Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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Wikipedia:Don't stuff beans up your nose

I'm interested in getting WP:BEANS raised to guideline status. What level of consensus would be needed for this? Firebug 05:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't want to be a guideline. It's just sage advice written in a humourous, memorable way. We don't need it as a guideline, and it won't work as one. Imagine the ArbCom trying to determine if an editor should be on BEANS-parole. -Splash^talk 05:58, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, this shouldn't be graduated to being a guideline, despite its being a good read and reasonable advice :) Courtland 03:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. We don't need the instruction creep. WP:BEANS is just as effective and useful in its present form as it would be if labelled an official guideline. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:32, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Should semi-protection of George W. Bush be permament?

Or at least, on going? Or should it be turned off soon? And if soon, when? (In case you've not heard, the code implementing Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy has been turned on and George has been so-protected.) Dan100 (Talk) 14:30, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I think we should see how things pan out. Tweak the figure on how long an account has to be active to edit semi-protected pages. See how much vandalism is cut by semi-protection... whether it shoots right back up when the flag is removed... et cetera. How long semi-protection should stay on a page and how long a user has to be around to bypass it should both be partially dependant on how many pages are going to get tagged with this. For instance, if half the encyclopedia winds up semi-protected then it should usually be for very short duration (stopping current vandalism) and have a waiting period of only hours after becoming a user. Or if it is only going to be on the three most vandalized pages then it can stay on for long periods and require a few days of activity to bypass. Et cetera. It'll take some time to sort out how this is going to be used. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 14:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I've answered this in 4 places now. :) For now, it's just as a test. I'm going to unprotect it tomorrow. Same with Kerry. Right now it's just to see how much vandalism will go down after semi protection. There's still a major bug in it (all users regardless of newness are able to edit), so I think we need to wait a bit before making it permanent or even discussing it, honestly. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 14:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Well obviously, there's going to be much less/no vandalism while they're sprotected and lots more when they're unprotected (although note that many schools are going on holiday every day now, so vandalism is dropping anyway). I'm not sure what this test is going to demonstrate beyond the obvious... Dan100 (Talk) 16:38, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with CBD's reasoning. We'll need some time to sort out how this policy affects the articles that are semi-protected. I also think that the Bush article is a unique case, being the most vandalized article on Wikipedia. Quite frankly, I don't see much harm in keeping this one article semi-protected for an extended period of time. As long as the waiting period isn't unreasonable (a few days or so), I don't see much of a problem with the restrictions on editing. Carbonite | Talk 15:01, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi-protection is not a means to banish anonymous editors from Wikipedia, and it should not be used as such. If you can handle a couple of reverts a day, there's no reason at all to semi-protect. If it's a passing dynamic IP bored schoolkid, then unprotect in the usual 24 hours. If it's a static school kid, then block them and don't restrict editing at all. Semi-protect should be used for the shortest available length of time: if that is 0 minutes, then that's what's appropriate. I've little feelings about George W. Bush, but I did object to sprotecting United States where the bulk of the anon edits are not reverted and thus they should not be locked out. -Splash^talk 15:11, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, semi-protection should be used on very few article and for limited periods of time...except for George W Bush. For the other 99.9999% of our articles, reverting the vandalism isn't a huge task. On this one article, I think we need to concede that it's an exception and should be treated as such. Carbonite | Talk 15:19, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Nope. We can *not* be preemptive. That's why I added that text to WP:SEMI. Just like full protection, semi is a last resort and I don't think we can assume anything. Will GWB be semi protected longer than it was full protected? Yes. But I don't like this assuming we'll need it to be permanent. We don't know that. For awhile, I like the idea of semi protecting it for 2-3 days, unprotect it and see if the vandalism levels decrease. If we need to then increase the semi protection period further, great. But I don't want to assume the worst. The thing is, we've never had this. 2-3 days might frustrate anons enough so that they will stop vandalising the article as well. We won't know until we try. Let's not assume we'll need it permanently. We don't know that we will. --Woohookitty^{(cat scratches)} 16:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I agree that we need to have a testing period where we get an idea of how much the vandalism decreases (see my comment above). Of course we shouldn't just semi-protect it and leave it that was forever. I also don't want to assume the worst, but we have many months of data that shows the vandalism level when the page isn't semi-protected. The point of my comment (which may not have been as clear as it should have been) was that the Bush article is the only article where permanent semi-protection may be warranted. On any other article, it should only be used for limited periods of time. Carbonite | Talk 16:11, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The George W. Bush article should be semi-protected until he is no longer in office. Seems obvious to me. Until he's gone, that article is a lightning rod for vandalism. Kaldari 16:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I thought it was agreed on at the policy page that semi-protection would not be used for long periods of time or indefinitely? This is exactly what I was afraid of: once the feature is set up, people will clammor to semi-protect this article virtually forever, and I strongly oppose doing that. Semi-protection should only be used as a last resort and probably shouldn't ever be used for longer than 24 hours (unless there's something special going on, like a presidential election involving him, which is impossible). The policy states that semi-protection is not meant to "prohibit anonymous editing in general", and by applying semi-protection for long periods of time, that's exactly what it is doing. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't really see what the fuss is about. Yes, let's first see whether semi-protection is effective against vandals. But if it is, I wouldn't be surprised if there were few dozen pages on Wikipedia that are subject to several vandalisms a day. Why not semi-protect all of them? And why not permanently, or until the motivation for vandalism stops (e.g. when GWB is long out of office)? Why should we tolerate this or burden editors with hourly monitoring and reversion? Wikipedia has almost a million articles — restricting anons and new users to editing 99.999% of them is hardly a draconian policy. If it ever gets to the point where a significant fraction of Wikipedia is semi-protected then it warrants discussion. But now? Pff. —Steven G. Johnson 16:35, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Steven who puts it very well. It's a right royal PITA for RC patrollers (myself included) to have to RV the same ol' dozen or so articles all the time. These should be semi-protected long-term. Dan100 (Talk) 16:44, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

No. The policy page states explicitly that this should not be used long-term or permanently, and semi-protecting such pages is essentially driving out the IP editors and new editors. If you want to stop vandalism, we should just protect all pages and not make this a wiki. A line must be drawn somewhere - how are people to improve those articles if we restrict editing? Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:48, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

It's pointless to even discuss the matter if you're going to fall back on the "it should be policy because that's what the policy says" line of reasoning. Nor have you addressed the point that new editors can still edit > 99.99% of Wikipedia, and that a line has been drawn somewhere—users can improve those pages after having an account for a few days. The sky isn't falling. —Steven G. Johnson 16:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Re "not make this a wiki..." This is not "a wiki," it is a project that has the serious intention of producing a free encyclopedia.

Re "How are people going to improve these articles if we restrict editing?" How am I going to get from home to work if I'm restricted to driving on the right side of the road? The answer in both cases is "by accepting these restrictions." Dpbsmith (talk) 17:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

(after three edit conflicts) Of course this is a wiki. True, our goal here is to produce an encyclopedia, but the means we chose to produce it was to make this a wiki, where anyone can edit. If we wanted to use the proven ways of making an encyclopedia, we could have become EB or Nupedia by hiring experts to write articles. Instead, Wikipedia was founded. Are we to bite the very hand that feeds us?

I disagree with that analogy, but I'm going to extend it a bit further. How are we to get to work? If we restrict all driving, I guess that leaves most of us with walking or biking. True, we'll get there eventually, but at a much slower pace. Is that what we want? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 17:21, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

In the U.S. we do restrict all driving to the right side of the road. This restriction does not force anyone to walk or bike. Similarly, "semi-protection" still allows anyone to edit. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

To extend the analogy even more, in the US we also require that all drivers have a license and auto insurance. These restrictions are much tougher than our semi-protection policy, yet the vast majority of drivers accept them without any problem. Carbonite | Talk 20:45, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I note in particular Dan100 and Steven G. Johnson insisting that the policy says other than it does, and/or that the policy is wrong because they want it to be. Neither of them participated in the discussion, and only Dan100 in the straw poll. Very many people did, we discussed it, we iterated the proposal and it eventually received wide support. Please do not dismiss those discussoins and the concerns of other editors with a simple-minded "oh well, if I think it's wrong then it must be wrong, and so I shall ignore it". Because that's not how playing nicely works. -Splash^talk 17:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Whoa, exuse me - I note in particular Dan100... insisting that the policy says other than it does - I've said no such thing. BTW, policy is not set in stone - it can always change. And of course, if it's in the best interests of the encyclopedia, you can ignore the rules... Dan100 (Talk) 09:48, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Splash is right. This was a very-widely supported proposal, and was discussed over and over and in great detail on the same talk page where the straw poll occurred. Now, how much of that support "counts" if we start changing the rules agreed to? That's right, the support isn't worth a can of stale beans at that point, and we're back to square one. Last I saw, it was crystal-clear that we weren't going to leave GWB or any normal page permanently semi-protected (though we might protect 'em for a week at a time, say), and a lot of the support for the proposal actually was contingent on that. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 17:30, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Splash and BOGrapes, I would argue that the policy's internal logic is flawed. To wit:

Administrators note that semi-protection should only be considered if it is the only option left available to solve the problem of vandalism of the page. In other words, just like full protection, it is a last resort not a pre-emptive measure.

One, it will never ever be the only option left available; two, if "like full protection" it is a last resort, then why do we have it at all if we have full protection? So there must be a reason it exists short of putting in full protection. As such, I feel it is reasonble to interpret it as - if there is historical evidence that an article is the object of consistent, unrelenting vandalism due to the either short term or long term attractiveness of the article for vandalism, then it should be semi-protected, and it can be semi-protected indefinitely. To wit, George W. Bush and penis come to mind. Take a look at WP:MVP for a good compendium of these type of articles. Not all should be semi-protected. But the existence of that page shows there are pages that are consistently targets and the RC patrollers who use that shared watchlist know well what I'm talking about. Fuzheado | Talk 17:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

If that was the intent of the policy, it would say so and people would have been quite clear about that in their comments in the straw poll. It doesn't, adn they weren't. You misunderstand semi-protection's relation to full protection. It can be used instead of full-protection when an article has a hard to stop vandal. At present, we have to lock everyone out because of a bored teenager. Now, we don't have to. That's the point. I'll leave others to thrash out GWB, but there is no reliance in the policy for a permanent protection. It will have to be by consensus and agreement. -Splash^talk 17:41, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I get what you're saying. Smart people can differ on how long we should keep it, and perhaps when we have more data after this week, we can bring that up again. For me - I'm glad that with George W. Bush, Adolph Hitler, Wikipedia and Penis semi-protected, more useful RC patrol time can be spent on other vandalism that is tricker to track down. You mentioned on my talk page "If an article needs protecting, it's because of a current vandalism problem, not an historic one." But what if the historical pattern is that the article is the subject of ongoing (ie. current) vandalism? I've been doing RC patrol going on three years now, and these articles are always hit, and consistently. Fuzheado | Talk 18:15, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

IMHO, Wikipedia's first responsibility is to its readers, its second to its established editors, and lastly to its newest editors. Permanently emi-protecting pages such as GWB perfectly balances those responsibilities - readers will see much less vandalism, its editors will have a lower workload, and only the newest editors will be inconvenienced. Stevage 20:04, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Of course protection of George W. Bush be permament, if it's left unprotected, people could come along and add new information to it, since information usually makes George Bush look like a bumbling idiot, the only solution is to leave it protected until the end of his term to insure proper NPOV--1 use 17:38, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• • Oh god, no. Adding new information to article would be terrible. -Splash^talk 17:41, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Why not just say that a page may not be semi-protected for more than one week, after that the protection is to be removed or extended a maximum of one week, etc. ad infinitum. _→AzaToth 20:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• I think it should be permanently semi-protected, since it has a frequently reoccurring vandalism problem, but we should also make it abundantly clear to readers that they can leave any suggested changes on the talk page to be implemented by other editors. Consider it a sort of lightweight informal review process. Deco 20:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd first like to childishly say "I told you so" to Splash about the lack of addressing protection creep, which has lead us to this discussion. Time limits with increasing amounts of admin concensus implemented in policy would have sorted this out. As for now, it's just a test, and if we're not going to address this in policy, at the very least, it should be an unspoken rule that no matter what the article is, it should be un-sp'ed on a weekly basis. Semi-protection should not just be slapped on a page and left on indefinetely, there needs to be regular tests that it still needs to be implemented on pages such as GWB. --kizzle 21:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't have any particular stance on whether pages should be permanently semi-protected or not, as there are good arguments for both sides. However, I feel very strongly that if pages are to be permanently semi-protected, then the current template needs to die. If we're to have a big ugly template up the top of an article (which really doesn't do wonders for our credibility), then there had better be a damned good short-term reason. Ambi 00:50, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Somewhat agree. I like the template's wording but it's much too big and scary. Let's tone it down. I think it would actually help our credibility - in the position of a Wikipedia naysayer, I'd be pleased to see some action being taken to protect obvious target articles. Deco 01:06, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Input from you two (and anyone else of course) would be welcomed at Template talk:Sprotected, where debates about just this have been taking place Dan100 (Talk) 10:22, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

<sticks out tongue>I'd also like childishly to point out that I did say that admins usually managed to self-police by yelling at each other. Well, here you go. It'll work itself out: there will be consensus to have GWB et. al perma-semi-protected or there won't be. If one admin in 740+ thinks "now is enough", then it gets unprotected. -Splash^talk 02:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to offer Japanese media as a proper example of the use of sprotection. A dynamic (thus unblockable) vandal has been hitting it hard. It was vprotected; noone could edit it (apart from admins), but now just about all editors can — apart from the vandal. And since the bug-fix, the vandal really can't. This is what semi is really good for. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Splash (talk • contribs)

I suspect that George W. Bush will probably need some kind of long-term protection. Many articles (like Japanese media mentioned above) are targeted by a single vandal who might get bored or discouraged and move on; George W. Bush however attracts new random vandals all the time. Semiprotecting it yesterday and un-semiprotecting it today will do nothing to discourage the brand-new vandal who will come to the article for the first time tomorrow. Most of these brand-new vandals are precisely the opportunistic instant-gratification vandals (as opposed to sleeper-account vandals) that semi-protection is designed to discourage.

