Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 

• Table of contents
• First discussion
• End of page
• New post

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

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

« Archives, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192

Should users be allowed to remove current block notices?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

---

WP:BLANKING has seen a change recently to include active block notices on the list of items that can't be removed by users from their talk pages. (Recently as in a couple months ago, but without recent discussion.)
For reference, there is now a discussion at Wikipedia talk:User pages#Change to WP:BLANKING, but I'd like the discussion to take place here on the Village Pump so that it receives input from a wider audience.
Thanks ahead of time for any input you have on the subject. --Onorem♠Dil 20:34, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• My own opinion hasn't changed since last June..."I also don't think current block notices need to be shown. The block notice is there for the benefit of the person being blocked. If they've seen it and want to remove it, I see no reason to revert them. Unblock requests, ban notices, sockpuppet tags...those are there for the benefit of the people who may be dealing with an ongoing issue." --Onorem♠Dil 20:16, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal (My rationale is the same at WT:UP#Change to WP:BLANKING) Why must we force a user to keep a scarlet letter on their talk page when this notice in regards to a user's block automatically appears at the top of the talk page to inform other editors when it is being edited? Declined unblock requests are necessary while a user is blocked, but a notice for the user letting them know they have been blocked should not be forced onto the talk page when a user has read it (hence the blanking). These notices are only posted for the blocked user's notification, not other editors who happen upon the talk page. The last time I checked, block notices don't say "Hey all editors who come to this user's talk page: he or she has been blocked! FYI." It tells how long an editor has been blocked and why so that they can appropriately appeal by posting an unblock request. Eagles 24/7 (C) 21:43, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• Don't allow removal of block notices. If users wish to not have block notices on their talk page, they need to not behave in manners which get themselves blocked. --Jayron32 23:43, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
  • What is the purpose of the notice in this situation? I wish people would not behave in manners that get them blocked. That would be great. What exactly is the benefit of forcing the notice? It's a good thing that nobody ever gets blocked for good faith reasons...or doesn't take the time to reflect on their edits until after they are blocked. Those scarlet letters will surely fix everything. --Onorem♠Dil 03:20, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Don't allow removal of block notices, Per Jayron. Also this was decided a few months ago, and if I remeber correctly, it leaned heavily towards disallowing removal. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - since most of the block notices don't say "This must remain until the block has expired", it is kind of open for people to think they can remove it, since we typically let people modify their Talk page however they wish. Maybe it would be useful to modify the Templates. -- Avanu (talk) 23:52, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
• Don't allow removal - allows users to game the system. Also, this is helpful if a user is trying to get a hold of a blocked user and doesn't realize they're blocked. --Rschen7754 00:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• In what ways could a user game the system by removing a notice? They'd still be blocked... Eagles 24/7 (C) 00:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

And when you edit the talk page of a blocked user, you get a message "This user is currently blocked", so you will necessarily realize that they're blocked. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:06, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

• Do not allow removal by user but there can be a note in the request unblock info that the blocked user can ask for the notice to be removed, and if an established editor thought that it was desirable, that third party could remove the notice. There would be no need for any bureaucracy (i.e. do not require a discussion with the blocking admin), but someone other than the blocked user should think that removal would help the encyclopedia. If it is a short block, the time will soon elapse and removal would be pointless fiddling. If it is a long block, there is a reasonable likelihood that someone will visit the talk page (without necessarily wanting to leave a message), and it is helpful for the situation to be apparent. The recent change to WP:BLANKING simply clarifies what the old wording implied (obviously an active block is a sanction). Johnuniq (talk) 02:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Or, you know, we can just allow removal of block notices since nothing is gained from forcing a user to keep it on their talk page. Is it that big of a deal that an uninvolved user would have to approve of a removal of the notice? Eagles 24/7 (C) 02:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Allow removal (possibly with exceptions in circumstances which it's really necessary.) Because theres something inherently unpleasant about a community which insists on forcing everyone we've ever kicked out on wearing a dunce's hat in perpetuity and I'm not convinced theres any adequate reason to do so. I think this applies especially in cases of controversial blocks and blocks of established users, where enforcing block notices through edit warring is likely only to create ill will and the appearance of grave dancing. Bob House 884 (talk) 02:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I think a lot of the arguments against are more applicable to expired blocks and warnings than to active blocks. It's very easy to tell if a user is currently blocked (if you don't know - click 'edit' on their user page or talk page), but it's more difficult to tell if they've previously been blocked (which requires accessing their block log - which isn't built in to the standard skin) or have recieved a final warning for something (which means going through the archives or edit history). Bob House 884 (talk) 02:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

It would be helpful to know whether we're talking about removal of the notice during the period of the block, or after the block has been lifted. Different contributors, above, seem to be talking about one or other of these. Clearly they're not the same. The policy, as I recall it, deals only with notices during the period of the block. So. Are we talking about "dunces hat in perpetuity" or merely keeping the notice in place whilst the block is in place? --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:17, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

"WP:BLANKING has seen a change recently to include active block notices on the list of items that can't be removed by users from their talk pages" (emphasis mine). I've taken that to be the scope of the discussion. Bob House 884 (talk) 02:18, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, my comment was based on the block notice covering an active block. That is, you get blocked, you get notified by the blocking admin. Don't remove that notification until the block expires or is lifted. After the block expires/is lifted, you can do whatever you want. --Jayron32 02:29, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

This discussion is about my change to the "Sanctions that are currently in effect" item. The edit introduced "notification of a currently active block" as an item that may not be removed by the user. Almost everyone agrees that a user may remove notices of expired or revoked blocks. Johnuniq (talk) 02:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Allow removal. Why not? What good will removing it do them anyways? What good does the template serve to those other than them? If they continue to vandalize after the block and require another block, the blocking admin will be able to see past blocks in the block interface, and if they ever apply for rights the admin there will obviously take a gander and their block log. This is a solution searching for a problem... Ajraddatz (Talk) 03:58, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Allow removal. Admins should use some method of keeping track of who's been blocked (such as the logs) which is not possible for the user to change. The mere fact the talk page can be played around with is why it shouldn't be relied on at all. The user page should be to communicate with the user, not to signal admins, not to be a Scarlet Letter. Wnt (talk) 04:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Do not allow removal While it may be the habit of some users who don't review things properly to just glance at the block log and pass judgement, a proper block notice (and any relevant discussions/information which indicate a more complete rationale for the block, including diffs) should be retained for the purpose of assessing whether a block is warranted, justified, and/or necessary. We have limited resources and if an admin or other users have already gone to the trouble of providing a rationale (be it for the user, for other admins, or for the community as a whole), it's not so that it can just be removed and then some admin can come along and then miss something crucial to the block. A block log is limited in the information it provides (more often limited to a general scope of the issue). We've already had one situation where an IP was causing trouble and pointing out how susceptible the system is to abuse and misuse of this kind; it was an embarrassment to pretty much all admins that the Community needed to invoke a site ban in that case in order to address the issue. We don't need more of the same for some misguided and unjustified belief that it is some scarlet letter; if we were forcing users to retain it after the block is expired, that may warrant such a belief, but the reasons are pretty clear cut for keeping it in view while the block is in force. I certainly will not support a view that encourages a deliberate and/or persistent gaming of the system. Note: this does not prevent users who are gravedancing to be dealt with appropriately, but this is different to providing information regarding why an user was blocked, or what other pattern of behavior or incidents exist in a particular case. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:24, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Instruction creep. We don't need special rules for this. The only type of situation where enforcing block notices to stay on the page is really worth the trouble is while a blocked user is seeking an unblock; if he prefers to just wait it out and move on there is no reason why anybody else should ever need to care about the notice. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Q. Would it be possible to modify the code to allow for something like a red notice at the top of the page that shows the log entry of the latest block? It's a quick solution that would be quite helpful to admins who might not have caught on to the block due to any blanking or a tedious, indirect back-and-forth on the talk page. ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 06:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

  Such a notice is already displayed when editing the page, and someone could write a script if someone wanted it shown at the top the page when simply viewing it. –xeno^talk 17:58, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

