again folks, just to clarify. This isn't changing anything.
  Indeed, the policy's wording already limits its scope to actions that aid in Wikipedia's improvement or maintenance, so your list doesn't alter its meaning (apart from possibly implying that other nonconstructive applications are okay).
  All this is doing is documenting what has already been established.
  It's documenting an arbitrary subset of the countless ways in which ignoring rules doesn't aid in Wikipedia's improvement or maintenance. You might as well add "vandalism" to the list. —David Levy 19:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• Well, it's not a bad idea really (provided that these changes are made to WP:What "Ignore all rules" means, as EVula suggests). But I'd say (along the lines of what Hans Adler said; there is nothing new under the sun) that these should be phrased more as examples of when it's not a good idea to invoke IAR, rather than cast-iron places where it doesn't apply. And also as Hans said, the first one doesn't make all that much sense; skip that one and just use the others. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 17:29, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  Done. I struck out 1 already per the other comments (althuogh I think it still applies to things like Socking and Copyright violations). I also agree with Hans that IAR should be replaced or phased out. Personally I think the community has already defacto eliminiated it anyway since every time I see it used some admin steps up and says "Oh no, it doesn't apply here because of X, Y and Z".Kumioko (talk) 17:38, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  I struck out 1 already per the other comments (althuogh I think it still applies to things like Socking and Copyright violations).
  Socking and copyright violations don't serve to improve or maintain Wikipedia.
  Personally I think the community has already defacto eliminiated it anyway since every time I see it used some admin steps up and says "Oh no, it doesn't apply here because of X, Y and Z".
  Most valid applications of IAR are silent and go largely unnoticed. —David Levy 19:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - I strongly support IAR in its current form. We don't need pages and pages of qualifications, disclaimers, and interpretations — it works when it works and it is not a valid tool when it should not be a valid tool. Carrite (talk) 17:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This is not government work, we don't have to take something simple and make it complicated. Yes, there are people who mistake the meaning of IAR and invoke it in situations where it doesn't or shouldn't apply. No amount of additional wording is going to eliminate that, and I can't support anything proposed as a sort of "first step to getting rid of IAR". Beeblebrox (talk) 17:56, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
• Forget it. Wikipedia's diehards will never agree to change IAR, because they "understand" it (or rather, they have learnt how to manipulate it to work in their favor in any given circumstances), while relative newcomers don't and can't (because it's not written to be understood, and even less to be followed). This all makes it the perfect Wikipedia policy. Victor Yus (talk) 18:20, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
• Second EVula. IAR doesn't mean that rules should be ignored, just that they can be; most rules are good ones. You just want to list exceedingly good ones. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:34, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

  "Ignore it" is an imperative, so it means "should", not "can". (Conditionally on fulfillment of the condition in the "if" clause.)Victor Yus (talk) 18:40, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

OR: Using source data in a way that contradicts source authors' erroneous use?

This is a rewritten cross-post of a topic I have brought up in depth on the OR Policy talk page. It stems from my decision to change a term on the page Irreligion. A source reported a change in an index from 77% to 68%. The source authors erroneously labeled this a decline of "9%", an error that was faithfully repeated in the WP article. Because this was actually an 11.7% decline, I altered the WP article to state that there was a 9 percentage point decline, the correct expression of the meaning of the data in the source.

For me, this raises the problem of how WP editors should deal with translating sources' data or facts into English narrative in WP articles when those source authors offer a different, erroneous expression of the data or facts. This situation does not seem to be covered by existing guidelines on dealing with errors in quoted material or avoiding fourth-wall-breaking editorial commentary on article sources.

On the one hand, using a source's data or facts in a way that, while evidently correct, contradicts the source authors' narrative or analysis carries with it an implied basic criticism of the source. This indirectly undermines both the reliability assumption for the source's inclusion and the convention prohibiting editorial attacks on sources within the article.

On the other hand, for editors to refuse to do this would seem to result in an absurd outcome: a difference in editorial action between two scenarios where logic dictates there ought not to be a difference. Scenario A: a source author publishes a table of data on its own, and the WP editor uses simple and universally understood knowledge to translate that table into English narrative for the WP article. No problem. Scenario B: the same source author publishes the same table accompanied by a commentary that includes a clearly, provably erroneous expression of the meaning of the data. That commentary might even come in a different publication at a different time. Now, suddenly, the WP editor's non-controversial expression of the data is potential OR?

Simply excluding such sources would seem to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, since there is nothing wrong with the data, and at some point the meaning of such data stops depending on the opinions of those people who initially generated it, right? AdamColligan (talk) 16:43, 17 April 2013 (UTC)