As someone has already pointed out above, Wikipedia edits are made by human beings, not by anon IPs or monikers. And long-term semi-protection, unlike long-term "full" protection, does not actually prevent any human being in the world from editing the article if they really wish to. That's an important distinction.

And by the way, lack of semi-protection can have a high cost too, because reverting is an imperfect process. Sometimes vandals alter a legitimate sentence into nonsense or obscenity, the next editor fails to catch it, and then some time later a (possibly inexperienced or careless user) comes along and deletes the whole nonsensical or obscene sentence instead of restoring the good version that is now buried several revisions deep. I've seen it happen far too many times. Or sometimes a revert will accidentally revert legitimate edits along with the vandalism (this is the flipside of a revert that fails to fully revert old vandalism). Constant vandalism creates a state of entropy that hinders legitimate edits or causes them to be lost. It's like a house full of children and pets running around and making a mess and breaking things... things, well, get broken, and good user contributions are sometimes for naught.

The best way to judge success is to see whether legitimate edits get made to George W. Bush. In recent times, those nearly came to a standstill: substantially all the edits were vandalism and reverts of vandalism. "Anyone can edit" isn't supposed to produce the paradoxical result that the article gets frozen, but that's what was happening in practice. It's still early, but there are encouraging signs that under semi-protection the article is now actually being edited, for the first time in a long while.

PS, To really make semi-protection effective, though, we need a way to discourage throwaway registered accounts. Make users go through some 30–60 second non-automatable enter-the-right-answers-to-the-questions procedure to register, which is a one-time very minor inconvenience for legitimate users (they won't mind, if we clearly explain upfront the reason why), but a repetitive hassle for multiple-sockpuppet vandals who have to repeat it over and over again each time they burn a sock with a vandalism edit. -- Curps 08:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the effectiveness of long-term semiprotection, you don't mention the point that a registered user can be blocked out of their account (or if they can't, they should be able to). When someone has to create an account and wait 4 days, just to have it blocked the first time they vandalized, the cost of vandalism gets to be just too high. They can get around this by creating and slowly using large numbers of accounts, but this would take some sophistication and could also be protected against with other measures. It's not perfect but I think it could make a big difference, even in the long term. Deco 22:21, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

PPS, see this Slashdot comment which describes an example of what I mentioned above: a high amount of vandalism/revert entropy churn can often be quite harmful. Preventing existing good content from being trashed is just as important as allowing new good content to be created. Semi-protection reduces the former and does not really prevent the latter. -- Curps 19:09, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

[1] "NPOV was drafted originally for Nupedia by a philosopher". -- Has anyone seen this version or know who this philosopher was?Bensaccount 19:35, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Presumably it was Larry Sanger.

But it is Larry Sanger who is saying it... Bensaccount 03:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

He could be referring to himself anonymously, or simply saying "it was drafted by a philosopher", as opposed to some other profession. Deco 22:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Yep you are right, thanks. Bensaccount 17:50, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Notability for games clubs

hi, there is a growing trend for games clubs (a.k.a clans or electronic sports teams) to get their own vanity articles on wikipedia. these can rarely be deleted because of organized campaigns by members of a club to keep "their" article. i would like to suggest that not every games club should get an article, and that they must have e.g. won a major tournament to be considered notable. (next question: what defines a major tournament?). whats the best way to go about this, without vested interest club members jumping in to "save" their precious pages? i see this trickle of articles becoming a major flood very soon. i know there is nn-band and nn-club but how to define exactly what *is* and *isnt* notable with regard to games clubs? Zzzzz 09:46, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I cannot imagine how a gaming clan could possibly be notable enough for inclusion in an encyclopedia. Notable enough for a magazine or newspaper, perhaps, but not an encyclopedia. I hesitate to make criteria for them because the criteria would have to be set so that a fair number of gaming clans could meet the criteria. Until AfD is flooded with them, we might be able to keep more of them out on an individual AfD basis. -- Kjkolb 11:47, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think an organization should be regarded as inherently either notable or non-notable just because it happens to be made up of game players; is the United States Chess Federation to be judged on this basis? Rather, the notability should be judged just like it would be for a non-gaming organization. A gaming club that has a large number of members or is highly influential within its particular game genre would probably be notable; a small group that's merely local in scope or consists of a handful of friends getting together of little interest to anybody else wouldn't be. *Dan T.* 13:50, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

You might be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Urapopstar. Zoe (216.234.130.130 17:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC))

IMHO as long as there are projects to catalogue every asteroid, every river and even every French commune, it is a matter of prejudice whether we catalogue every clan or not. Short of defining a policy for clan notability (eg, membership fees, number of members, mentioned in paper), there's nothing you can do. Stevage 00:41, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed; I think that User:Stevage is spot-on with his comment. User:Ceyockey 23:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Language-specific facts? Or language-specific relevancy?

Having started editing on the English Wikipedia, I eventually found that the German Wikipedia contained more "omissions", and concentrated my editing there. The article here Gay bathhouse, for example, exists there only as part of an article de:Kontaktsauna, and sysops there have repeatedly threatened the article with deletion for covering a "trivial" topic. Similarly, the category for LGBT people has been deleted there, as well as a list, and a currently raging debate over whether such lists can be permitted in a wikiportal workspace instead of as a regular article. Truman Capote gets regularly deleted from such lists, and those who replace him are termed "vandals". Mentioning that a television moderator is gay results in the sentence being removed and the article being indefinitely protected to prevent such mention. (This is not a case of "outing", as the moderator has discussed his partner in the media and corrected journalists who called him single.) Criticizing the freezing of the article leads to threats by the sysop that the critical account will be banned, and complaints about such behavior get regularly deleted. Is this something unusual about the German Wikipedia or does that happen here, too?--Bhuck 14:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I don´t think theres anything wrong with a wiki applying its own cultural standards along with linguistic ones. If in Germany its inappropriate to say someone is gay then so be it. I suspect thats not the case (coincidentally I am in Ulm at the moment :)) but there are very few cross-wiki standards, so its really up to the admins there. Stevage 00:37, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you are also right that it is not the case that it is inappropriate in Germany to say someone is gay. It is, however, inappropriate in the German wiki to say that because the admins there seem to have different standards than the culture as a whole. I don't think it is appropriate to get too much into the specific details here (it's not like there is a hierarchy of wikipedias and that one can "appeal" to another language that has decided things differently), but it does raise some interesting questions on a more general level. Suppose, for example, that while it were acceptable in Germany to say someone was gay, and that it was not acceptable in Austria, and that all the admins at the German-language wikipedia were (by some coincidence) Austrian. Or once could imagine some other situation where in the English wikipedia all the admins were Canadian and refused to allow English-language articles which did not have an interwiki link to the French wikipedia. Because of the user-banning and the suppression of criticism of the admins' policies, there does not seem to be an easy way to change such structures. (Indeed, the question is more a question of power than of content, because the same admins get criticized for completely unrelated reasons (as far as subject matter goes), because they repeatedly use similar (heavy-handed) tactics.) How does one deal with a situation in which the cultural standards applied in the wikipedia (enforced by admins) differ from the cultural standards among the language-users as a whole? Indeed, even if German culture did have this or that standard which were being enforced in the German-language wikipedia, what about German-speakers elsewhere (immigrants in the US, or Swiss Germans)? Language and culture do not always overlap completely; the problem is more how power is applied within a certain wikipedian community.--Bhuck 16:26, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Where can I find the relevancy criteria that apply to the English wikipedia? In discussions about deleting articles, how often do relevancy criteria play a role, and how often are decisions made on a case-by-case basis?--Bhuck 14:38, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

What is Policy on Portals in Definition

I am a very new' Wikipedian, so forgive me if I seem to ask obvious questions or questions that have been answered before. (I am also a Platonist, so I always ask obvious questions.)ous questions.)

Is there a stated/written policy and/or guidelines for Portals in Definitions? What is the intended function/purpose of Portals in Definitions? And what about overlapping and redundant information?

normxxx 16:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• Please don't delete the whole page when posting here. I cleaned it up for you. Broken S 16:29, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
• I believe Wikipedia:Portal namespace has the relevant policy information (if you haven't yet looked at it). Broken S 16:31, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure he didn't mean to blank the page. Don't bite the newbies. Dan100 (Talk) 11:01, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Remove user data and talk pages from database dumps!

(I posted the following on the mailing list earlier today, but have had no reply yet.)

I once registered as a user of Wikipedia, and I know that anything I write there may be copied and re-used according to the GFDL. However, I did not sign up for the Pornopedia, Nazipedia or Spamopedia.

What is written on user pages and user talkpages is also released under the GFDL, and if somebody wants to copy it or quote it, fine (as long as it is attributed)! But there is no reason to automate this process or make it easy for webspammers and other creeps to do so. I do not want my user page to be copied to various Wikipedia mirrors, as happened a while ago with the Nazi copy of Wikipedia. I would be even less happy if I had signed up under my real name. The appearance of a name in such a context may actually be harmful to somebody's reputation.

1. My first suggestion: just make sure that when the database is copied, user information does not come along with it, including userpages, user talkpages and even the history of a page. I notice from some of the mirrors out there, that the only contributor visible in the history of an article is the last one before the dump, somebody who may just have corrected a typo. As it doesn't give proper attribution in any case, we may just as well get rid of that too. Just make sure the history page of every downloaded article refers back to Wikipedia, where the full history can be found.
2. Second suggestion: is there any reason why *any* discussion pages need to come with the normal database dump? The nazi 'pedia (which is down now) took these and search-and-replaced "Wikipedia" with its own name everywhere, giving the misleading impression that a lot of Wikipedia users had been active in discussions on a Nazi website. This may be seriously harmful to somebody's reputation if found through a Google search by somebody not familiar with the GFDL and how Wikipedia works. It is probably illegal in some way to do what they did (as Wikipedia will no longer be properly credited) but I just don't see anybody going to court to stop it, and we certainly don't need to facilitate abuse of mirrored discussion pages with consequences for the reputation or privacy of individual users. Again, please replace all discussion pages in the database dump with a very clear and visible link back to Wikipedia, not just the miniscule one down at the bottom of every page. Most downloaders are not going to bother removing that link, as all they want Wikipedia content for is to get Google hits and drive traffic to their websites.
3. Remove the user namespace from the reach of Google's indexing bots. It should be available to our internal search, but there is no reason it should get hits from Google. Userspace contains all kinds of semi-private conversations and unfinished drafts which are really only of internal use and interest.