• Allow removal. The blocking information is available anyway to anyone who tries to contact the user. The rationale behind enforcing the notice is not clear, as it suggests that editors are encouraged to restore removed notices, which is a sure way of creating problems and tension for everyone concerned. Established practise per Wikipedia:Don't restore removed comments is that if a user removes a notice, then it is clear they are aware of the notice - job done, no further action needed. The reason we established that practise, is because restoring notices leads to edit wars and conflict, and is inclined to push a frustrated user into a nasty corner. If someone has a temporary block it is because we wish them to return. They may not return if we push them too far at a low moment in their Wikipedia career. Blocked users are not evil - they are just people who may have erred in some way, and some previously blocked editors have gone on to become admins. SilkTork *^{Tea time} 10:16, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal - I see no reason that block notices need to remain on a talk page. If anyone is interested in when someone was blocked, it is there forever in the block log. If they are interested in more than the information in the block log, all the information is avalaible in the history. I do think it is appropriate to leave the block notice on the page if the editor is asking for an early unblock. Then it is pertinent to an ongoing discussion and should remain otherwise they acknowledge they have read it and it has done it job and can be removed. GB fan (talk) 12:27, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal, nothing is gained by edit warring to keep them. If you want to outlaw something, better outlaw edit warring on other people's talk pages by re-adding warnings or block templates. —Kusma (t·c) 12:29, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Disallow removal, If you've been blocked, your block notice needs to remain in place so administrators (and other editors) can get the context of why your editing privileges have been suspended. Even if the editor acknowledge their mistakes and elect to sit the duration of the block, they probably recieved warnings prior to the block reminding them of what the community saw wrong with their actions. Once the sanction is no longer in effect, the editor is perfectly free to remove the block notice. In response to the arguments about remaining for an early appeal, it's nearly impossible to know if and when a user might early appeal their restriction. Is it reasonable to expect a restricted editor to restore the block notice before they make their early appeal? In response to the "Scarlet Letter" arguments: This is not a permanant branding, this is like anklet based house-arrest. After the period of the sanction is complete, the editor is perfectly free to return to the anonymous mass of the community. Hasteur (talk) 13:29, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Disallow removal. There are numerous reasons why it is convenient, if not 100% essential, for a block-notice to remain visible to all on the page of an editor while they are blocked. On the other hand, there are no reasons why removing it is a good idea. Therefore, the balance has to tip towards disallowing such behaviour. ╟─TreasuryTag►Acting Returning Officer─╢ 13:31, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Do not allow removal per above comments. I'm also not sure this is the appropriate venue to be rehashing a discussion that very recently had clear support somewhere else. In any case, I see plenty of reasons that active block notices are useful for others (transparency, context on the reason for the block, context for unblocking admins on unblock requests, etc), and the only major argument I'm seeing against that is "why not?". I've seen users try and remove previous unblock requests prior to requesting an unblock, which could "game the system" by tricking the unblock admin into thinking there was no previous context. I've also seen users remove active block notices, only to have others add content to their talk page, unaware the user couldn't participate. I've also been in situations where active block notices would have been useful to me, personally. Furthermore, my experience has been that this is currently the community's thought on this issue, as I've seen it pointed out to blocked users repeatedly, and our policy page should describe that, not prescribe a new rule by which we expect it to change.   — Jess· Δ♥ 15:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
  • I think I might unwatch this page for the duration of the discussion so I don't end up responding so often that I appear to be badgering...so this will hopefully be my last comment here. I don't think it's inappropriate to request discussion on the page designed to give the community a place to discuss changes to policies and guidelines. 27-17 or so in a !vote 8 months ago isn't so recent that I think it's inappropriate to discuss again, especially when it's a change to a practice that's been discussed many times and enforced in a different way for years and when the previous discussion didn't actually lead to the change. I agree that unblock requests shouldn't be removable while a user is blocked. (unless maybe if it's indef and they just want to blank their page completely) That's not part of this discussion. If users are adding content to blocked users talk pages, they should hopefully notice the big red 'this user is blocked' edit notice and realize they can't participate. Can you give a specific example of a situation where the block notice would have been useful? When I'm dealing with a specific user, it's probably unlikely that I wouldn't check their talk page history, make an edit to their talk page, or check their recent contributions...all things that would pretty quickly indicate their current editing status. If I understood what purpose past shaming the blocked user these notices were supposed to have, I'd likely change my stance. --Onorem♠Dil 17:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
    • re: "I've seen users try and remove previous unblock requests prior to requesting an unblock, which could "game the system" by tricking the unblock admin into thinking there was no previous context." Any admin who looks only at a blocked user's talk page without looking at contributions before reviewing an unblock request is not competent and should be desysopped. Eagles 24/7 (C) 01:57, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
• Disallow removal If you're blocked and it's not overturned or amended later, then it's proooobably your fault. And as we're all adults here (wait, lol), I'm sure we can all live with a little notice or two. It's not shameful, that's just psychological. Removing would make it more of a hassle to determine if a user is blocked. For example, if I want to ask a user for immediate help with an article when they've actually been blocked for a week, I'd like to know that before going ahead and asking them, because they won't be able to do anything. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 18:14, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

It's actually very simple to see whether or not a user is blocked - just open the edit screen for their talk page. And depending on the situation, the user may keep an eye on their talk page for the duration of the block, and be able to answer you there. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:09, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

• Allow removal - Blocking isn't a scarlett letter. Leaving the notice there is in no way preventive, it's punitive. Removal of the notice has been OK and standard for some years, and admins reviewing blocks have long had to (and expected to) go check the old talk page versions if there were any removals. It's not that hard. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:34, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal otherwise Wikipedia would be in breach of the license that applies to the addition of the notice. This license allows any one to modify the text and warns if you don't like people changing it don't put it there. However since it is intended as a communication to the blocked user, the blocked user should at least read it before removing. Once they have read it the blocked user can safely remove the notice. Others who care if the person is blocked will see the notice when they edit the talk page. Side effects on twinkle are the twinkle users problem, and the twinkler should use another method to edit if there is an issue. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:11, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal Users should continue to be allowed to remove all template trash from their talk page. The wp:own problem should most definitively not be expanded onto user pages. There is no need to troll and stalk (former) editors. It has nothing to do with the project. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 01:17, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal - user talk pages are for communication between a user and the rest of the project. Once the communication (notification of a block) has been received and read, the user should be free to remove or (at the end of the block) archive it. The matter of recording the present or past existence of a block is dealt with by block logs. Editors and admins wishing to see the history of an editor's block log or the history of that editor's talk page should consult the block log and page history. User talk pages are not the correct place to look for a record of such things and moving in that direction encourages admins and editors to be lazy and not look in the right place (i.e. the block log and page history). The matter of notices placed on a blocked user's user page is a bit more tricky, but that isn't being discussed here. Carcharoth (talk) 14:19, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal as doing otherwise may encourage pointless revert wars in a user's own edit space. — Kralizec! (talk) 22:06, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

  As in, allow vandalism because that might also lead to revert wars? ╟─TreasuryTag►Captain-Regent─╢ 22:07, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

  Vandalism? I don't think so. Eagles 24/7 (C) 22:11, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

  No, but I don't get this. Kralizec! (talk · contribs) appears to be reasoning that we should allow pointless, unconstructive edits in order to prevent edit-warring over them. That's ridiculous. ╟─TreasuryTag►tortfeasor─╢ 08:12, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: if removal is allowed, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Block_log_annotation may be of interest. Rd232 public ^talk 00:14, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal - this template is for the blocked user; the actual information is in the user's block log, which the user can't remove (nor can any other user, unless using WP:REVDEL). Very frequently, if a user has ever been blocked before, the previous blocks are as necessary for an admin reviewing the block as is the current block reason; and we definitely don't want to tell a user to never remove the block notices! עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:35, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

You seem to have misunderstood. This discussion is about removal of current block notices meaning the block is still active. Once the block expires they are free to remove the notice at any time. TMCk (talk) 12:08, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

You seem to have misread this argument which you are dismissing offhand. They're saying a) that the block warning is for the benefit of the blocked user, whilst the block log is the official record of blocks and b) that it's arbitrary to force users to display active blocks but not inactive ones as any sort of due diligence which must occasionally be done requires consideration of both. Theres no element of 'misunderstanding' in this, they're just pointing out hipocrisy in the 'do not allow' camp. Bob House 884 (talk) 13:23, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