I question whether some other type of free but non-commercial license wouldn't be more suitable for user pages, but that may not be realistic for various reasons. But the removal of these pages from the dump really shouldn't require a change in license. It will just force somebody who wants to copy the content to do so manually. The webspammers obviously won't bother with that. Tupsharru 22:32, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

That's what {{userpage}} is for. Conscious 18:07, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't help against the search-and-replace of the former Nazipedia, as it will change "wikipedia" to its own name in the {{userpage}} box as well. Tupsharru 18:38, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it does help, at least since I last hacked it. I made some very special anti-search-and-replace changes to it. It doesn't work against some mirrors which ignore templates, but you just have to {{subst:userpage}} to work around it (notice that, if you do it, you should watchlist the template to catch any future hacks to it). --cesarb 19:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, that's good to know. Tupsharru 07:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

• I'm sure there's some utility to separating them, but providing userpages also might make sense, for example, if people want to provide links to more information, or want to feel more tied to the pages they created. I'm not sure, but there may concievably be reasons to keep user pages in the dumps that are in the spirit of GFDL. Personally, I'd like my user page to be in most dumps of the pedia. I suppose offering separate dumps with and without userpages may not be a bad comprimise, although it still doesn't deal with the spirit of the GFDL thing. --Improv 18:14, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

For most re-users, a dump without userpages and so on is probably preferable, as it will be more lightweight. And, as I mentioned above, it seems that the whole history of contributions to an article is only available on Wikipedia anyway. Backup for the purpose of setting up a new Wikipedia with all data intact, in case the Wikimedia Foundation would go bankrupt, can probably be worked out somehow anyway, but it doesn't have to be in the standard database dump spammed all over the web by Wikipedia mirrors. Tupsharru 18:38, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

A number of users (for instance, offline reports generators and some bots) need all pages from all namespaces. If you want yours gone from the dumps, ask for it to be deleted (you can do it unless you've been a vandal or something very important has been discussed on it). --cesarb 19:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

The whole history of articles is availible for download its just in a seperate archive for size reasons and many mirrors don't carry it (presumablly for those same size reasons its HUGE). Plugwash 00:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

WP:SFD scope - why does it include redirects?

Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion was started because stub types were being listed on both TFD and CFD, as a stub type has both a template and a category. This is a rather admirable goal. However, somewhere along the way, a third type of page got included - redirects. Redirects like {{us-rail-stub}} to {{US-rail-stub}} and {{NYCS stub}} to {{NYCS-stub}}. Redirects that would be overwhelmingly if not speedily kept in their proper place, RFD. However, since SFD is an out-of-the-way page, which most non-stub sorters avoid, these useful redirects are typically deleted because they do not follow naming conventions. See also Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion and Wikipedia:Deletion review#Various stub template redirects. --SPUI (talk | don't use sorted stub templates!) 03:09, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• Addendum - I guess I have two proposals:
  1. Send redirects to RFD. Keep redirects when renaming a stub template.
  2. Completely get rid of SFD. Agree on which page - TFD or CFD - stub types should be discussed on. --SPUI (talk | don't use sorted stub templates!) 03:16, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• Agreed. Merge into TFD; no need to list the categories separately. — Dan | talk 03:10, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Concur. Nuke SFD. I don't care which it goes to. --Improv 03:18, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• This isn't a problem with SFD, it's a problem with people who list redirects on SFD when they clearly shouldn't. There should be something that says that it's not meant for redirects. - ulayiti (talk) 03:22, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I tried that, and was swiftly reverted (by Grutness, I believe, who said it had always handled redirects and always will handle redirects). --SPUI (talk | don't use sorted stub templates!) 03:29, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, he was wrong then. I completely agree with you in that something's not going quite right here, but deleting SFD is not the right way to go here. It's a useful tool in deleting the templates and categories at the same time, but it should under no circumstances be used for redirects because that's what RFD is there for. I apologise for over-reacting slightly with all the 'bad-faith' stuff earlier though, and I hope you don't consider me a vandal from now on. :) This is the right place to discuss policy, not MFD (and nevermind what Ed Poor did, I disagreed with that too). - ulayiti (talk) 03:40, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
      • If you're going to quote me, SPUI, then tell people what I actually said rather than making things up. Deliberate misrepresentation of a person simply makes you look like the WP:DICK that you keep accusing others of being. For the record, SFD has handled redirects for the last two months or so. RFD was approached about it, and were asked whether there were any objections to SFD encompassing the redirects relating to stub templates as well. There were no objections from RFD for us to handle redirects, so we've been handling redirects. if you don't believe me, check Wikipedia talk:Redirects for deletion. As to remerging with TFD and CFD, please note that the SFD page was split out from those two pages so as to ease the load on those pages (with the blessing of people at TFD and CFD), and to make the process of deleting and/or changing stubs much easier and to avoid the possibility of having, say, a category deleted but the template which feeds into it kept. To do it any other way would be ridiculous. Grutness...wha? 04:08, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
        • I fail to see how that disagrees with my statement. The fact that the people on RFD talk agreed doesn't really mean anything; they probably assumed that you'd act in good faith and not delete redirects for not agreeing with your naming conventions. --SPUI (talk | don't use sorted stub templates!) 04:16, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
      • You fail to see the difference between "... Grutness... said it had always handled redirects" and me saying they had been handled that way since RFD raised no objections two months ago? You fail to see the difference between a notice on RFD talk seeking confirmation of SFD handlng redirects in October and SFD's scope expanding "without warning"? It's either deliberate misrepresentation or deliberate obtuseness on your part. As for okaying it with RFD "not really meaning anything", that is a wonderful example of goalpost-moving. Grutness...wha? 12:50, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
        • I had named this section "SFD is broken"; someone else changed it to be more NPOV or something. --SPUI (talk | don't use sorted stub templates!) 18:24, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
        • I changed the title based on input that has since been re-evaluated (see below and Wikipedia talk:Redirects for deletion#Stub-redirects for deletion, redux.), and the title is now in its third form - which is the best of the three so far. Grutness, I think you are too close to the problem, taking a look at your tone here in saying something like "It's either deliberate misrepresentation or deliberate obtuseness on your part" in an incorrect attribution of activity. If you are going to call someone obtuse, send that call my way. User:Ceyockey 00:40, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
          • Spui misquoted me and then said that my correction of what I said didn't change his statement. The misquoting was misrepresentation; the claim that it changed nothing was obtuseness. I stand by that. Grutness...wha? 01:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• Strongly disagree. SFD was created for three reasons: First, reduce CFD/TFD load (which it performs admirably). Second, to prevent discrepancies such as a stub template being deleted and its category being kept (which it also performs admirably). And third, to keep out votes such as "keep unless the WP:WSS comments on it" (which it also performs admirably, and note that those votes were prevalent before the creation of SFD). SPUI has begun a crusade against this page because it occasionally ends up with a conclusion he disagrees with. But every process makes the occasional mistake, and that's no grounds for removing it. Radiant_>|< 03:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
  • SFD almost always ends up with a conclusion I (and common sense) disagree with, when it handles redirects. --SPUI (talk | don't use sorted stub templates!) 03:29, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
    • You seem to be engaging in the fallacy that you have a monopoly on common sense. No one does, which is why when we disgree on what is common sense we have to resolve the issue. Caerwine Caerwhine 18:29, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Two fallacies, actually. You seem to assume that all redirects that are found are taken to SFD. Quite a number of redirects that are found are kept. No-one has ever nominated {{car-stub}}, for instance, or {{map-stub}} or {{movie-stub}}, or {{Jamaica-geo-stub}}, or {{author-stub}}, to name just a handful. It is only ones that are of little use (and are therefore more likely to be deleted) that ever make it to SFD in the first place. So the high proportion of those deleted isn't really a surprise. Grutness...wha? 00:08, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The characterization of WP:SFD being "broken" is not accurate; I've altered the heading to be more accurate and informative.

This should NOT become referendum on the existence of WP:SFD, which it appears to be shaping up to be. This should be a discussion of how to handle the scope creep, not how to kill an activity and assistive page set that many dozens of people contribute to daily in good faith. User:Ceyockey 03:26, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• Disagree. See my reasons on the MFD debate page. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:29, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
• Regarding the issue of whether WP:SFD should handle redirects - well, we can't just say "all redirects belong on RFD", because by the same reasoning all templates and categories belong on TFD and CFD, respectively. Personally I do not consider it unreasonable to put everything related to stub templates on SFD, including redirects. However, if SFD has some notions about redirects that RFD disagrees with (and I'm not sure as to the specifics), it may be worthwhile to get RFD people involved there for a wider opinion. Radiant_>|< 03:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I must say, I don't see and have never seen the point of deleting slightly-misnamed - or better still, merely miscapitalised - redirects as happens on SFD all the time. In the articlespace, creating slightly-misnamed redirects to avoid confusion is encouraged fer crying out loud! - SoM 04:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Totally agree. Redirects are cheap.--Sean|Black 04:56, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• The main difference between an article redirect and a template redirect is that you will never be notified that you're using a redirect, and probably will continue to use the redirect since it works so well. People will see the redirected templates when editing articles and start using them, further proliferating their use, and maybe making more misnamed templates based on their experience (and yes, it's a very good thing to be quite anal about the naming of stub templates, I'd much rather memorize 50 classes of stubs than the 1000+ stub types). Also, I am in favour of SFD handling stub redirects, but I also think that SFD is too overeager to delete redirects at the moment. It's just not that simple. I propose the following compromise: SFD should ease up on getting rid of stub redirects (basically keep everything that isn't ambiguous or just plain wrong), but some kind soul(s) should run a bot that replaces the redirects with the proper templates in the articles, as fast as possible. -- grm_wnr Esc 04:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I fail to see the difference. I use article redirects all the time, when they're useful. --SPUI (talk | don't use sorted stub templates!) 04:53, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:Redirect#When_should_we_delete_a_redirect.3F - SoM 01:44, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

• FWIW, when this issue came up a couple months ago, it got mentioned at RFD if there were any objections to redirects being taken care of at SFD, where it got no responses one way or another. Also, 3 redirects were nominated for deletion (and later deleted) on the second day of SFD (log of deletion discussions). So considering redirects at SFD is hardly a new development. --Mairi 04:58, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

It is worth noting — and I say this without any trace of accusation or recrimination, as there is no reason why any of this would have been obvious to the casual observer — that RFD was mostly inactive at the time that notification in question was posted on the RFD talk page. The date of the comment from the SFD folks asking if they were stepping on any toes by taking over stub redirects was October 22nd. The last edit to the RFD talk page prior to October 22nd was September 15. The next edit following October 22nd was November 21. During this time, RFD accumulated a rather substantial backlog.

On December 1st, Woohookitty started working on clearing out the backlog. If you look at the state of the page on December 1st, you will see that the backlog dates to October 20th, two days prior to the SFD notification being placed on the RFD talk page. Which meant that RFD hadn't been under any sort of regular admin scrutiny since before the SFD notification was posted to the RFD talk page.

My understanding is that the RFD process was administered for a long time largely by one person, User:Jnc. And then he left sometime in early October, leaving RFD without a hand upon the tiller. The SFD notification was posted sometime after he left. Since RFD was generally ignored at this point in time, the SFD notification received no response.

However, a few admins (myself included) have taken RFD under our wing and have attempted to revive it back into full health and bring it into some sort of cohesion. It is no longer languishing in a state of disrepair. Admins are once again paying active attention to it, and had the SFD notification been posted today, rather than two months ago, I suspect the notification would have generated some actual discussion as to the pros and cons of moving stub redirects out of RFD and into SFD.

I would like to suggest that this issue needs to be revisited. I understand that the stub-sorting folks have very valid concerns about the proliferation of stub names and the difficulty this brings to the task of sorting stubs. But I also see many stub redirects that are 100% in accordance with the redirect policy at Wikipedia:Redirect (particularly in the "Other spellings, other punctuation" category) being deleted or otherwise deprecated.

I do think that, given the circumstances under which stub redirects were subsumed under the aegis of SFD rather than RFD, that the process of handling stub redirects should revert back to RFD until such time as a decision has been made to do otherwise.

All the best.

Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 13:54, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

It has been brought to my attention that my understanding of the situation is mildly in error. RFD did not handle stub-redirects prior to October, when the post was made. Apparently SFD began handling them in June, when SFD first opened its virtual doors. My apologies for the error. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 18:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• Speaking as a fairly long-time anonymous article editor that "came in from the cold" and is trying to be more proactive in using templates and categories, redirects of those are Terribly Confusing! I'd say vigorously delete such redirects (after correcting the uses). Please! --William Allen Simpson 09:55, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

• I think there are two more or less indepenent points to be decided:

1. whether stub redirect should be nominated for deletion at RFD or SFD
2. what are the guidelines for keeping or deleting a stub redirect

If a consensus is reached on the second matter, it won't be too important what's decided on the first. When redirects are nominated at SFD, SFD regulars tend to vote delete, and such a vote is either a full consensus of stub-sorters or a "WSS vs. non-WSS" issue (that's how I see what regularly happens). On RFD the audience (if any :) and outcome would probably be different.