• Don't allow removal.Users could be unwillingly engage in editing by proxy while not being aware that an editor is currently blocked. TMCk (talk) 12:01, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
  • If someone asks on their user talk page for an edit to be made, the obvious question (why can't they make the edit themselves) should be answered by looking at their block log. Editors shouldn't need a block notice on a user's talk page to tell them of this. They should learn to consult the block log instead. Carcharoth (talk) 13:10, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
    • I can only think of two possible reasons why any user would do an edit requested on the talk page of the requesting user:
      1. The request comes as part of an on-going discussion between theusers in question. In this case, should the requesting user get blocked, the other user would probably know about it.
      2. The requesting user is blocked, and has a request whgich is urgent enough to override the rule against proxying. Note that this clearly is a possibility - I once did such a thing, although I don't want to state the reason for this publicly.
    • עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 16:19, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal – Unlike unblock requests, if they wish to remove block notices from their userpages, that is not going to deny users quick information on the status of the user as removing an unblock request would (as one can see the block rationale while looking at the blocked user's contributions). –MuZemike 04:14, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
• Allow You can always see the block log. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 13:03, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
• Disallow removal - It makes it easier as an administrator if I can see the reason for the initial block when trying to determine whether or not to honor an unblock request. Often the block template has more information than what is in the block log. Sure, I can and do look into the history of the talk page if the block template is missing, but that takes extra time to look up and it's possible to miss it. I don't see that a block template is any more of a "scarlet letter" than the pink box you already get when editing the talk page. If leaving the block template doesn't do extra harm, and it's helpful to admins, I believe it shouldn't be allowed to be removed while the block is in effect, the same way we don't allow editors to remove declined unblock requests or ban notices (which again are no less "scarlet letters" than the block template). Keep in mind I refer to active blocks, editors should always be allowed to remove block templates for expired blocks. -- Atama頭 20:03, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
  • And how can you confirm that the block message is, in fact, the original one left by the blocking admin, without looking into the history? It's quite simple for a blocked user to replace the block template with a different one, and if the blocked user knows what (s)he's doing, he/she can use this to trick an admin into acepting the request. The real methods to know the background is to look at the revisions of the talk page leading up to the block, the diff of the revision where the block message was added, the block log entry, and communication with the blocking admin. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:04, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
    • The same argument can be made for declined unblock templates and ban templates, so should we allow editors to delete them as well? I'd say no. Any editor can make up bogus info on their talk page to trick an admin into unblocking them, but often that leads to a discrepancy which does nothing but raise suspicion and prompt the admin to look deeper into the editor's actions. When that reveals that an editor has been refactoring their talk page to fake their innocence, that would backfire and if I was the reviewing administrator I'd probably extend the block duration (if it wasn't indefinite) and almost surely revoke talk page access. -- Atama頭 22:14, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
      • First of all, block messages are easier to find in the page history, as they are frequently added by semi-automated tools which leave appropriate summaies automaticly - not to mention the fact that they are left by the blocking admin around the block time, and both of these can be found easily in the block log. Secondly, the poiint is that the block message isn't the best of evidence for the block reason - the block log is better; responded unblock requests are the best evidence for the reason for their own rejection. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:29, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
• This seems like a complete no-brainer to me. If we disallow removal, then we'd need to create a new process for block notice removal requests. Who wants to help police the WP:TPBNRRN (Talk Page Block Notice Removal Request Noticeboard)? Actually, this being Wikipedia, we'd probably find a group of people who're anxious to take time off from writing an encyclopaedia so as to run the process, but it strikes me as a whole lot simpler just to allow removal as we've always done.—S Marshall T/C 11:37, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
• Enforce with software, the block notice, however it is implemented, should not be removable.  It is pointless to enforce this with admin or editor effort.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:14, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
• Use common sense when deciding whether or not to allow the notice to be removed. If the user is removing the block notice in good faith, let them do it. WikiPuppies! (bark) 14:44, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
• Allow I don't think I've seen a single real reason these should be required to remain during the blocked period. Anyone engaging with the editor will see they are blocked, and can look back to see why. The only possibly valid reasons of having any policy here are those of being aware of bad behavior after the block has ended. There might be something to that in that vandalism right after a block can be grounds for a new block and someone mentioned being able to see that there's been a final warning. But keeping it up after the block is not being discussed here, and that would need a much broader policy discussion. If we're not requiring it after, there's no reason to keep it during. ‡ MAHEWA ‡ • talk 15:26, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal–Since these discussions are decided upon based upon the quality of the arguments and not on number of !votes I'd like to ask those that want to stop the removal to come up with one good reason why it benefits the ability of editors to create a better encyclopedia if editors are not allowed to remove the block template? If there isnt a good answer, and I havent seen one yet by any of those !voting here, then allowing for its removal should be allowed. A blocked user is blocked, they can not edit articles, it has achieved its purpose. A block or ban is NOT a scarlet-letter or informational for the Community-at-large as "badges of dishonor". Talk pages are not to be used to ruin the reputation of editors, mistakes are made, emotions get out of control, things happen. And yes vendetta's occur and editors get blocked for 24 hours because an admin has a bug up his arse, basically "shit happens". Who cares?! If someone is blocked, and it's not you, then it is none of your business why or when or how long they will be "out". Keep to yourself, keep the drama low, and stop with the instruction creep that is intended only to shame someone, and is in fact against the very ethos of our policies and has nothing to do with our purpose- to write an encyclopedia, not to create a society. Based on arguments, not !votes, in my opinion this discussion was decided long ago.Camelbinky (talk) 23:50, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal Removing it doesn't change anything. Neither does edit-warring it back in, which I am ashamed to say I have seen admins do from time to time. Policy has been long established that users may not remove declined unblock requests, as those are needed as reference for admins reviewing any subsequent request. That makes sense and should stay as it is. The block notice itself is not needed once it has been read by the blocked user, therefore they should be allowed to remove it the same as any other talk page notice. Forcing them to keep it up is pointless and demeaning, whether they deserved to be blocked or not. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:50, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
• Do not allow removal though noting this only for active blocks. Allowing them to remove block notices or declined unblock requests could allow an editor to post an unblock request with misleading information, and there's always the chance that an admin might not check very closely before unblocking. Most do, but there's always a slim chance an admin might look at an unblock request at face value. No, no change here is required. There are no negative aspects to keeping active blocks listed on a users talk page, and I can't think of any benefits to doing so. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 21:51, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I honestly don't see the logic here. Of course, we don't want them to remove block notices while they are still asking for an unblock. But declaring a prohibition on removing notices won't practically stop people from removing them. The danger that some notice might have been removed and a reviewing admin might be seeing a misleading page remains the same, and admins will always have to check for such manipulations, whether there is an "official" prohibition in force or not. Of course, if I come to respond to an unblock request and find that the block notice is missing, I'll simply silently restore it together with my response, as a matter of course. Obviously, if the user then decides to revert-war over it and remove it again, their chances of a positive review of their unblock request are going to be slim. But that still doesn't change the fact that if a user opts for not raising an unblock request but simply wishes to walk away, wait out the block and be left alone, forcing them to keep the notice against their will is nothing but institutionalized WP:DICKishness. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:09, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal. the block notice is for the benefit of the editor, Jewishprincess (talk) 20:37, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
• Allow blocks are not punitive. They are to protect the project. The intent of any message on the user's talk page is to communicate with that user; that's what talk pages are for. If they have read the notice, then they should be allowed to remove it. The record of the block is maintained. jsfouche ☽☾Talk 14:59, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
• Allow per above, the preventitive block becomes punative when a user is forced to display the notice against their wishes. Joefromrandb (talk) 03:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
• Meh allow. My first thought was do NOT allow, (easier to see the current status), but really, as someone above said... "It doesn't change anything". We're not here to embarrass folks (scarlet letter thing). I'd say keep the ban notices, and allow the block notice removal. People make mistakes, hopefully they learn, and everyone moves forward in a productive manner. — Ched :  ?  23:30, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal. There's nothing there that can't be seen in the block log of page history, and as mentioned many times above we're not out to embarrass people needlessly. TotientDragooned (talk) 20:15, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
• Do not allow removal. The presence of the notices is quite important on IP talk pages, where there is the potential for multiple users to be confused by a sudden inability to edit. I'd prefer (grudgingly, with some misgivings) to allow removal by autoconfirmed users because there are cases where blocks are misapplied and later overturned but nonetheless carry a degree of stigma while they last. But if the choice is either allow or disallow, I'd choose the latter.Rivertorch (talk) 23:03, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
• No, because some people would find it easier to go to the talk page to check whether the user has been blocked before. General Rommel (talk) 08:10, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
• Do not allow The notices serves two purposes, to let the blocked editor know he's blocked, and to let other editors know he's blocked. It saves everyone's time, especially those who think the editor might not be blocked, thus requests another block. Or adds now-useless warnings to their page. Or ask people to review the editor's edits because they aren't sure if they are inserting weird nonsense or weird (but legitimate) science. So a resounding no from me.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
• Do not Allow: Note: This only applies to active blocks. Jayron32 stated, "If users wish to not have block notices on their talk page, they need to not behave in manners which get themselves blocked.". When a user is blocked there is usually a reason (and advance notice), but there are exceptions even though some people believe all cops are good and "everyone" arrested is guilty anyway right? I was auto blocked (misapplied as per "Rivertorch" above) for no apparent reason -see my talk page under "Unblock". The problem was solved in short order and the block notice is still there. I leave it there in case someone ever mentions me being blocked although I did hide it during some maintenance.
  • I can not imagine why a user should be allowed to delete a current block notice. So they will not have a "scarlet letter"! I have not checked to see all the reasons that can lead to a person being blocked but I understand that it is "usually" after repeated warnings for doing something against policies. Wikipedia does not want to run editors off but being very liberal with no actual "rules" it is a serious matter to be blocked (accidents or mistakes notwithstanding) and all editors should be aware of this and the consequences. I also see repeated statements, "And when you edit the talk page of a blocked user, you get a message "This user is currently blocked"; so we have semi hidden scarlet letters? I have to remember to check to see if there is a notice that a user is blocked which is a waste of time. If a user is blocked, possibly because of an incident I am about to communicate concerning, I would like to know up front and I do not have to go any farther. Why should I have to be inconvenienced? I was auto blocked for no reason and I --still-- do not support an editor removing a "current" block notice as per "Headbomb's" comments above. According to some of the comments an admin can investigate to see what is going on. I guess admins have nothing really to do but "investigate" when it shouldn't be needed so lets put the burden on them? I guess it is better to make everyone else do more, work harder, and waste time than to just require active block notices to remain. Otr500 (talk) 11:51, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
• Allow User should have their own freedom, even if blocked.--GoldenGlory84 (talk) 22:32, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
• Do not allow: As someone who has been blocked in my time, I have to say that this notice is simply an honest statement of the situation at hand. Anyone finding their way to a user's talk page is sophisticated enough to know that there are many reasons for a user to be blocked, some more trivial than others. The notice will disappear as soon as the block is over, meantime it's quite valuable to contemplate the results of one's actions. The talk page is not, unlike the user page, a personal page completely ruled by the user; it is a page that serves interaction with the community - and invariably reflects the community's feedback on the user's activity. hgilbert (talk) 14:40, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Wrong. Talk page etiquette is same as user page. It is indeed the USER's page, not the Community's. It is specifically NOT a place to post what people think about a user or their feedback on the user's activity. It is only for use of communication with the user on collaboration of improving the encyclopedia. If you would like I'd be happy to post on your talk page what I think about your comment and you can decline to have an admin sanction me for it and then keep the comment up for all eternity and then maybe you'd get an idea of what it's like to have an insult on your talk page that you cant remove but know is wrong. 50% at least of all blocks are such.Camelbinky (talk) 15:16, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Do not allow. It's akin to deleting other editors' comments in a discussion. An editor's talk record should be archived, not manipulated. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:09, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal Sanctions are to protect the project going forward, in an effort to restore an equitable editing environment, so "enforcing" the visibility that notice to the blockee seems to contradict that. The notice is for the benefit of the blockee, in case they wish to appeal, and not for the wider community, so they should be able to remove it if desired. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:20, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Do not allow Blocked users aren't supposed to be editing anything with the sole exception of unblock requests. No other editing should be permissible while blocked, not even this. A block is a block. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 22:20, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal. Many users acknowledge talk page messages by removing them, knowing full well that the talk page history is available to anyone. If I block a user and my block message is removed, I assume good faith and interpret removal to mean that the user has accepted the block and its rationale. There is no harm in that. Disallowing such removal strikes me as punitive, rather than an attempt to prevent disruption. We already have a policy prohibiting removal of declined unblock requests. That is sufficient. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:27, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