So we should probably discuss the deletion criteria for stub redirects. Conscious 12:54, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

• I second Conscious's words. Radiant_>|< 10:40, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
  • There is an active discussion going on at Wikipedia talk:Redirects for deletion on this subject. Demi ^T/_C 16:15, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Profanity on MFD

Please note that this page, currently marked as a policy page, has been brought to MFD, as MFD is not highly read, I thaught a link here would be approriate. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 05:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Closed early; invalid listing Dan100 (Talk) 11:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Linking to Redirects

Is there any policy regarding articles linking to redirect pages? I seem to remember being told that it is preferable to link to the article that is redirected to, and bypass the redirect, but when this was recently questioned, I was unable to find anything official on it. I’m sure I’ve over looked some obvious page, but can anyone link me to the answer, either here or on my talk page? Thanks in advance. --Falcorian 06:11, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

There's no page discouraging the use of redirect links per se (what would be the rationale for it?) - I suppose it's some invention of people liking bot operations.

When is it advisable a redirect be replaced by a straight link? There are some cases:

• redirects to disambiguation pages: in that case the redirect link should be replaced by a link to the intended page (replacing it by a link to the disambiguation page would be senseless)
• redirect pages of the "common error" type, example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Socrate&diff=prev&oldid=32485082 ("Thompson" is the common error and an existing redirect - "Thomson" is the correct spelling of that name)
• In the rare cases when the redirect page is eligible for deletion (see Wikipedia:Redirect#When should we delete a redirect? for criteria)

--Francis Schonken 07:11, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

It's preferred to link directly to the article because a redirect forces you to load both the redirect and target pages. It's not a big deal, however.--Sean|Black 07:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Sean, that was the conclusion we reached, but is there anything official on it that you know of? --Falcorian 08:05, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Neither Wikipedia:Redirect or m:Help:Redirect say anything, so, er, no :).--Sean|Black 08:12, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Ah, then we're back to square one! :) --Falcorian 08:24, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

• What exactly are you talking about, why is this a problem? Common sense indicates that in most cases we shouldn't link to a redirect. But there's little harm in doing so. Note that many users work with a "Wiki plugin" that automatically fixes links to redirects. Radiant_>|< 10:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm talking about official polivy. The question came up, and I wanted to know if there was policy on it, that's what. I never implied there was a problem. --Falcorian 18:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

One problem encountered with auto-bypassing of redirects, is redirects to sections/parts of an article. Often there's to little material for a topic to have its own article initially, and is merged in, for the time being, into a much larger article, but later spun-off into its own article later. Example: JoBlough is merged/redirected into BandX, as he's just a minor unfamous short-term member of the famous band. Various links point to JoBlough, and are specifically about him, not the band. Another user goes and bypasses all those redirects. Then, JoBlough after leaving BandX, becomes hugely famous in his own right (nobody remembers BandX anymore), and yet another user spins-off the JoBlough into its own article again (undoing the redirect). All the links related to JoBlough *still* point to BandX, even though they're not about BandX. Somebody clicks on a link about JoBlough and they go to BandX, and are confused as to why (more confused than a normal redirect, as there's no redirect message). This is a minor issue if JoBlough and BandX are tightly linked (e.g. if you know of one, you know of both). However, sometimes we merge articles into huge lists of loosely related things (we shouldn't but we do). --Rob 15:46, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

So it seems there is no policy then, guess that answers my question. --Falcorian 18:34, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Redirect fixing should not be top priority, but bots that scan pages for links to disambiguation pages also have the ability to check redirects, so hey, why not? I know because I've written a bot. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 18:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I think (I haven't checked it...) that if you end up wityh a chain of multiple redirects, then the system only does the first redirect and subsequent ones don't take effect. Therefore a link to the article is "cleaner". One reason to link to a redirect is if there is a likehood that that the redirect page will get itself converted into an article at some time. -- SGBailey 22:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Does this article belong here?

The article Tennessee voting example seems to be unique in the sense that it's about an example that was specifically constructed for multiple Wikipedia articles and isn't itself about something that "exists" for encyclopedic description. Should this article be allowed or not? What about in another namespace? -- Dissident (Talk) 13:44, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I once remarked the elaboration of the Tenessee example is a bit quirky for approval voting, see Talk:Approval voting#Elaboration of Tenessee example - the one person replying to that remark (after several weeks, I just saw the reply), didn't even seem to understand my remark. --Francis Schonken 17:17, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

This article seems to be a good illustration of voting systems, and is too large to be merged in to Voting_system. I think it should be renamed to a more generic name, but kept in the main namespace. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 17:56, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. How about effects of different voting systems under similar circumstances? -- Dissident (Talk) 20:25, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Following process on Templates for deletion

moved from talk page on December 26. Should be archived a week after 15:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC) (ie, in three days) if no more replies are added. —Cryptic

Who are we? Why are we here? I'm not speaking of the entire project or our grand mission, only of the small group of regulars who work within TfD. What are we doing here?

Each one of us will have a different answer to that question; so to guide us in our efforts, we have a written process. Process should not act as a straitjacket, but as a way for us to agree to respect each other's differing views.

If all of us had the same exact opinion on each template, there would be no need for the Wikipedia:Templates for deletion page -- not in its present form, at any rate. We would each individually mow down templates we found insupportable, and log the deletions. No need for debate, no need for discussion. And since we would all be in perfect agreement, we would have strong justification for refusing to hear appeals from other members of WP.

But it is not so. I think {{widget}} should stay and {{blivet}} should go; El Supremo thinks {widget} should go and {blivet} stay. Sometimes, we can discuss these issues and find a meeting ground. Maybe I can accept some changes to {widget}, with which El Supremo can tolerate its continued presence. But what do we do when after a week of wrangling, I still say "Widgets forever!" and El Supremo grunts, "Blivets or death!" -- what then?

Our process specifies that after seven days on TfD, if consensus is not reached, the nominated template is free to go -- the matter is over. We also say that a template should not be renominated for a month, if then. No good purpose is served by chewing old bones.

Recently, the nominated template {{divbox}} came to the end of its seven-day roasting. There was considerable controversy, a more or less even split of opinions (4 delete to 3 keep), and certainly nothing approaching consensus, or even overwhelming majority. Our process says {divbox} goes free, and that's the end of the matter -- at least, the end for this month. Those determined to keep a dog in the fight may do so on the nominated template's Talk page.

Shortly after I removed the offending listing and carefully began to archive all its debate -- not merely the debate within the TfD workflow, but wherever I could find a scrap of it -- a certain user, without discussion of any kind so far as I know, restored {divbox} to the TfD page and simultaneously juggled the entire contents of the page, including our written process guidelines. Am I the only one in this project who finds this a bit questionable?

• TfD page, including process guidlines, prior to Orwellian reversions -- here is an excerpt:

"It is also possible that no concensus has been reached. Action: Remove template from this page entirely. Copy the entire discussion to template's Talk page. Remove {{tfd}} tag from template's main page. ("Disputed" subsection deprecated.) Absent concensus, the disputed template is kept."

I have to disclose that it was I who wrote the text of this section, as part of a complete cleanup of the page, including explicit workflow process. The cleanup stood unchallenged througout the recent heated debate over {divbox} -- nobody found it offensive or even felt a need to correct my misspelling of "consensus" -- but now that it permits {divbox} release from jail, it must all be destroyed. (!?)

This process, too, is subject to change -- but have we come to the point where we are permitted to change our guidelines for how we work at the same time as we cite our changes to process as justification for what we do?

If we have come to the point where everything is up for grabs, please let me know, and I will start work on Jimbo's home page, VfD, CfD, RfC, RfA, and all the other pages which manage the way we manage the work we do. If I don't need to discuss any of my changes before making them, then why should I? And if someone disagrees with me, why should I not alter existing process to make his disagreement illegal?

If we have not come to that point, and we still cling to shreds of social fabric, then I ask you to take whatever action you think necessary to hold those shreds together, and allow me to return to the work I do best -- making things that work for us all. Thank you. — Xiongtalk 10:54, 2005 Apr 7 (UTC)

Apr 7??? Something wonky with this page? Dan100 (Talk) 11:20, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh I see, I've revealed the hidden comment to clarify Dan100 (Talk) 11:24, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

User IDs: How many can one person have?

moved from talk page on December 26. Should be archived a week after 15:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC) (ie, in three days) if no more replies are added. —Cryptic

Is it acceptable for someone to log in and edit under more than one user name? Paul Klenk

This is discouraged. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppets Sam Vimes 20:27, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

As for how many a person can have, ask User:Iasson -- as I recall, he's got several hundered. --Carnildo 20:33, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Specifically, using multiple accounts to vote multiple times or to try to appear as multiple, different people in any context is very strongly discouraged. There might be benign reasons to maintain multiple accounts (for example, to keep separate edit histories for separate wikipedia related tasks), and so long as the owner made no effort to hide single ownership of all such accounts I don't really think anyone would mind. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:47, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

When operating bots, making another username is the norm. See Wikipedia:Bots. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 00:23, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

• This question is addressed at WP:SOCK. xaosflux ^Talk/_CVU 18:09, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed policy change on Featured Article Candicate reasoning

I am proposing a change to FAC reasoning, eliminating the rule that suggestions that an article should never be frontpaged be ignored. Please come discuss it at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candicates/never_proposal --Improv 19:35, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed policy regarding inactive administrators

Please see Wikipedia:Inactive administrators and indicate whether you support this proposal on the talk page. Thank you. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:07, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia English

This will probably go over like a lead balloon, but it's a great idea -- in theory, at least -- so I'm throwing it out there as a suggestion. What if we had a "Wikipedia English", which would be a compromise between British/American spellings; for example, practise as a verb and practice as a noun (which is logical to avoid confusion), organize but analyse (which is actually what Oxford recommends), etc... The biggest sticking point would probably be the -our/-or endings, but it might work and would end a lot of petty disputes. Then again, it might end up being like that joke that was circulating about a new "European English" with "simplified" spellings... Opinions? Jibbajabba 04:48, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Laik þis? Cəd bē much ēziər to rēd. If yū happən not tū bē literət in Ingliş. -- Sometimes I can't help myself Jmabel | Talk 08:41, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• I like the idea - after all, we've already set the punctuation rules for Wikipedia English in the Manual of Style, and they seem to work pretty well. I think a reasonable standard for words is that if one has a Wikipedia article and the other doesn't, choose the one with the article. That way we can build on previous decisions. So Wikipedia English says color, not colour, and yoghurt, not yogurt. And this rule is already applied in other ways, like for specialized terms within WikiProjects. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 21:59, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• So, which meaning of the verb "to table" should we use, and how do we describe what the other government is doing? --Carnildo 03:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I tried purging use of "tabled" a while back; I really should get back to it. It's something that can always be phrased differently, outside direct quotes, and can cause confusion even when the lingustic context is clear - I always forget which one is the British use! There really isn't anything to be gained by using it, I feel. Shimgray | talk | 19:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose this proposal because I feel it will lead to linguistic favouritism. The existing policy works. The reason people are not responding here is, I suspect, an indication that almost nobody else is interested. --Improv 04:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

• • I also oppose this ridiculous proposal. That would result in even more of a mess than we have now. I believe PizzaMargherita's proposed solution of special dialect-switching markup (which has been repeatedly debated on the MoS talk page) is the better solution.

• • • I oppose it, mainly because I don't think we need to - I strongly suspect my grandchildren will be confused by the idea of American and British English as visibly different concepts. Give it time... ;-) Shimgray | talk | 19:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• It ain't broken, so don't fix it. User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the proposal would help. However, maybe we should adopt the policy on language my firm has adopted. Namely: "We recommend that British English be used..." (only comment on this if you've spotted the error!) jguk 20:11, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

GOD OF WAR

THE GOD OF WAR IS DISALLUSIONED TO SEE YOUR CULUTURE FAIL AND FALTER TO CHOOSE A LANGUAGE - NO MATTER - YE ENIMIES SHALL SOON RIDE FORTH AND CONQUER YOUR PITIABLE LANDS--God_of War 08:10, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I gather from your user page and such that you're a wee bit on the anti-American side. Well, that and the fact that your message was so incoherent and off topic that I'm tempted to erase it, except someone else might find it humorous. :) Jibbajabba 08:34, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Duely added to BJAODN. LambaJan 20:36, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Question

I am korean user. I use kowiki more. In korea, fair-use idea is not exist. so, I think...why don't use we non-commercial image in kowiki?

question! kowiki user can't use non-commercial image? it is worldwide wiki project rule? korean can make a policy for allowing non-commercial image? in kowiki only?? -- WonYong 11:50, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think the laws of the United States apply to all versions of Wikipedia because it is hosted in Florida. Jibbajabba 18:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

It's up to every individual wikipedia, but I think the non-com rule might apply to all of them. For an example of how different pediae have different rules, the Japanese wikipedia doesn't allow fair use, as Japan's laws are stricter than America's, and they want to conform both to Japanese and American law. --Golbez 18:35, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

"Complex" copyright violations/plagiarism

In connection with the discussion here [2], I'm impelled to point out that too many users are willing to defend cut-and-pasted text with only cosmetic changes as neither constituting copyright violations nor being plagiarism. A large part of the problem, I suspect, comes from the copyright violation policy page, which is intended to address only a particular, unmistakable sort of violation, but is framed in a way which suggests Wikipedia is not concerned with less overt violations. It should be clear in Wikipedia policy that simply lifting text from another source (or sources) and making cosmetic changes is generally unacceptable Monicasdude 15:36, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

NPOV II

Does anyone know where Jimbo originally posted this? It seems to have been added to Wikipedia:NPOV when the policy was moved to here from meta. Bensaccount 18:03, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

A general purpose encyclopedia is a collection of synthesized knowledge presented from a neutral point of view. To whatever extent possible, encyclopedic writing should steer clear of taking any particular stance other than the stance of the neutral point of view.

The neutral point of view attempts to present ideas and facts in such a fashion that both supporters and opponents can agree. Of course, 100% agreement is not possible; there are ideologues in the world who will not concede to any presentation other than a forceful statement of their own point of view. We can only seek a type of writing that is agreeable to essentially rational people who may differ on particular points.

Some examples may help to drive home the point I am trying to make:

1. An encyclopedic article should not argue that corporations are criminals, even if the author believes it to be so. It should instead present the fact that some people believe it, and what their reasons are, and then as well it should present what the other side says.

2. An encyclopedia article should not argue that laissez-faire capitalism is the best social system. [...] It should instead present the arguments of the advocates of that point of view, and the arguments of the people who disagree with that point of view.

Perhaps the easiest way to make your writing more encyclopedic is to write about what people believe, rather than what is so. If this strikes you as somehow subjectivist or collectivist or imperialist, then ask me about it, because I think that you are just mistaken. What people believe is a matter of objective fact, and we can present that quite easily from the neutral point of view.

--Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia founder

Have you asked him?  :) User:Zoe|^(talk) 19:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:Uncategorized

What is the general opinion in using Template:Uncategorized to show articles without a category? My own opinion is that a template is a bad idea as it makes the article look messy, and many articles already have too many templates, but that a category for articles that need to be properly categorised is a good idea, as then people who want to categorise articles can sift through that category.

The reason I ask is that I think it would be a good idea to add the category Category:Category needed to articles that are reasonably big (not all articles, as there are too many at the moment) using a bot or semi-bot like my User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser. thanks Martin 20:05, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• I think categories should only be used when they make sense. Not everything should have a category, and tagging things for that seems like a bad idea. --Improv 21:59, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• I disagree, I don't think I have ever seen an article that couldn't be put into at least one category. Martin 22:05, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• I agree, and so does Wikipedia:Categorization, which states that "every page in the article namespace should belong to at least one category." I don't think adding yet more templates is the best way to go about this, especially with a bot. It would be more useful to simply get more people working on Special:Uncategorizedpages, and perhaps set that page to update more frequently. - SimonP 19:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

• Sure Special:Uncategorized pages is the way to go, but at the moment it is useless, I am proposing that longer pages get the uncategorised category so at least we can find the more important articles that need to be categorised. Martin 19:59, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

• I don't think Special:Uncategorizedpages is useless, we are making steady progress through the alphabet. More frequent updates and being able to see more than 1000 pages at a time would speed the process, but slowly the entire encyclopedia is getting categorized. - SimonP 20:06, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

• Ah, I mistakenly believed that page had stopped being updated altogether, still, it would be great if it was updates more often. Martin 00:41, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
• It would be useful if a modification could be added that would allow the inclusion of article that only have stub-related categories along with a filter that would allow those to be excluded to obtain a "no categories at all" listing. (this follows from my comment below). User:Ceyockey 02:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the guideline that states "every article should have a category". I use this template occasionally when I can't fathom what category something should be in and it lacks a category. However, I do think that the template could go away without a lot of impact considering the existence of Special:Uncategorized pages. Note that about 50% of the pages I find without categories altogether and 50% only have a stub-template-associated-category; in the latter case a "normal" category is needed as well (which is a generally agreed guideline within the Stub-sorting community) but those pages will not appear on the Special:Uncategorized pages. Also, I think that the main question was about "under categorized pages" rather than "uncategorized" ones. That's another matter altogether. User:Ceyockey 20:38, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Templates for Writing Articles

I think it would be quite productive if there was an effort to make templates for topics of various types. Obviously, this exists to some degree, in that *most* topics of shared subject matter *usually* have the same headings. However, not only am I suggesting an actual implementation of this process via templates, I'd further argue that the templates could/should include consistent placement of concepts, ideas, links, etc. Groups of stubs/categories could even be templated so that each shares set words except for certain parameters: i.e. [*name* *option:aka* (born *bname* on *date*) is a...] could be the start of a template for a living person.

With the correct amount of set text, this could not only be an extremely useful preventative measure against vandalism et al, but also an excellent way of keeping articles consistent.

Forgive me if this is the wrong section to suggest this, or if this has already been suggested. --mwazzap 21:46, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Some of these already exist as part of WikiProject efforts. For instance, see Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states and Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography as two examples where this has been attempted. User:Ceyockey 03:01, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

re-proposing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates)

This has been mentioned on this page and wikipedia:current surveys before. In the mean while several suggestions were incorporated, and others answered at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (numbers and dates).

So, proposing the updated Wikipedia:Naming conventions (numbers and dates), to be accepted as guideline in a week or so - unless there are still fundamental alterations required.

Note that this guideline proposal absorbs wikipedia:naming conventions (years in titles) (which would become a redirect). Also this is about the last wikipedia:naming conventions topic that doesn't have a "naming conventions" guideline yet, separate from the more general MoS, which doesn't discuss many "page naming" specifics. --Francis Schonken 21:35, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Removing warnings from user talk pages = vandalism.

Is this policy? If yes, is it codified anyplace other than {{vblock}}? Garfield226 05:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• Removing whatever from your own talk page is not vandalism; a user who does so can be assumed to have read it and if ignoring warnings, will face the consequences. Removing whatever from other people's talk pages may be vandalism, please ask the user who owns the talk page what they think of it. Radiant_>|< 22:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
  • This is apparently disputed, see Template_talk:Vblock#User_space. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:22, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• We have a real problem. After posting warnings that the user deletes, then another user posts a warning at the same level, which the user deletes. Basically, without the rule against removing warnings, the warning method doesn't work in the case of persistent problems! You cannot have a 4 level warning/blocking system where the warnings are removed, as blocks will appear to be arbitrary. --William Allen Simpson 16:44, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• • A talk page that has been blanked will still show up as a blue link on the "Discussion" tab, alerting observant editors and admins that foolishness is afoot. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 17:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit?

Just a few weeks ago, I seem to remember that clicking on a red link would take me to a page with a blank white text box, and a freindly message saying something like "There is currently no article called [name] but you can start writing this article now", and would allow me to create the article. Now I'm taken to a page that bluntly says "Article not found" (I actually thought it was a 404 at first) and insists that I create an account. Why?

I'm sorry, but this goes against everything Wikipedia supposedly stands for. Why shouldn't I be able to create an article? I always used to, what's changed since then?

I don't mean to come across as rude, but I have no idea where this came from, and it just seems so blatantly against what this site usually does that I had to ask about it. --82.7.125.142 15:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

You will also note that the blurb at the top of every page now says:

From Wikipedia, the free encylcopedia

it used to read:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit

The change happened a few weeks ago, but I saw no news about it. Maybe I'm just out of the loop --BostonMA 15:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, that change is just some sysops edit warring over the site notice. The appropriate place is MediaWiki:Tagline. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 16:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

This is new, put in place to help reduce the high rate of vandalism. Anyone can still edit, just not necessarily immediately. Anons can still create new articles, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-12-05/Page creation restrictions and Wikipedia:Articles for creation. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• Jimbo instituted the "anons can't create pages" policy after the John Seigenthal thing. I'm really sorry that anons can't make new pages anymore but it does prevent a huge number of junk articles being created as newbie tests. Kappa 15:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Anons can, just not directly. Wikipedia:Articles for creation, if they do not wish to create an account. KillerChihuahua^?!? 15:56, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• • Wikipedia is a project to build a free encyclopedia. "Anyone can edit" is not part of what Wikipedia "stands for," it is a method that Wikipedia uses to achieve that goal. It can be adjusted and modified as necessary in pursuit of that goal. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Well said, in my opinion, Dpbsmith. User:Ceyockey 23:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I understand about the Seigenthaler controversy, but someone edited that page and added the false information, they didn't create a new article. Hopefully now we'll see a drop in joke articles, although registering an account actually increases anonymity, since it hides your IP address. Why not just IP ban anons that vandalise like that? --82.7.125.142 19:03, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

No, they created with the junk in it. I still agee with you that we should lift the page creation restriction, however.--Sean|Black 23:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

anyone can make an account, even a throwaway account, and then create articles. So yes, anyone can still edit (editing implies something was there before), and even, anyone can still create articles [presuming they have an internet connection, and can figure out how to click on links]. Jimbo's line of argument was that if RC patrollers are less busy with throwing out junk-articles, they will be more likely to detect vandalism to existing articles, too. dab (ᛏ) 23:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, somebody told me that if you submit many good articles into the articles for creation place, then people might see that anonymous users actually create good articles and won't force you to get a username. --anon

Non-admins closing delete AfDs?

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anathemacious. Renata3, a well-meaning user closed this AfD as Delete and put it up for a speedy. My latest perusal indicates that non-admins can only close AfDs that do not result in delete (such as keep or merge). Is this still true, or is putting up a delete consensus AfD to CSD the latest way for a non-admin to close a delete AfD? --Deathphoenix 16:10, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I congratulate Renata3 on finding a clever way to (technically) allow a non-admin to close consensus-delete AfDs. However, it's really no more work for an admin to just close it himself, since any admin who actually enacts the deletion has to go back and verify the AfD result anyway. Encourage Renata3 to participate in non-delete closes, and to pursue adminship at some point. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Closing obvious no consensus AFD discussions almost kept me from passing my recent RFA. Closing deletes, no matter how obvious, will come back to bite this user if he/she opts to pursue adminship in the future. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 17:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I used to close no consensus VfDs when I was a non-admin, but then again, that was before they implemented that rule (and when the backlog of unclosed discussions was huge). --Deathphoenix 18:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Any admin acting on such a closure has to do all the legwork themselves anyway, since the person pressing the delete button is the one taking that responsibility. It's fairly well established that admins are the ones to close anything other than clear-cut keep/merge/redirect/transwiki/similar debates because they have received approval from the community that their judgement in such situations is generally pretty good. Since there is no benefit to the system at large by the use of speedy in these circumstances and since speedy has never been approved for use in these circumstances and given the meaning in part of an RfA, I'm still of the opinion that non-admins should steer clear of those things that Wikipedia:Deletion process tells them to steer clear of. -Splash^talk 18:29, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Sept 11 Wikipedia - appropriate use of name?