If prohibiting a blocked editor from removing a block message from his user talk page is unjustifiably punitive, why is it justified to prohibit such an editor from removing an unsuccessful unblock request? SMP0328. (talk) 23:47, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Do not allow for the duration of the block. Mtking ^(edits) 00:38, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

This is not a vote, if you would care to provide some reasoning for your position that would be helpful. Thanks. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:07, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

• Allow removal. The culprits know they are blocked, and so will Wikians who edit their talk pages. Moriori (talk) 00:47, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• Allow removal - Reducing the "scarlet letter" aspect of talk pages outweighs any convenience established by mandating a keep of the block notice. If there are concerns that removing the block notice would reduce the quality the review of a subsequent unblock request, why not just include a requirement that the block notice be left up if an unblock request is created? VQuakr (talk) 01:02, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• By way of reply to the argument that disallowing removal makes it easier to see when a user is blocked and why, there is already a handy user script that does this for you. Blocked user's names are struck through, and their sig will roll over to show the block reasoning. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:07, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Subsection with compromise proposal

Would like to see if a compromise that was suggested above has support and consensus from the Community–allow removal of a block notice as long as it is not under a review request, if so then it must stay. Remember this is not a poll and these are not votes, they are weighed based on clarity and consideration of comments on WHY, so please put your full reasoning; and let's not devolve into arguing with others over their !votes as it often doesnt ever change anyone's opinion. Let's see if this resolves anything because editing continues at the policy page regarding the wording even though the thread kind of petered out.Camelbinky (talk) 07:14, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Pop-culture trivia lists shouldn't be in articles. And only culturally significant topics should have "Cultural impact" sections.

I have begun going through a large number of articles and attempting to remove those "In popular culture" sections that are just big disjointed lists of unsourced, unencylopedic trivia. Soon after I had started several users came in behind me, and began reverting, saying that they could find sources for the trivia items.

However, my main issue with these sections was not simply that there are no sources for the material. The primary issue is that these sections are just a big blob of unencyclopedic trivia, and/or are contained in articles on topics which have not had a significant enough impact on popular culture to warrant such a section in the first place.

I've never seen an encyclopedia that has a big list of trivial "This appeared in Episode 3 of a Super Mario Brothers TV series" references. Since we are purportedly trying to write an encyclopedia, I don't think we should compile big lists of pop trivia in our articles (with the exception of "List of pop culture references to ..." articles). What I would like to propose is that this type of garbage is removed from the encyclopedia altogether, en masse, per WP:INDISCRIMINATE.

Only topics that have had a significant impact on popular culture, as evidenced by the existence of sources that review their broader cultural impact should have an "In popular culture" section (better still a "Cultural significance" section, so we don't end up with a load of cartoon references). Samurai or Vampire are examples of topics that warrant "In popular culture" sections, due to the fact that works have been written on their broader impact on popular culture. I'm not talking about newspaper article that make passing mention of some anime character dressing up as a samurai, or that you fight vampires in level 7 of some video game. I'm talking about sources that discuss the significance of these topics in popular culture in general (in film, literature, etc.).

Whole-body transplant (one of the articles that someone reverted me on, saying he would find sources for its trivia) is not worthy of such a section, because no sources talk about the cultural impact of this topic. Yes, you can find pop-culture trivia about whole-body transplants for which reliable sources exists to back the individual trivia items. But Wikipedia is not a random collection of factoids. It's an encyclopedia. The article whole-body transplant does not warrant an "In popular culture" section, because it has not had a significant enough impact on popular culture that reliable sources talk about this impact. Adding an "In popular culture" section here would be analogous to adding a "Fashion" section to Diane Sawyer's article because a few random sources have commented on what a pretty dress she was wearing. Yes, I can find sources talking about her clothes. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to create a section that contains a list of random comments about her wardrobe. I don't feel like this sort of thing is fitting for an encyclopedia.

What I propose is an addition to WP:INDISCRIMINATE regarding "In popular culture" sections that states something along the lines of this:

4. Random lists of pop culture trivia: The only time an article warrants the inclusion of an "In popular culture" section is when reliable sources exist which describe the overall impact that the subject has had on popular culture (or some important subset of pop-culture such as film, literature, etc.). Just because you can find a source for a trivial pop-culture reference to the topic, does not mean that it is worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia article. Wikipedia is not a collection of disjointed pop culture references (consider making a list article of pop-culture references to the topic, if there are enough of them), it is an encyclopedia. Articles should discuss the broader cultural impact of the topic in a manner similar to other encyclopedias. If no sources exist describing the broader cultural impact of the topic, then the article should not have a section on cultural impact.

This is poorly written, and surely has many flaws -- but I'm just slapping it together here as something to get the discussion started. Is there anyone who would have objections to adding something like this? Trivial "In pop culture" sections are a plague that affects thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of articles on Wikipedia, and are one of the single largest sources of unsourced, unencyclopedia material. I think that adding something like this into policy would go a long way towards fixing this problem. ~ Mesoderm (talk) 08:34, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

This is all old news - and wheel re-invention for years there were debates about this - and it is why http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Popular_Culture exists.

viz: (1) WikiProject Popular Culture aims to preserve "In popular culture" and "Trivia"-type information in Wikipedia in a manner that does not compromise Wikipedia's core principles or its quality. - and noting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Popular_Culture#Information_salvage.

And who or how can anyone from any one culture determine significance without massive edit wars?

And only culturally significant topics should have "Cultural impact" sections. - can be quite a tricky issue SatuSuro 08:48, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

"And who or how can anyone from any one culture determine significance without massive edit wars?": One can determine significance by when you find a reliable source that claims that it is culturally significant, or talks about the wide impact it has had in art, literature, film, etc.

WikiProject Popular Culture aims to preserve "In popular culture" and "Trivia"-type information in Wikipedia in a manner that does not compromise Wikipedia's core principles or its quality. ... note the bolded part. Random lists of trivia are both compromising core principles (giving undue weight to trivia, for example) and seriously detract from its quality, which is why you will never see such junk in real encyclopedia (or just about any serious reference or scholarly work for that matter). ~ Mesoderm (talk) 08:54, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry you don't feel that such sections belong, but they have a pretty well-established precedent on-wiki. If you wanted to ban them you'd have to get it through an RfC. Throwaway85 (talk) 09:07, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there certainly is a precedent, but it's not based in policy. Rather, it's based on a bunch of users who don't understand our policies going around and inserting lists of trivia into articles (frequently without sources). Then other users to see them and say "Oooh, I can add Pokemon trivia to the article on Taoism". You very quickly end up with the nightmare we have now, with thousands of unsourced trivia lists containing absurd TV show and song references that don't belong in an encyclopedia article. I certainly plan to file an RFC, but before I did so, I was just curious if anyone had any objections that actually addressed problems that might be caused by the policy amendment I suggested besides (a) "Some people like random collections of trivia" and (b) "There are a lot of them and have been for a long time". ~ Mesoderm (talk) 09:23, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Do entries in such a list need sourcing if they refer to articles which are themselves sourced? It seems overkill to remove (for instance) a reference to the film adaptation "Misery" from Misery (novel) as you did just because it appeared in a list called "In popular culture". I think some other criteria should apply rather than simply removing such lists. Stephenb (Talk) 09:32, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