While looking for something completely unrelated I ran across this → http://sep11.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. The text on this page states "This wiki was started in 2001 in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. The aim was to allow a more detailed report of the event than was allowed in Wikipedia." This is all fine and good, quite OK, but the site uses the Wikipedia name both in its URL and as part of the site itself (the logo and page titles, for instance). It is "powered by MediaWiki" and this page on meta suggests that the project is completely separate from Wikipedia, not even having the status of a sister project (such as Wiktionary, for instance). I do support people having a Sept. 11 memorial site that picks up where Wikipedia needs to leave off, but considering the high profile that Wikipedia has come to have, is it time to revisit the notion of removing the Wikipedia logo/name from this non-affiliated site, as was suggested in the meta-discussion thread? Thanks for commenting on this. User:Ceyockey 00:11, 30 December 2005 (UTC) (talk to me)

• Possibly, but you really should discuss this on Meta instead, as it has no bearing on the English Wikipedia. Radiant_>|< 00:16, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I briefly beg to differ .. it has impact on English Wikipedia in that this is essentially synonymous with "Wikipedia" in the media. User:Ceyockey 05:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Prophet redux

We had a discussion here several months ago, in which the question of whether or not the word "prophet" could be used to describe Muhammad. One editor (Babajobu was removing all instances of "prophet" in articles relating to Muhammad; I was arguing that an uncapitalized "prophet" was simply descriptive of his role and implied no acceptance of Muhammad as a divinely inspired prophet. As I recall -- and this is not archived, unfortunately -- the consensus was that the use of "prophet" was OK.

The controversy has arisen in another form. One editor, Pepsidrinka looked at the Wikipedia Manual of Style and discovered a rule saying that it was acceptable to refer to Muhammad as "Prophet Muhammad" or "the Prophet". He feels that this should be the new standard in any Islam-related articles.

I have been extremely active in editing Islam-related articles. However, I am not a Muslim. I would feel extremely uncomfortable typing "Prophet Muhammad". He is not my prophet and I do not honor him as such. I try very hard to be neutral, but I do not want to adopt language that, to me, sounds Muslim. I would like to hear what other, non-involved, Wikipedians think about this matter. If the consensus is against capitalization, then I'd like to know how to change the Manual of Style so that this situation does not arise again. Zora 00:16, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I took a look at the manual of style. The "the Prophet" distinction seems pretty clear, but how did he derive "the Prophet Muhammad"? We can indirectly refer to Muhammad using "the Prophet," but is the capitalization necessary (or desirable) when Muhammad is explicitly stated? (I realize this is sidestepping the issue). — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 00:24, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The Manual of Style permits this, and only uses it as an example in any case; it does not require it. This is a special case of the more general debate over use of honorifics. Current policy is at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Honorific_prefixes, while the proposed interim policy is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)/Proposed interim policy for Honorific prefixes. Deco 00:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Quick definition of prophet would be; A prophet is a person who is believed to communicate with God, or with a deity. Since Muhammad is believed to have been a messenger of God, we can safely say prophet but not Prophet, IMO. «LordViD» 00:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Definitely you should use capitalized prophet Prophet because in this place it is referring to one specific person not to just a prophet. --Snakes 07:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

There is currently an ongoing discussion of this at Talk:Muhammad as well. Pepsidrinka 07:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Newsworthy = Encyclopedic?

Question- are newsworthy people also encyclopediaworthy? Someone that contributed to advancement of mankind such as Enrico Fermi or Thomas Edison etc. are encyclopedia material. People who are newsworthy are people who are insignificant to the masses such as a convicted killer or a man executed at an advanced age. These articles are expediting the dwindling reputation of this cite. Perhaps moving insignificant biographies off this cite to another cite or brown filing them.... chaz171

Persistent spelling errors also affect our reputation. ;-0 —Wahoofive (talk) 05:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• See WP:BIO. It depends on what you mean by 'newsworthy'. Someone covered in major national or international news media would be encyclopedic. Someone covered in a local gossip paper would not be. Radiant_>|< 10:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• I agree with chaz171. We have too many articles that should be in a newspaper or magazine instead of an encyclopedia. Nobody will care about them in 10 years, let alone 100. If the project survives that long, I suspect they will be removed from the encyclopedia, but not necessarily deleted. -- Kjkolb 02:54, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Use different software for the mediation of wiki policy, administration, government, etc.

Avoid monoculture. Use a different peice of software to handle all the discussion of meta-wikipedia affairs. Perhaps something that is not (gasp) a wiki, but something designed for goverment of a wiki. Let us not get caught up in a cycle of blind faith. Let's build some software. Kurt Gödel says what? Let's take a look at this thing from the outside. Lilhinx 09:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• I don't think your proposal is concrete enough to go any further. Why would we want to use a different piece of software for meta? What kind of software are you talking about? Why would it be more suited? --Improv 09:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposal to remove the dictum prohibiting the linking of individual years from Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

The issue of whether to wiki-link individual years (and year-related items, e.g. "18th century", "1980s," etc) has recently come to a head.

On the one hand, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) specifically prohibits linking individual years except in cases of "relevance."

On the other hand, it is nonetheless an enormously common practice which seems to have widespread support among editors.

Bobblewik (talk · contribs) has mass de-linked wikilinked years in literally thousands of articles over the past week or so [3], to the point where he has been blocked by an admin for running an unauthorized bot. [4]

Proponents of this effort claim that these efforts have consensus support. However, it seems plausible that "consensus support" in this case means consensus among the people who regularly read Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and related pages, which may or may not overlap significantly with the number of people who would otherwise have an opinion on this topic.

Thus I bring the question here, where it might be seen with more eyes.

I see no harm whatsoever in wikilinking individual years (and year-related items), regardless of their specific relevance to the article at hand. Quite the contrary, I feel that such links provide great exploratory benefit for those (like myself) who routinely click on them. I find such links edifying and educational, which seems to be a reasonable goal for an encyclopedia. Since the removal of such linking is being justified by a specific dictum in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) which prohibits such linking, I hereby propose that this prohibition be removed.

All the best.
Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 13:22, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Hear hear. About time someone dealt with this (now, if only someone could mass rollback Bobblewik's contributions for the last month). Ambi 13:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I think everyone agrees that linking dates when relevant or for date preference reasons is absolutely fine. So the issue is linking all dates. I believe that this is bad for a few reasons

1. Excessive amounts of blue links make the text more difficult to read.
2. The links are misleading. I know experienced editors don't think they are misleading, but people new to wikipedia often do, I know I did when I was new, and I have seen new users (normally IPs) remove date links and leave an edit summary along the lines of "Links were to wrong page" or similar.
3. Excessive links to largely irrelevent pages dilutes the overall quality of links in general, making it difficult to know when a link is to a directly relevant article

Thanks. (p.s. Bobblewiki was not using a bot) Martin 13:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I quite agree with Martin's comments. The year links are mostly irrelevant. If you want to explore Wikipedia, use the Random article link in the navigation box -- that allows you to wander through articles with about the same degree of relevance from one to the next as the year links. older≠wiser 14:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I feel that linking all dates (except when they recur in the article) is actually fine and kind of useful. It helps provide even more information when one is on a date page and clicks "what links here" -- finding things to add in that way becomes pretty easy without any centralised effort, and even while overlinking makes things more difficult, I don't think that dates are typically packed together enough for that to be a factor for dates alone. --Improv 14:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Martin. 98% of the time, the only thing a year link does is clutter up an article and make it less readable. I think the style guide is correct, and if editors are ignoring it in favor of linking every occurrence of a year, we should work to undo it. Overwikilinking is a bad thing. We shouldn't encourage it. If we really want to wikilink every year, we need a technical solution that allows invisible links so that articles don't look hideously stupid when all words are linked. But until that happens, I strongly oppose this proposal. Nandesuka 14:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

What qualifies as "overlinking" is very obviously a matter of personal aesthetic preference. No one is suggesting that every word be linked. A few people are suggesting that linking individual years does not qualify as "overlinking," and does not look "hideously stupid." Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 15:09, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that all years be linked or only the first mention of a year? It seems that linking the first one is standard practice, and I'm surprised at the opposition. Sometimes people reapply the wikify tag if the years aren't linked. Wikify tags are sometimes even added specifically because a long list of years is unlinked. I don't click on the years and don't think they're very useful, though. I don't care much which way it is, but I think we should be consistent and not link and delink the years over and over again with different editors. I think that the delinking should stop until the issue is decided definitively. -- Kjkolb 15:38, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I personally adhere to the "link once, leave repeat instances in the same article unlinked" philosophy, but that's true for all of my links, not just years and year-related links. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 16:16, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, IMHO, all years could and should be linked on first mention. While I agree it's messy, in an article about 1899 - or something that took place in 1899 - to have "1899" wikilinked on every mention, I think leaving 1899 wikilinked at first, and not on subsequent mentions, looks good. It helps break apart and structure long blocks of texts somewhat, too, especially if there are hardly any wikilinks inside it. I do suppose it comes very much down to personal preference, though, but you've got my take on the situation. I'm very much in favour of getting rid of said dictum.--TVPR 16:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a contention that date link clutter is harmful. If so, it is a very marginal harm. On the other hand they do provide an article with context, even if that is a very marginal benefit. On the whole, this seems like a wash to me and so whether or not to keep them should be left to the discretion of the article's contributors. As such, I would be happy to see the explicit "simple months, years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there is a strong reason for doing so" go away. This is especially true as it seems to be encouraging a campaign to systematically remove such links with little regard to whether an article's primary contributors find them useful. Dragons flight 15:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I largely agree with Martin, with some qualification. I think that there is more justification in linking to 1917 in an article than to 2004, even if neither link is directly relevant to the article. A link to an older date may be helpful simply to put the event into perspective. Also, the discussion at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) should probably point out that links to dates can be made more relevant by linking to a more narrow subset. For example, linking to [[2004 in music|2004]] in a discussion on an album released in that year makes more sense to me than simply bracketing the date. I think the problem is that a large number of editors routinely link all dates, including ones like [[January]], [[2003]] and every occurrence of a particular year in an article. That makes it questionable whether even links to single years are intentional or just due to some editor's misunderstanding of the function of wiki date formatting. Having said all that, I think that that the current language is a little too restrictive and I would change it as follows: "So unless there is a special some relevance of the date link, there is no need to link it. This is an important point: simple months, years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there is a strong reason for doing so." -- DS1953 ^talk 16:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• I support this proposal. In my experience, most dates are "high value" (especially where month and day are included). The first use of all years, decades, and centuries should be linked. The major problem is the "assisted" scripted "AutoWikiBrowser" program that "suggests" removing most of the dates. Folks assume (incorrectly) that the program is accurate and approve the edits without thinking. The program is broken. A recent instance didn't add any links for day mon year or month day, year (both were needed), but unlinked 1947 and 1967 (and many others) for Israel! That's Not Useful! --William Allen Simpson 16:28, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• This is not a debate about how it is done, please dont confuse the issue. And the program is not broken, it's not even specifically designed for this task as you seem to suggest. Martin 17:34, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• I quite like this proposal, but I wonder if the paragraph could also be ammended to reiterate that date links should only be for the first time it shows in an article, and that these are entirely fine if relevent, and that they should ideally link to a subgroup of that date as mentioned earlier. LambaJan 19:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• I don't think the mass-unlinking of dates in an uncoditional or nearly-unconditional manner is a good idea. Further, I support the idea of clarifying or relaxing the "prohibition" against wikilinking years. The Manual of Style should basically say that not all years need to be linked, but some should because stuff happened then. The details of judgment should be left up to article editors. Demi ^T/_C 19:22, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• I don't think that all dates should be links. Many times if you do click, you get totally irrelevent stuff. I'm particularly thinking about a biography where we're talking about how the person was elected on this date in 2002, and did something else in 2003, and ... It really (in my view) clutters things up to have all of the years in blue. I don't object to links if the editor considers them relevent, but the current policy sounds right to me. Morris 19:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• I agree with the proposal. — Dan | talk 20:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• I fully support this proposal, and also, I have yet to see a proper argument for how having wikilinked dates make the page more difficult to read. Could someone who feels this way demonstrate how exactly it makes the page harder to read? Talrias (t | e | c) 20:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

One example of an article with too much markup is John Doar (US government official involved in civil rights momement). I know that this is a matter of opinion, but I agree with Nandesuka (below); a lot of the wiki links in that article (including the dates) do not lead the reader to anything related. Morris 22:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Not harder to read, but a little distracting. Personally, I don't like wikilinking years, but I've always done as it seems everyone else does :-). I think that makes me neutral...! Dan100 (Talk) 20:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd describe it as: a link is an implicit suggestion that the linked page is relevant to what you're reading in more than just a tangential way. Part of editing is deciding what should not be included, as well as decided what should be. Nandesuka 21:44, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose this proposal. I agree with most of martian's comments above, and i intend to continue removing such links. I also strongly suppor the creation of an alternate form of wiki-markup for date preferences, so that all dates could be unliked, except for the very few where a link is actually relevant. DES ^(talk) 21:56, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• Can you clarify your declaration to "continue removing such links?" This seems to be an exceptionally "in your face" statement. Surely there is no harm done in waiting a week or two for this discussion to shake itself out? The wikilinked years will still be there should the consensus clearly indicate that wikilinked years must go. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 12:35, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• Support. -- User:Docu

• Oppose change to MoS. Linking relevant dates is very desirable; linking all dates is unnecessary and could be considered as introduction of non-encyclopedic content (related to the notion of "lists of otherwise unrelated items"). User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 18:29, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the popular misconception that date linking is essential is an unintended consequence of the date preferences mechanism. We pay a high price for date preferences and very little benefit. We are not eliminating ambiguity because almost all date formats used by editors are unambiguous (e.g. December 25 and 25 December). Furthermore, the date preferences mechanism does not operate for a lot of readers i.e. those without an account, and those with an account but no preference set. I think the current Manual of Style is fine. However, some editors have said that there are some specific and auditable constraints that they would like to add to the Manual. For example, dates in image captions must be linked, or dates of birth and death must be linked, or weekly events must be linked. I oppose such such constraints but if they were in the Manual by consent, I will follow them. Until then, I regard such links as silly. Bobblewik 19:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I see many people saying that date linking is harmless and should not, therefore, be prohibited nor unconditionally expunged. I see no one claiming that date linking is essential. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 19:36, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. There's no reason to totally prohibit linking of years, so Support a relaxation of the MoS in this context (also note that it's guideline, always has been, so if I decide to link a few years, it doesn't really matter).--Sean|Black 19:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

The current guidlines specifically do not unconditionally prohibit date linking at all, that is a misleading exaggeration. Martin 19:53, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I know that, but Bobblewik seems to think that it does. Like, I said, I don't think it does any harm.--Sean|Black 19:56, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

You misrepresent what I think. Bobblewik 20:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• Support --Revolución (talk) 21:47, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

So how do you combat PoV-pushers?