StephenB: You are correct, my removal of that particular piece from Misery (novel) was a mistake (I did not remove it because it appeared in a section called "In popular culture". I was working too quickly, and the fact that it was buried in a load of garbage caused me to accidentally overlook it). However, it does not belong in a "In popular culture" section (considering that the entire article is about something "in popular culture") but should rather be integrated into the article. Regardless, it was a mistake on my part to remove it. But I'm sure that the few mistakes I made in removing these dozens of overwhelmingly unsourced, and completely unencyclopedic trivia lists are far outweighed by the benefits of me removing them. And that said, my points regarding these lists in general still stand. My error on Misery (novel), and any other errors I've made, have no bearing on my arguments above. ~ Mesoderm (talk) 10:11, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

And again, StephenB, the issue is not whether each trivia item cites a source. The issue is whether or not encyclopedia articles should contain lists of random trivia (sourced or not). I don't think that random lists of trivia belong in encyclopedia articles. One reason that I do not think they belong is that I have seen dozens of encyclopedias, and not a single one contains random lists of South Park trivia. Another is that it is giving undue weight to trivia, which is a violation of a core policy WP:NPOV. And another is that things like having a paragraph about Pokemon in an article on Taoism seriously detracts from the credibility of the encyclopedia, making it look like a joke. ~ Mesoderm (talk) 10:18, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Lists of trivia are to be avoided in our articles. In accordance with WP:TRIVIA, relevant bits of information should be relocated to other parts of the article where they fit best. Bits of information that aren't relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject should be removed (and entire irrelevant sections blanked, if need be). So Mesoderm, you are doing a good service here. Thanks for going through and cleaning these articles up. Throwaway, I don't see why you are interfering with this valuable cleanup effort. Trivia sections have been actively discouraged for several years now and it is the goal of the (largely dead) Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia Cleanup as well as the trivia cleanup template to bring the remaining sections under control. ThemFromSpace 09:36, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Since we are voting, I'd support anything to curb the problem of uncited, indiscriminate trivialists. The wording needs tweaking, but the measure has its heart in the right place... to encourage high-quality articles and to discourage the formulation and expansion of low quality ones. ThemFromSpace 09:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that unsourced lists per se are not good, but neither do I agree with blanket removal which swept up sourced material as well. Also, some of the subjects removed were quite notable. In any case, I have recommended to Mesoderm to give some of us a bit of time to try and source material rather than get in yet another tiring delete/include cycle. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:41, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Please see my response to StephenB above. The issue is not just about unsourced lists (although these are, of course, worse and more common than sourced lists). The issue is about whether we should have lists of trivia at all whether or not they have sources. This is an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias don't include random lists of Family Guy and Star Wars trivia in their articles, ever. Take a look at what I'm suggesting we add to WP:INDISCRIMINATE. ~ Mesoderm (talk) 10:46, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the thrust of Mesoderm's argument. We are not supposed to have any "trivia" sections in articles, let alone stuff like "Foo Heavy Rock Band sing about Little Snodding in the 3rd track on their 5th album". --Bermicourt (talk) 11:37, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Mesoderm, have you ever been in a university library and see the depth of which discourse gets to on all sorts of subjects? There exist loads of material which doesn't necessarily need to be binned because you haven't heard of it or have not seen a source (but looks like there should/would be one). In any case, if you want to armwrestle over this issue for the umpteenth time you'll be expending alot of effort. Yes optimally we can find covering statements and analyses of themes of pop culture material but that may not always be the case. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:16, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

A list of mentions of an article's subject appearing in popular culture without explanation as to why they are notable instances of the particular theme come under challenged material, and are subject to removal and the burden is on the contributor to adequately source to prevent this. (And where example material is in list form, it is preferable to render in prose.) If we can't write encyclopaedically on these pop culture uses then we shouldn't be including them. Some projects have a better grip on this than others. WP:Aviation, for instance, dealt with a lot of Transformers triva by banishment to the outer wastes GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:43, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Casliber: Yes, I have been to a university library, and was also impressed by the volume of information available on all sorts of subjects. And I am not arguing against inclusion of that enormous volume of information here. Nor am I arguing against including lists of trivia because I "haven't heard of it or have not seen a source". It's fine if you don't agree with my position, but please don't misrepresent it. I have said repeatedly that my issue is not just the fact that the large majority of these trivia sections are unsourced. Even if ALL of it was sourced, it still wouldn't belong in most places for the same reason a section called "Hairpiece" wouldn't belong in Donald Trump, consisting of random references in popular culture to Donald Trump's hairpiece. (And it should never exist as a random list of disjointed factoids) WP:V is only one of our policies. Just because a piece of information has a reliable source that verifies it, does not automatically imply that it should be included in the article. Again, because I have been misrepresented so many times, I will reiterate: I am not saying that popular culture influences are not important, or that they shouldn't exist. What I am saying is that we should only have a section on culture influence for topics that have had a significant cultural influence (as evidenced by claims to that effect in reliable sources). ~ Mesoderm (talk) 20:36, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

(ec) This is a very complex issue. First, citations from good sources are required, to keep out real trivia and advertising (Amazon is not a usable source itself). After that, I'd look case by case, and be slightly on the liberal side. For example: Dinosaur has a "Cultural impact" section; Food web may scope for a "Popular culture" section, as the song "Ilkley Moor Bar T'at" is an old, pre-scientic illustration of a food web; and I could probably find excellent examples at Dog (Greyfriars Bobby, Lassie, etc.), Ape (King Kong), etc., and even Spiders (e.g Robert_the_Bruce#Legends). --Philcha (talk) 13:16, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Some of my example are historical, but I have no prejudice against current examples, if supported by good sources independent of the creators (excludes advertisers). --Philcha (talk) 13:16, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I suggest the retention / removal of cases should be reviewed by editors who have some knowledge and sympathy for the topic, to avoid a reviewer's prejudices (which we all have) influencing the outcome. --Philcha (talk) 13:16, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I've never seen an encyclopedia with infoboxes, categories, or talk pages; please remove those as well as the "pop culture" sections. I've never seen Family Guy, the Simpsons, or Norfolk, Nebraska in an encyclopedia, please delete those articles. Your arguments are on the same exact level as those I just gave, hope you can see that. Regardless of what people !vote here, your arguments suck. Anything other than "it doesnt exist in other encyclopedias" is needed. I think some people here just have bugs up their arses and if they dont like something being in articles then they should just not have them in the articles they write. Wholesale removal of information with no attempt to salvage the information and integrate it into the article and no research to source the information results in the sloppy work that was done, with Misery as the prime example of what can happen, per admission that it was "sloppy" work by the editor. We are, per our highest policies–a work in progress, your contributions need not be perfect, someone can fix them. What matters is that people, usually the newest people, are adding information of some sort and getting interested in Wikipedia, per WP:IAR. Clean-up their work, dont discourage them and remove it wholesale. I dont agree with the "notable persons" and "in popular culture" lists either, but when I clean them up I add the information, with a source, to the body of the work!!!!!! If you can't take time to do that, then DO NOT REMOVE THE INFORMATION!!!!! Fundamentally WP:PRESERVE. So you can state all you want that these lists are against policy, but per policy they are better than nothing and those adding the lists are actually doing more of a service through IAR in adding information than those who would remove information. Policy is NOT on your side in this arugment.Camelbinky (talk) 16:07, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Camelbinky:

Regarding categories and talk pages: other encyclopedias do not have these because the print medium does not make it possible or useful. (However, many encyclopedias do have "infoboxes" of sorts -- i.e. floating sidebars of information.) The reason they do not have articles on Norfolk, VA is that they do not have the human resources to write articles on every subject imaginable, and thus can only write about a limited range of topics. I think this is one of the strongest points about Wikipedia -- that we can write professional-quality articles on things like Norfolk, VA and Pokemon, because we've got an enormously large number of editors and no publication deadline.

However, it is possible for them to include random lists of trivia in those articles that they do write - but they don't. The reason is that they are trying to write articles that broadly explain the topic to the reader in an effort to increase their understanding of the subject. They try to focus on those aspects of the subject that are most significant. In the case of Zombies, talking about their role in popular culture is extremely relevant, and sources have been specific written analyzing the Zombie film genre, it's history, etc. A popular culture section is highly warranted there. But how does a paragraph about Pokemon characters in the article Taoism, a 2500 year old religion with hundreds of scholarly works available on the subject, help the reader to understand the subject matter better? (I'm not saying that this information doesn't belong anywhere on Wikipedia, but I don't think it belongs at Taoism. I think it belongs at Pokémon Black and White - assuming sources are found that feel it is relevant.)

You stated that "Anything other than 'it doesnt exist in other encyclopedias' is needed." Well, I provided plenty other than this. For example, it is also a violation of WP:DUE to include trivia lists in articles. Take my Diane Sawyer fashion example. Another example would be including a section called "Hair" in the article Celine Dion composed of a random assortment of quotes about her hair. Another example would be Jewish banker conspiracies. Why don't we have a list of those in the Israel article? I find it amazing that in all other cases, throughout the encyclopedia, we apply WP:DUE and remove information that is not relevant to a broad overview of the subject, yet we make a special exception for "In popular culture" sections. Articles are supposed to focus on those aspects of the topic that reliable sources deem important. Since reliable sources on Taoism, for example, almost never say anything about Pokemon, we should not mention them here. This is really, to me, the most important argument: I think we should apply WP:DUE to Transformers trivia just like we would with "Random Jewish banker comments" sections. We don't include random lists of information in articles, just because we can find sources for each of the items. WP:V is only one of our policies. We take other things into account, like: "Even though we have a source, should we be giving this piece of information weight in this article?" In many cases, the answer is no, even when we have a source.