I'd like to here from as many people as possible on this - what have people found to be the most successful tactics against users are trying to promote certain points of view within articles over others? Dan100 (Talk) 20:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

WOW! You find those quite a bit on most of the religious pages. A particularly long example of one editor pushing a POV is on Talk:Bahá'í Faith. If you go there you'll find 3 or 4 archives worth of discussion and a good example of a learning curve. At first the editors argued and frequently went off topic. Then they started turning to the manual of style for reference. Then, more recently, they started bringing in outside editiors and administrators who's claim to be neutral rests on their belonging to another religion.

These seem to help, and the nice thing about outsiders is they bring a fresh perspective. And if there's a particularly difficult edit to make because of a POV pusher, then it's really nice when the outsider just goes ahead and makes it because they are free of rediculous accusations of underhanded behavior (the ad hominum logical fallacy). LambaJan 22:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

It helps a lot to be rigourous about citation oneself, and insist on the same from others. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:54, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps my question is - what do you do when you have been doing that, but they carry on regardless? Dan100 (Talk) 09:39, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Haven't figured that out yet. lol.

Yes, Jmabel. That very much helps.

In that last example, one editor recently asked "Is there anyplace to take this for arbitration?" but nobody followed up on that. It can be very difficult because, as I'm sure you know from your situation, one person can become an army and (best case scenerio) cause the other editors of a topic to be less productive in adding quality articles because they're too busy protecting one part of it from POV. LambaJan 20:29, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I just found a template that may be helpful, depending on your situation: Template:Protected. LambaJan 02:43, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Root pages

Please see Wikipedia:Root page for info on this proposed policy.

I've actually listed it on MfD since I feel it is instruction/confusion creep. A discussion is also on going at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Root pages.... Thanks/wangi 01:39, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

• Listing a proposal on MfD is a pretty strange and disruptive way to oppose it. I suggest you use the talk page in the future. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I think you'll find I was the one who tagged the page as a proposal. As it was originally the page referenced to from the disambiguation MoS, telling people not to use disambiguation pages in certain cases - a change which wasn't discussed. Thanks/wangi 12:07, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia's 142 user warnings

Category:User warning templates currently has 142 separate warning messages. This is utterly absurd. With the exception of copyright warnings (which I realize have to be specific for legal reasons, and which should probably be put in a subcategory), we should reduce the total number to a dozen different warnings, maybe two dozen at most. A large number of ultra-specific warnings were created by User:Jtdirl, who adamantly defends their use and (on WP:TFD) has said that this category needs to be even bigger (!) Furthermore, some of the warnings violate WP:BP. For instance, Template:Mosblock threatens to block contributors for violating the manual of style, which has no support in policy. Template:Rn4 is both a violation of blocking policy and an ultra-specific warning, specifically warning users not to change the styles on "thousands of royal article files". This has the feel of a warning template that was created for a specific edit war. We have tons of redundant templates: can anyone explain to me what the effective difference is between Template:Blatantvandal and Template:Test4im? Both of them tell vandals to cut it out immediately or they'll be blocked. We not only have six basic Test templates, but each one has numerous forks for specific situations. Template:Test5 and Template:Test6 both say the same thing (and both are redundant with Template:Vbc-t and Template:Vblock), but Test6 adds an additional threat that people will be blocked again and for a longer period of time if they vandalize again after coming back. This whole thing is a huge mess. Firebug 06:18, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's absurd to have a large number of warning templates, generally. Just chose and use which-ever you see fit. However some you mention should be sent to TfD (if not there already).Dan100 (Talk) 09:38, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually I've just speedied the ones that break policy. Policy is set-in-stone, it's not something that can be changed by votes on TfD (let alone by people making it up as they go along!). Dan100 (Talk) 09:46, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

And I've managed to get it down to 117 by redirecting duplicates and removing categories from redirects. I've listed a few more on WP:TFD. Dan100 (Talk) 17:29, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow... I didn't even realize there were so many! I'll stick with {{test-n}}, thank you very much. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 18:38, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, are there decoder rings to keep track of all these? Good grief. older≠wiser 22:11, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

History articles

It there actually a naming conventions policy that states that the article title should be in the form of "History of X" instead of "X history"? I notice that most of the articles I see are in the form of "History of X", like History of the English penny and History of cricket, rather than "English penny history" or "Cricket history". Zzyzx11 (Talk) 19:58, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to know that too. I'm fairly certain this is general policy, and I'm fairly sure there is a relevant page, but whenever I want to invoke, I simply cannot find the page... — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 20:03, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject History sets the standard for naming history-related catgories here. I can't find any policy on article names, although I'm fairly certain that I've seen articles moved from X history to History of X with reasons cited in the edit summaries. --TantalumTelluride 04:43, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the formula was arrived at partly because of a few difficult cases to form the appropriate possessive from. There are countries named Niger and Nigeria. Both have history articles, suitably named History of Niger and History of Nigeria. It would be confusing trying to name discrete "Nigerian/Nigerien history" articles.-gadfium 05:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for making it necessary for registration to create an article. I have no doubt in my mind that this will reduce vandalism that is the result of newly created nonsense/spam articles done by anonymous users. I have been saying that user registration should be required to edit articles for a long time and I would like this to be finally implemented. --Revolución (talk) 21:17, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

POV at top of page

I am rather upset by the recent banner at the top of Wikipedia: Please take a moment to read this personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

While this notice clearly was but up with good intent, that Jimmy Wales is the sole founder of Wikipedia is disputed and saying that he is a direct violation of NPOV. Do we really want a violation of Wikipedia principles to be placed on top of every page. What does it say about Wikipedia if we tell others to be NPOV but Wikipedia is not?

Jimmy's argument is that Sanger's contribution is irrelavent since Sanger worked under him. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to think that this logic is equivalent to saying that William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain don't deserve credit for making the first transistor because they worked underneath the CEO of AT&T. Thus logic is not recognized by most people - they all won nobel prizes.

I propose that the text be replaced with something like "Wikimedia chairman" or "Wikipedia head".

Where 01:48, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

NPOV is for articles. Jimbo considers himself the sole founder of Wikipedia, and the banner is from the Wikimedia Foundation, so it doesn't really matter. You could bring this up on MediaWiki talk:Sitenotice if you feel strongly, however.--Sean|Black 02:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The banner doesn't assert that Jimbo is the only founder of Wikipedia; it simply identifies him as a founder, implying neither that he is the sole founder nor that there are other founders. I don't think anyone can argue that he is not a founder of Wikipedia. The statement is very NPOV. --TantalumTelluride 03:59, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The implies only one - it is a definite article and not an indefinite article.

I moved everything to the talk page mentioned above.

But it doesn't say "the", it just says "founder", no article.--Sean|Black 04:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Occult/Spiritual Policy?

I'm getting really tired of the dogma cops on wikipedia that have to attack occult or spiritually related articles. Usually the first thing out of their mouths is them whining about how much crap or nonsense it is, and most of the time they are totally ignorant and clueless on the specific article or subject in question. Then they just look for any excuse to mess with the information in the page or just mess the page up in general, or the ever popular instant nomination for NPOV dispute or even deletion. Look, just because you don't believe in the stuff doesn't mean you get to decide what belongs on wikipedia or not. If it's something that's notable, then it should have a place, but I've even seen some use this as an excuse for deletion, that it's not notable, but in actuality, it is. Just gets on my nerves. Is there a policy that these kinds of people are ignoring that protects the spiritual/occult articles from this type of rude behavior, or is there not? So that I can point them to the URL the next time I see this behavior happen. Maybe there should be one that's created if there isn't. Also, if this is the wrong place to discuss this, then please redirect me to the proper place...thanks. FistOfFury 01:54, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

These articles are inherently about belief. If they are well-cited as to who holds these beliefs, and what exactly it is that they believe, there should be no problem. If, on the other hand, they are written as if spiritual beliefs are on the same level as belief in magnetic north, then that's a problem.

Similarly for notability. Not my area, so one in which I would generally not presume to judge, but I'd imagine that criteria for notability should be, for example, having been written about by people other than oneself and one's immediate circle (or a small, logrolling mutual admiration society), having written books that have sold significant numbers of copies, existence of large organizations that subscribe to a particular set of beliefs, etc. That would be a start (for this or any other area); if you think there are notability criteria specific to the occult/spiritual, you might try drafting an essay on the topic in your user space, or even starting a WikiProject (if there is no appropriate existing one to cover this). -- Jmabel | Talk 02:18, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The suggestion to start a WikiProject is a good one, I think. I've taken a look at the list of active and inactive Wikiprojects and it doesn't look like a closely related WikiProject has been started. The closest to something like a Wikipedia:WikiProject Occult is Wikipedia:WikiProject Spiritual Fauna, which might overlap in a minimal way (partial subtopic overlap). I would suggest that if you want to begin a WikiProject of this kind, classify it under "Religion" at Wikipedia:List of WikiProjects but don't give it a parent WikiProject. Regards, User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:53, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes

Many of you have probably noticed that userboxes have been causing a lot of conflict lately. (I don't know if the problem has been addressed here before, but I couldn't find any discussion on this page or in the archive.)

A brief history of userboxes: Anyway, userboxes started out innocently enough, as informative supplements designed to fit snugly into the Babel templates. Then the userboxes themselves were turned into templates, and the userbox templates began including category tags to automatically categorize user under Category:Wikipedians. And then, of course, a number of Wikipedians began creating humorous parody userboxes (such as {{User Geek}} and {{User n00b}}). They were accordingly assigned templates; and they, too, attempted to categorize users. I myself am guilty of creating a few humorous userboxes, although I now regret ever contributing to the disruptive process. Anyway, the silly categories and templates enventually found their way to the deletion process. Most were kept, some were deleted, some were moved, some were redirected. The resulting mess led to the recent creation of WikiProject Userboxes, which has done a remarkable job in cleaning up and standardizing the userbox templates and categories. I applaud them for their quick and effective cleanup. Unfortunately, userbox-related templates, categories, and redirects, etc. were still nominated for deletion. Recently, Kelly Martin boldly speedily deleted dozens of silly and politically biased userboxes. (Discussion and relevant links can be found at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kelly Martin.)

Proposal: Regardless of the outcome of the RfC, Wikipedia needs a policy regarding the use of templates for the user namespace as well as the categorization of Wikipedians. For example, should Wikipedia allow templates designed for the user namespace which blatantly support particular points of view? Should we allow templates that serve no purpose other than adding humor to user pages? Should we allow categories that divide Wikipedians into political and religious affiliations that can be used for spamming user talk pages? Should we allow categories that serve no purpose except to list users who claim to be furry? Basically, we need to establish guidelines for the creation of new user templates and user categories. What types of templates and what types of categories should be allowed? --TantalumTelluride 03:53, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

What I'm concerned about is how easily one can create a userbox and dump it in the template namespace. I've been worried about this situation for a long time, but didn't take the initiative to start discussion, something I regret now. Some userboxes are harmless, but what I seriously don't like is how one editor can create a userbox, copy the content into the Template: namespace, and then create some categories for it. Then the template and categories become almost impossible to delete, even though only one or a few people are using them. Surely there must be a way to regulate this and ask the people to not use a template on his/her userpage? The amount of user boxes is ludicrous, and I really can't see how some of them help contribute to the encyclopedia. (And frankly, yes, I am disgusted at some of the offensive ones, including some that had the use of swastikas.) There must be some way to stop people from rampantly creating useless templates and categories. (And don't get me wrong: I don't have anything against user boxes, having some myself, but I agree that we need some sort of policy regarding this.) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 04:03, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Admins who want an object lesson in just how many "ludicrous" is should take a look at Special:Undelete/User:N000. Be prepared to wait a long time for it to render; I'm seeing a full page of 'User foo' categories at 1600x1200 at the top. —Cryptic (talk) 05:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Aaah, my eyes! —Kirill Lokshin 08:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

A major issue with userboxes, of course, is that unless we delete {{userbox}} itself, it's trivial for a user to create a single-use custom box. Is there any real distinction between 500 users having a template on their page, and 500 users having a hand-made version of the template on their page? Or are we going to disallow the expression of particular sentiments on user pages, whether in template form or otherwise?

As far as categories are concerned, on the other hand, we are in a much better position; we can simply prune Category:Wikipedians of anything inappropriate on a regular basis. —Kirill Lokshin 08:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Additional Comment: And don't forget about the double transclusion caused by many userbox templates. Granted, WikiProject Userboxes has been addressing the issue, but many users transclude the basic userbox template within specific templates. Apparently such double tranclusions are significantly more demanding of the Wikimedia servers than regular single transclusions are, and they should almost always be avoided. (For more information, see Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits#Double transclusion and Wikipedia:Avoid using meta-templates.) --TantalumTelluride 04:16, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, this would be the time to make it clear that images that are claimed to be under fair use should not be used as part of the userbox template. They were probably some of the reasons why some admins have been deleting them or trying to get rid of them, but we all need to understand that we have to have specific cause and reason to cite an image as fair use, because we are using it for an article, not for just some damn decoration on a ghey userbox. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 04:56, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Fair-use images should very rarely be used on user pages, especially in humorous userboxes. --TantalumTelluride 05:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Titl(ing) books

I've noticed a lot of edit warring regarding the way we treat books. I ask the community to take a look at one of the most representative examples: The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam Vs. The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam (book). In other words, how would we proceed if we have a book called China? Please comment! Cheers -- Szvest 00:18, 1 January 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up&#153;}

That practice, of setting up an article for every dang book cited in a reference list, was instituted by Striver, who likes to create new articles. He consulted no one else in doing this. IMHO, unless the book is extremely well-known, like the Bible or the Quran, there's absolutely no point to making articles for books. Furthermore, his habit of citing just the links to books meant that all the author, publisher, and date information was hidden from casual inspection. This can cover up a lot of crufty references, if you're citing from 80-year-old books that have been superceded by later research, or from Time-Life books, or similar dodgy sources. Grump! Snarl! Zora 00:42, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment Zora. Yes, I know that Striver has done alot of mess in terms of starting articles I believe they belong to the same category of Godzilla III, Part 5, Actor X, Screen 43, Time 13h, 59 Minutes, 3 Seconds, 15 crew (members), Director is missing!. Those articles can be categorized under Category:WP:out of control.

Nevertheless, I am pointing out to a dilemma rather than a set of behaviours by a single user. Is there any guideline or policy that I am not aware of? I mean China! Otherwise, what disambigs (zombies) are set for? Visitors or redirected nations from google don't know about the the disambig-wiki-stuff-language-out-of-control§≈ĦζΣ. Sorry for the RED stuff! Cheers -- Szvest 01:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up&#153;}

Yes I have also seen a single user move (book) titles to a title without the "(book)". --a.n.o.n.y.m ^t 01:07, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

This says something to the matter → Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Literary works ... but I presume you are looking for something that goes beyond this section of policy, yes? User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:11, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

See also what has recently been said about subtitles at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#Literary works and subtitles --Francis Schonken 10:17, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

by the way, this should have gone on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) and not here on the talk page, I believe User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:13, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for Incorporation into Wikipedia Rules Regarding Removal of Graphics from Userbox Templates

If and until US Fair Use Laws, as Wikipedia seems to be a majority US concern, change to disallow fair use of copyrighted images in a non-commercial and personal display of likes and dislikes, whose sole purpose is to advocate other Wikipedia user's of that users preferences and affilations, any and all users that seek to remove copyrighted images and text, used under fair use laws, from userboxes, thereby adversely affecting and changing innumerable user's personal pages without prior notice or consent, any such actions should be taken as malacious; as they are not required by any US law, damage content lowering its value and by proxy Wikipedia's, and effectively vandalize other user's personal userspace, any user, Admin, or other entity who degrades userboxes by removing graphics and replacing it with lesser text, should be construed as the actions of a vandal against Wikipedia users, polices and spirit. (also posted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Userboxes#Userbox_guidelines)

MSTCrow 08:17, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I highly disagree with this idea. At WP:FU and at WP:FUC, we have stated that fair use images should only be used inside of the article space, not on user spaces. The userboxes will mostly be used on user pages, and they must not contain any fair use icons/photos/pictures/whatnot. The most of the problems I noticed about userboxes breaking this rule is when it comes to political parties (not ideals), sports clubs, shcools and using X product or website. All attempts should be made to find an icon that is under a free licenses, and the Wikimedia Commons is a pretty good place to start. If your stuck there, there are people willing to design these icons for you *ahem* and probably will be happy to do it and release it under GFDL or PD. Most userboxes are fine, it is just mainly those that I mentioned earlier are the most problematic, but I still believe that replacing images on userbox templates should not be considered vandalism at all, unless it is obvious vandalism (like a picture of the Democrat logo is replaced by Goatse). Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 08:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Why? By what right do you claim to be able to decide that fair use images are allowed only in Wikipedia proper, and not on userpages? There is no legal or moral reason to do so. It is purely arbitrary and a stab at the users who help to make Wikipedia successful. Wikipedians are not capable of changing the defintion of fair use, and then continuing to call that "fair use." It's a scam by those of authoritarian tendencies. To alienate users by creating artificial distinctions between what is allowed on different sections of Wikipedia is harmful to Wikipedia, and wrong.

MSTCrow 08:36, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Under the current US Fair use law, there must be four tests to pass in order for an image, o anything for that matter, that is copyrighted could be deemed fair use. As for the userbox images, they will fail test number one since, to be used under fair use, we have to state "the purpose and character of the use." That means we have to state why we have a dire need to use this image. If all the image is just going to be used for is a decoration for a userbox, then we will not be able to claim fair use, since it's purpose is purely for decoration and not really illustrating anything that text merely could not. Part of that first test too is if the image will be used for commerical or educational purposes. Since the images are going to be used on templates on userpages, that is not really can be considered educational, since users are telling the world "I am using this product," almost like an endorsement, thus, commericialization has begun. As for test two, it mainly means "the nature of the copyrighted work." That is mainly how old it is, etc. This is probably something that might not be a concern in the userbox images that are fair use, since they are probably going to be logos of companies, which are usually copyrighted. This is mainly a concern for articles. The third test is asking how much of the copyrighted work are we using. Will we get sued over one small icon in a user template, maybe not. But if many of these images exist on our servers and all they are used for are the templates, then something may go down, and it will not be pretty for the Foundation. The 4th test is how much will the competition will lose by using the image. This, I cannot gauge since icons like this appear over the Internet, and logos of companies are used a lot in websites, blogs, etc. But, if people come to us a lot and just take the photos from us, over time, people will lose money over it. That is why we do not have recent photos from the AP or Reuters when reporting on current events. The reason why is that they make their money selling photos, and if we take one from Yahoo News or Google News and slap it on our servers, then the AP and other press agencies will lose money, and that will violate test number four. Pretty much, to sum it up, fair use icons are not a good idea and they should stay out of the user space and user templates. Is this fascism, no. Is this mean ol' admins biting the newbies, no. Is this trying to undermine fair use, no. This is trying to not cheapen the value of fair use by having fair use photos stay where they belong: on the article space, where they are of education value and bring insight to the article. Icons on user spaces, frankly, do not. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 09:25, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The icons are clearly educational, as they are used to educate the wikipedia populace about the likes and dislikes of that user. The purpose and character is to share information with others about oneself, and to offer insight on that person. It is not commercial in character, and the link between genuinely listing a product that you use, for nothing in return, and actual commercial advertising, in which one or more individuals are paid to endorse a product, is tenuous, at best. As you say, the second test is not applicable. Thirdly, when one stops using content under fair use because of what might occur, not what has occurred, you are restricting user rights beyond the actual law based on a purely hypothetical basis. That is not a serious, fact-based objection. Fourth, the company will not lose anything by the use of logos and other data, as they were not for sale to begin with, and it is well understood that US copyright law allows for the use of copyrighted logos, as long as they are not used to fraudently induce another that they are that company, or a representative of that company. There are many, many, many websites that use MS logos, Apple, Nike, etc., and they are all well undertood to be protected under the 1st Amdendment. None of the 4 requirements for Fair Use are unmet, and there is no valid reason to hurt inoocent Wikipedia users based on a logically flawed premise.

MSTCrow 10:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protect speech and activities that do not violate the law. You can assemble at a location, as long as your not punching and kicing the people next to you. You can say anything in an assembly crowd, except if you scream fire or "I have teh b0mb." You can write letters to people saying you do not like a law, but you cannot threaten to do bad things to them if they do not do it. And, with the Internet, you can say what you want, as long as you follow the website host's terms of agreement. Most of the websites have policies against hosting major copyright infringing materials, such as music, logos, paintings, etc. And, while you may wish to blanket yourself in the 1st Amendment, copyright violations still can be prosecuted under the law, dispite what use the logos or stuff they use on their website. So while it might be fine and dandy to include a photo of Senator McCarthy on an article related to his life or with his work on the HUAC, including his photo on templates adds no educational value and it serves no purpose at all other than pure decoration. We are here to teach other about people like Senator McCarthy, not decorating our userboxes with his photo or logos of X company or Y sport club. Zach ^{(Smack Back)} 10:32, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser (AWB)

Martin says (above) that AWB "is not broken, it's not even specifically designed for this task as you seem to suggest."

We have no way of knowing the intent of the author that it's specifically designed for any particular task.

Unfortunately, the actual effect of AWB is to mass de-link dates, and to mass de-alphabetize inter-wiki links. For example, see breakage of Wikipedia:Disambiguation and breakage of Israel. That's just two very high profile examples.

Therefore, we should assume that it's misused because of poor quality control by the program author (regardless of intent), and prohibit futher use.

--William Allen Simpson 08:31, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Huh? If you want to know the intent of the person who made those edits, since anyone using the AWB has to approve every edit they make, you could ask him (trust me, Ian is very kind and will respond to any inquries you have), and I don't see how the cited diffs could be interprated as "breaking" those pages.--Sean|Black 08:41, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Sean. William, there is an option in the program that I was asked to implement that removes excess date links (I didnt even make the logic behind it), users have to conciously turn this option on for it to work. Plus every edit has has to be accepted by the user. The software can be used for a range of tasks, it is designed for no individual task in particular. Martin 11:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

P.s. I made the software, not Ian!) Martin 11:13, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Good Articles

I'm not sure how many people have run across the "Good Article" thing that's been going on. I'm a bit uncomfortable with it though I can't really articulate why well yet. Have a look. Wikipedia talk:Good articles --Samuel J. Howard 08:55, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

This is just dumb. A good article today can be a bad article tomorrow, and there is no reason to sub-highlight an article as "good" to draw eyeballs, as most people find articles based on their own interests, not on what is "good" or not, and Wikipedia's function is not to be shimming users into viewing certain articles, a la advertisers. The criteria of a "good" article, assuming that the article could be made static for all time, would either be so vague as to cover all articles, or so tight as to list articles as "good" based on technicalities, and ending up with a dry, uninformative piece of text.

MSTCrow 10:06, 1 January 2006 (UTC)