Also, I do not agree with your statement that editors are "doing a service" by ignoring our rules and adding trivial information to articles without sources. I would agree with you if our goal was simply to aggregate a random assortment of as much information as possible. But our goal is to write a free, online, high-quality encyclopedia. Adding random lists of disjointed tangential TV-show references to articles is not conducive to this goal. ~ Mesoderm (talk) 17:57, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

First- I said Norfolk, Nebraska, not Virginia as many encyclopedia's do indeed have an article on the very important city in Virginia, two different Norfolk's over 1,000 miles apart. Second- Random Jewish defamation is not in any way comparable to trivia, I once asked Jimbo how it was different that some could not state something in an article that would be considered a BLP violation even if sourced if said about one individual but if they said it about an entire race then it was ok, Jimbo if I recall correctly stated there was no difference and sourced or not such a violation is not ok, so there is why we dont have random Jewish anti-semitic trivia, has nothing to do with it being lists of trivia And frankly I find your analogy to be highly insultive. Third- READ OUR FREAKIN' POLICIES, I listed several that show that We are a work in progress, you're contributions need not be perfect and the very heart of WP:IAR. Adding information that is accurate is always a service. Someone can always come along and format it correctly. When you remove that information you are leaving it harder for those who want to clean-up and make these articles complete to know that the information is out there. Fourth- I SAID I AGREE THE LISTS SHOULD NOT EXIST. But if you want to clean them up, the burden is on YOU to FIRST fix the information, deleting it is a last resort only if it can not be cleaned-up. I know because I was a party to several such discussions on the meaning of WP:PRESERVE two years ago.Camelbinky (talk) 21:38, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

And if I may quote from WP:Preserve - "As long as any of the facts or ideas added to the article would belong in a "finished" article, they should be retained and the writing cleaned up on the spot, or tagged if necessary." This is where Mesoderm differs in opinion from you - as to what facts or ideas or suitable. And this is not AfD, material removed still exists in the version history. GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:01, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Camelbinky: Try to tone it down with the screaming and "your arguments suck" comments. I have "read our freakin' policies", and don't feel that giving undue weight to trivia is in line with WP:NPOV, nor do I feel that lists of trivia are in line with WP:TRIVIA or WP:INDISCRIMINATE. I'm glad you agree with me that lists of trivia are inappropriate. But that's only part of what I was saying. Even if you put a bunch of Pokemon and Star Wars references in paragraph form, and added references, I still don't think they belong in Taoism per WP:DUE. Also, nowhere did I say that I don't believe that Wikipedia is a work in progress, or that contributions don't need to be perfect. However, I do believe that adding lists of cartoon trivia to articles like Taoism is not progress, for the reasons I've described above, and saying that something doesn't need to be perfect isn't free license to include content that is terrible (unsourced, off-topic, disjointed, and/or irrelevant). My main points, which very few people opposing the change have actually responded to, are that (a) Popular culture sections should only exist for subjects that reliable sources claim have a significant cultural impact and (b) these sections should not just be disjointed lists of tangential pop-culture references, but rather should be in the form of prose that discusses what reliable sources say about their overall impact on culture. I'm just trying to gain feedback on my proposal before I file an RFC, so that I can understand what problems, if any, people see resulting from inserting this into policy. So please don't start screaming and telling me my "arguments suck" just because you don't agree with me, and try to focus instead on explaining what problems you see with the proposal I'm making, and how you would improve it. ~ Mesoderm (talk) 22:31, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Mesoderm, and the proposed policy (or something similar) would be a welcome addition. --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:21, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

• Strong oppose to Mesoderm's overall opposition to "in popular culture" sections (cf. WP:NIME), any prescriptive measures against them (cf. WP:NOTPAPER, WP:CONSENSUS), and in particular his one-editor campaign of indiscriminately blowing them away wherever he finds them. —chaos5023 (talk) 22:28, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm rather sick of having opinions attributed to me when I do not hold them, so I'm going to place this in bold, since I've repeated it so many times: I am not opposed to popular culture sections. I am only opposed to including them in articles which have not had a significant impact on popular culture, and do not think these sections should be composed of disjointed lists of trivia. It is also false that I have "blown them away wherever I found them. As I've said before, I left the sections in several articles I came across, such as Samurai and Zombie , because of the myriad reliable sources that discuss their widespread impact on popular culture. See above for more on how I think this is different from the pop-culture sections in, say, Whole-body transplant. Please try to not use falsehoods and straw men to denigrate my arguments. Do you have a response to the actual proposal I am making (reasons why you oppose it, how you would change it, etc.) rather than to these straw men you have concocted? ~ Mesoderm (talk) 22:39, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Please tone down the screaming Mesoderm! Though I find those that say "screaming" about a written media tend to be childish, it is reading and if you raise your inner voice when reading bold or capital letters then that's your problem, I dont and those who tend to be of mature age (Gen-X and older) tend not to either. As for what "sucks" about your proposal we've already stated it!–it is not needed, it is instruction creep, it violates our policies, and you have a stick up your arse on what you dont like. And yes you are indiscriminately removing information without attempting to incorporate it into a "finished" article as required by policy, and it is required not optional. I had the optional part removed long ago. Quote policy all you want, but in the end there is nothing to justify your wholesale destruction of information and may find yourself brought to AN/I if an administrator finds it annoying enough, which I'm sure there are enough who already do and I encourage them to bring your actions before the Community to see if sanctions to stop you are forthcoming.Camelbinky (talk) 01:50, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

By all means go ahead and take me to ANI, if you feel that I've done something that is worthy of administrator intervention. I don't agree with you regarding your misinterpretations of policy, for the reasons I've laid out above (your need to cite IAR to justify your position is illuminating), but I am done responding to your comments: You are not addressing what I am proposing, are misrepresenting my positions, are being incivil for no apparent reason, and are unwilling to budge from your position regardless of what is said. I'm not concerned with whether you think "my arguments suck" or that I have a "stick up my arse" or that I am "childish", and will from here on out dedicate my efforts to talking with people that can provide more calm and reasoned criticism of what I am actually saying. Until you have something to say that actually addresses what I am saying, I will no longer respond to your posts. Bye. ~ Mesoderm (talk) 03:11, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

If you don't want to be called a WP:SPADE, quit digging holes in the ground. —chaos5023 (talk) 04:22, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

The comments I made to Camelbinky regarding misrepresentation, rudeness, and lack of any connection to the actual topic of this thread apply to your comments as well. I will no longer be responding to your posts either, unless you say something that actually addresses my proposed addition to WP:INDISCRIMINATE, and what problems you see with it. ~ Mesoderm (talk) 05:36, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Camelbinky: "I had the optional part removed long ago.". So you alone are making the policies? That seems a bit contrary to procedure, but it does make sense of your seemingly very passionate engagement here. --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:10, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

One gaping hole in all of the policies is a little more guidance on relevancy/notability/usefulness/significance criteria for CONTENT which would kick in only where there is a dispute. The most common place this shows up is in wp:npov issues (i.e. a gaping hole in that policy) but this is another example. I actually ran into an example where I felt the pendulum had swung too far the other way at the USS Missouri article. (a friendly difference of views, not a dispute) That an overly strict project standard ruled out significant, notable, relevant material just because it was culture related. So a bit more guidance in this area would be helpful. Probably not a rule, just a "please take the following factors into consideration:" type thing might be best. North8000 (talk) 10:46, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

That's true, but there's an easy solution for all of this. Sourcing. I'd say that requiring a source for every trivia, culture, famous people lists, or whatever woudl be over the top, but... if there's a question about whether or not specific items should be excluded then just find a source or two that mention the point. Seems like an easy solution, to me (even if abiding by that requires a bit of work and study. Horrors!).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:46, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but as I've pointed out several times, WP:V is only one of our policies. Just because you can find a reliable source that verifies a particular statement does not automatically imply that that statement should be in an article. For instance, I could find dozens of reliable sources commenting on Donald Trump's hairpiece, but that doesn't mean that we should include it in his article just because there is a source. We also have to take other policies and guidelines (including [[WP:DUE] and WP:INDISCRIMINATE) into consideration. ~ Mesoderm (talk) 00:50, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I guess that I just don't see a need to legislate this any more than is already done. I mean... people have a tendency to come here (or to talk pages, or policy pages) and rather severely over-think these things. There's a "feel" to these sorts of lists and content, you know? How much is appropriate is relative to several issues (the amount of other content, the relative importance of the topic, things like that), which makes attempts to delineate of exactly how many items to cover in all cases basically impossible.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:59, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

That's actually a very good point that I forgot to address: i.e. Yes, it's clear to most people that our current policies do not support the inclusion of random trivia. So why another rule? Why not just enforce the current rules?

The reason we add things into policies and guidelines is to express the WP:CONSENSUS regarding what to do in situations that frequently arise here. When arguments come up repeatedly over something (such as improperly quoting song lyrics or adding information without citing a source), we often write something into a policy or guideline that gives guidance on how we should generally deal with the situation, and why. Often these things are clear to most people. For those that cannot grasp the apparent consensus laid out in the current policies, we need to make the message more explicit: "No. An assortment of trivial Captain America and South Park references do not belong in the article for New York City". Then we just point to this guideline instead of having to repeat the same arguments over and over again ourselves.

"In popular culture" sections composed of lists of (often unsourced) trivial and irrelevant information are extremely common. I think it is a serious problem. Some people don't think that lists of random trivia are a problem, as long as they have sources for each bit of trivia. I think they misunderstand that this is an encyclopedia, and not an indiscriminate collection of information and that we shouldn't give undue weight to irrelevant information like trivial anime episode references. I don't understand how they can't see this; but for whatever reason, they don't, and so I have to explain it to them.

I shouldn't have to waste time explaining to people why we shouldn't be talking about Pokemon in the article Taoism (although maybe Taoism in anime would be a good place for the information), but right now I do. Such a large majority of people agree that random lists of trivia are not encyclopedic and are a serious and widespread problem here, that I'd like to make it explicit in WP:INDISCRIMINATE that these sorts of things are not desirable here. Instead of having to spend an hour arguing with someone about why a Captain America movie reference doesn't belong in the article for United States history, I can just say "See WP:INDISCRIMINATE", and go back to writing an encyclopedia article.

I agree with you that rule-creep is an issue, and that policy should not be added frivolously. But this is a problem affecting thousands of articles, and which takes up a lot of community time and causes a lot of unnecessary conflict. I think that it is worth dealing with through a policy or guideline, so we waste less time over it. ~ Mesoderm (talk) 07:54, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Comment - Popular culture is a significant topic in its own right and we are an encyclopedia about the real world, not an ivory tower. Sometimes the effect and relation of a thing to popular culture is relevant to the subject of an article, sometimes not. Sometimes popular culture sections are encyclopedically written and sourced, other times not. For example, Tom Lehrer sang a notable song, The Elements (song), about the Periodic Table, but that is too trivial in weight and faraway in relevance to add to our article about the basic building blocks of the universe. On the other hand, the popular culture section in Santa Claus is relevant to what Santa Claus means, because he is largely a historical pop culture phenomenon. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:35, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm kind of at a loss for words. I've stated over and over again that I am not opposed to popular culture sections. I've even placed it in bold text so that people couldn't miss it (although I don't know how they would have gotten the idea that I wanted to remove all pop culture sections if they had actually read my proposal). Yet this assertion keeps coming up over and over and over again. What could I possibly say that would motivate people to focus on my actual proposal rather than this oft-repeated straw man? I have already stated repeatedly that I and my proposal here support the inclusion of "Cultural influence" or "In popular culture" sections for articles like Samurai or Zombie (or your Santa Claus example, which is equally apt) that have reliable sources which cover their cultural impact. Please go and take another look at what I am actually proposing.

You stated that sometimes popular culture sections are encyclopedically sourced, sometimes not. I am saying that since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, we should remove those sections which cannot be encyclopedically sourced. I understand that some people like trivia. But this is not a trivia project. (Although I would fully support the creation of an official WikiTrivia project). Some people like dirty jokes. But we don't include those either, even if we can find a source for them, because Wikipedia is not a joke book. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and we should only include information that can be encyclopedically sourced. However a very large number of topics, such as Santa Claus, CAN be encyclopedically sourced, and should be. But again, because I've been misrepresented so many times in this arena as well: my issue is NOT with the availability of sources to verify individual pieces of trivia. My issue is with whether topics that do not have anything written about their cultural impact should have a section devoted to their cultural impact. I do not think they should.

Wikidemon -- I think that you are mostly in agreement with me, judging by your examples (i.e. that Periodic Table shouldn't include the aforementioned trivia, while Santa Claus should have a Cultural Impact section because of his enormous impact on popular culture). My proposal would have precisely this effect of removing said trivia from the Periodic table article while promoting the inclusion of a high-quality "Cultural significance" section in Santa Claus. Please do me the favor of actually reading over what I am proposing. I think you'll find that, although it could use some work, that it is precisely what you are suggesting with your examples, and that it would greatly improve the quality of an enormous number of our articles, which currently contain large chunks of sometimes sourced, but irrelevant and trivial, references to pop culture rather than analyzing the cultural impact of the article topic. ~ Mesoderm (talk) 00:50, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I've changed my !vote to a "comment" for now, and think your proposal merits more consideration than I can give it. Certainly, random lists of disjointed material, of the sort that might be called "trivia" on a site like IMDB. From "fight club": In the short scene when Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are drunk and hitting golf balls, they really are drunk, and the golf balls are sailing directly into the side of the catering truck. That sort of thing amuses some people but so what? Even if we wanted to, Wikipedia isn't an efficient or useful place to collect those things or any indiscriminate list. That's not how we're built, what we're here for, or what the reader needs to know. We do have to be careful when removing stuff just because it's in trivia form, because some of that stuff truly is relevant. For example, the following piece of "trivia", also from IMDB, says something that may be be fairly significant to the film: Author Chuck Palahniuk has stated that he found the film to be an improvement on his novel. If that relevant and significant fact happened to be mixed in with a randomly ordered bullet point list it ought to be worked into the prose, any citations found or improved, etc. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:16, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

There are some interesting ideas in the proposal, some good, some bad. ¶ The only time an article warrants the inclusion of an "In popular culture" section is when reliable sources exist which describe the overall impact that the subject has had on popular culture (or some important subset of pop-culture such as film, literature, etc.). Either I don't understand, or I don't agree. First, I don't see any reason to separate "popular" culture -- meaning recent culture from the infotainment industry? -- from any other culture. Secondly, if, in an extreme case, the subject of the article verifiably had an interesting echo (one about which people have been able to write) on just a single television program (or novel, or game, or album, or whatever), then I see no reason why a the lack of any impact elsewhere should rule out a description of this one particular echo. ¶ Let's look at the part that's been boldified above: I am not opposed to popular culture sections. I am only opposed to including them in articles [on subjects] which have not had a significant impact on popular culture, and do not think these sections should be composed of disjointed lists of trivia. W H Mallock has I think had no effect on recent popular or other culture other than via Tom Phillips (for artistic and also musical ends); but if his works were also to be picked up as punching bags by Julian Baggini or some other two-fisted atheist (i.e. in a way irrelevant to art, music or Phillips), they would still have little impact on culture (popular or otherwise) over the last eighty years -- and yet I think a section on "Later appearances of Mallock" would be justified. ¶ I too used to say that lists of appearances in popular culture appeared in no printed encyclopedia and therefore did not befit this one. This argument is poor, in that WP is fundamentally different from any printed encyclopedia -- as we know very well. ¶ The argument against including lists of appearances in popular culture (even when sourced) is that such lists generally tell us next to nothing about the ostensible subject of the article. ¶ There are also miscellaneous absurdities. For example, we have "Mermaids in popular culture". Its content isn't all bad. (The snippet on Zemlinsky's symphonic poem Die Seejungfrau is my own contribution.) But mermaids in popular culture as opposed to where? They've never had any physical existence; the mermaid is a cultural artifact, no more. -- Hoary (talk) 09:06, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

• Agree - with the limited scope as originally proposed for discussion. Mesoderm has made it clear this is a good faith attempt to gather input to make a planned RFC high quality in it's initial argument, which seems to me to be the essence of good faith. I'm surprised at the lack of flexibility in re-considering ideas that have been previously discussed, especially in not listening to his repeated attempts to refocus the discussion on his original point. His proposal may not be perfect, but he knew that when he made it - and basically, I believe he's right in that the project is becoming less an encyclopeia and more a blog. There is increasingly too much crap that is tolerated for too long. Kilmer-san (talk) 21:26, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Content in thousands of articles is at risk here for insignificant benefit. This is pernicious WP:CREEP. As editors and policy writers we are constrained by the content of the encyclopedia as it was created under policies which editors conformed to at the time of their creation and expansion in good faith. It is an intellectual betrayal to their effort to delete this material. It is vandalism and unencylopedic. The work to be done here is to attempt to organize it and to cite it better. patsw (talk) 00:57, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. I think this is already pretty well-covered at WP:TRIVIA and WP:POPCULTURE. I don't really think everything needs re-debating, we just need help cleaning up articles that have gotten a bit crufty. In general, I use the rule-of-thumb of checking for sources. The vast majority of trivia lists don't have sources, so they're easy to thin out. But if there's a reliable source explaining why a particular piece of trivia is culturally significant, then I leave it in. That takes care of 95% of the problems. Or to put it another way: Are there particular articles where the existing guidelines are insufficient? If so, they can usually be handled on a case-by-case basis. --Elonka 01:32, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
• I oppose what Mesoderm has been doing purely because, from the examples I saw, he wasn't doing it carefully enough. I only cited one example above but I reverted, or partially reverted, some others - as far as I could tell, he was simply blindly removing any section which contained "in popular culture" whether it contained useful information or not.[1] As for the general idea, I agree that lists of indiscriminate links under whatever section heading are a bad idea, but where there are justifiable reasons for including some links ([2] might be an example), we should first consider whether some rewriting might be required instead of equally indiscriminate removal. Stephenb (Talk) 09:22, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
• Strong oppose every topic should have this considered on its merits with no policy or guidelines restricting what is put in, and local consensus on each article can determine if the content is suitable. Any article could have a cultural impact section if there are sources which cover it and it adds value to the article. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:33, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - noting very carefully that what Elonka says above is simply re-iterating what I said high up at the beginning of all this - its all been through before - and both Elonka and Stephenb and Graeme Bartlett bring up salient issues - case by case is far more effective SatuSuro 10:07, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
• Comment I think its worth considering how the inclusion of the marginally relevant pop culture information that the OP objects to affects our public image. I think its important to remember that many people feel that an encyclopedia relying on user generated content is inherently unreliable. Using the example of information about pokemon in the Taoism article, if a wikipedia skeptic were to see that, their opinions about wikipedia would likely be reinforced, specifically, that anyone can come here and post whatever they want, with no editorial oversight. I have been continually bothered how this issue has seemingly never entered into any discussion on standards for inclusion. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 20:02, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

  We should not be changing articles or making policy in order to convince people that Wikipedia is a reliable source, because the people that consider an encyclopedia based on used generated content to be unreliable are right. Wikipedia is not a reliable source, as our own sourcing guidelines indicate. Wikipedia is an open wiki and so can never be considered reliable, and we should be discouraging people from treating it as reliable, to say nothing of actively trying to convince them to. Wikipedia is where you go for a summary of what reliable sources say and references that enable you to find those reliable sources, and if trivia sections help people recognize this, then they're doing a public service. —chaos5023 (talk) 20:15, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

  I would argue that we are, in most cases, just as reliable as a print encyclopedia (Reliable in a colloquial sense, not according to WP:RS. The main exceptions occur in areas not well covered by print encyclopedias). When I talk about people thinking we are unreliable, I'm talking about arguments such as "since anyone can edit wikipedia don't believe a word of it" as opposed to wikipedia is a tertiary source, so it should not be used as a source for a research paper. I agree with the latter view entirely. I feel that in the scenario you suggest, where a casual reader of the encyclopedia comes across an "in popular culture" section, and decides to take everything they read with a grain of salt, to be somewhat unrealistic. I think its more likely that they'd stop reading, and never come to wikipedia again. I do think its important to inform readers of our limitations, but I think that the manner that you suggest could easily backfire. That's why we have the disclaimers. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 21:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

  Also, when you say that that trivia sections may help people recognize our limitations, it seems to me that you are suggesting that we tolerate low quality material. I understand your motivations for doing so, but I don't think that compromising the quality of the encyclopedia, for any reason, is a good idea. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 22:03, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I reiterate the key is improvement and not deletion. I have gone through articles without cites for the popular culture entries and added them. I oppose policies that will make that impossible by preemption. New articles and new content can be policed a bit better for WP:V. The Wikipedia is only as reliable as the source material cited and the diligence of editors to check on the accuracy and relevance of its contents. So it is the unsourced or poorly sourced material that needs that grain of salt and improvement. patsw (talk) 23:26, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose Popular culture is the strength of Wikipedia. It was the strength at the beginning, and it continues to draw people here, both to read and to write. In most cases, they go on to other things also. The level of coverage should be the same as for everything else: the fullest coverage a general non-specialist reader might want to know. We are not paper, and need not limit ourselves to the scope of a condensed encyclopedia , I interpret "the sort of generalist coverage as meaning the ability to discuss the work intelligently with a true specialist, though not able to participate in the sort of specialist fan discussions than involve exhaustive knowledge of each detail. Essentially, scene by scene analysis, but not frame by frame analysis. for an actual example, I realized yesterday that I had accidentally skipped one episode of Grey's Anatomy. I expect the encyclopedia to tell me as much of what happened as if I had seen it, on the one hand not the academic analysis of every shot and every nuance that would take repeated viewings to absorb, but much more than the sort of summary teaser printed in newspapers and on DVD inserts.In terms of related works and cultural references, the actual interest of a fictional work depends on these. The experience of fiction is not the bare following of plots--its the revelation of significance through the relationship between not just the characters an, events and situation in the fiction, but to those outside the fiction. To use my example again, the appeal of that series is the very close relationship to the actual practice of medicine, and to the social and psychological issues that granscend medicine. The appeal grows as the show becomes part of the assumed cultural background for later works. (I give this one example, but it applies equally to the novels of Steinbeck and Bellows and Dickens and Tolkien and Rowlings or to fine arts or to computer games -- not that I consider them artists of equal merit, but that both the internal components of the fiction and the relationship of other fictional and RW events to it gives them their importance.

So what about the works that are of relatively trivial intrinsic merit as seen by most intelligent adults? We're not the judges of literary merit--if people take them as seriously as that of established artists, then they deserve equally thorough treatment here. We are not here to teach our theories of literature, but to show what others think.

Is there a limit? A single xkcd cartoon strip could in principle be the starting point fora book length cultural and (sometimes) scientific analysis, but that's the sort of excess that becomes OR; a page of text on each might get it right. A mention of the use of the strip in every notable work is relevant; an analysis of the use in every findable work in the world is not.

What about unbalanced coverage? I came here, after all, to improve the coverage of the traditional academic subjects. The answer is not to cut back the coverage of what we do well, but to expand all the other areas equally. Let us cover every pokenmon figure--and every chemical compound and asteroid, every battle in every war, both the wars that shaped the destiny of the world and the ones that to us are more obscure, every individual painting of Rembrandt—and Warhol; every song by Schubert—and the Beetles.

And finally to answer directly the proposal: popular culture lists should be expanded into detailed discussions of each elements, and all notable topics are by their inherent nature culturally significant and should have as full cultural significance sections as the evidence warrants. DGG ( talk ) 21:10, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Nicely said.--SPhilbrickT 21:42, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I really hope you aren't suggesting that all articles deserve an IPC counterpart. That is certainly not the direction we should be heading. Cited, prose summaries of popular culture are acceptable, while exhaustive indiscriminate lists (of anything, not just popular culture references) are hardly ever considered to be encyclopedic writing. ThemFromSpace 09:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

No I am saying that if the topic is notable enough to be covered, the sourceable popular culture aspects of it are, in an appropriate place. I'd guess that for 80% of Wikipedia articles there are no such relevant sourceable aspects, for 19+% there are, but they should be covered in the article, either in a separate section or where more specifically relevant, and for considerably less than 1%, would there be enough good material for a separate article. I am not and never have been in favor of needlessly multiplying the number of articles, juyst of increasing the content. DGG ( talk ) 00:52, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose and endorse DGG's response above. The proposer insists that they're not opposed to trivia sections as long as they're sourced and relevant, but this is already covered in existing policies and guidelines. The WP:TRIVIA guideline says 'this guideline does not suggest removing trivia sections, or moving them to the talk page. If information is otherwise suitable, it is better that it be poorly presented than not presented at all' (emphasis mine). In other words, improve (and only failing that, remove) material if it isn't suitable (per verifiability, due weight or any other standard criteria) and keep material that is. No changes are needed here. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 03:05, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Surname clarification at top of article

We have a wide variety of surname clarification templates for use where the subject has a non-English-style name. These messages appear as a hatnote above the article and look like this (for example): Template:Dutch name Template:Chinese name In my opinion this is completely unnecessary and only takes up space, distracting from the lead and presenting a slightly aggressive tone to the reader. If the family name is not obvious from the name alone, it will be immediately obvious within the first few sentences and throughout the rest of the article, because that is how we will address the subject. I don't understand, then, what these messages do.

I saw such a message at Salva Kiir Mayardit, who is referred to as "Kiir". I tried placing it in a footnote but it was reverted because (apparently) it was inconsistent with the templates. I think a footnote is a much more reasonable location for this kind of message. The lead is for the most critical biographical details, and an explanation of the subject's name order is trivia at best. Non-English name formats don't require what appear to be warning messages to the reader. —Designate (talk) 21:32, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

My personal opinion in a nutshell:

1) Users shouldn't have to read any part of an article to figure out that it is the wrong page.

2) A note for a redirection:

2.1) is definitely not unnecessary,

2.2) is not distracting,

2.3) does not present an aggresive tone to the reader,

2.4) should not be placed at the absolute bottom of an article,

2.5) carrys the purpose of guiding the reader.

3) I hope this helps.

My personal opinion unnutshelled: 1) users shouldn't have to read the first few sentences or even words or in fact, anything at all, of the article. It needs to be visible immediately so the user can redirect themself to the appropriate disambiguation or article. 2) 2.1) I am going to contradict what you said, in fact, directly, because it is definitely completely necessary from what I stated above, contradicting “this is completely unnecessary and only takes up space”. 2.2) And also contradicting “distracting from the lead”: it is definitely not distracting, with a small stub-style note at the top. What I think is maybe slightly distracting is templates at the top. 2.3) Also contradicting “presenting a slightly aggressive tone to the reader”: I have absolutely no clue how it is. Please elaborate. 2.4) Also contradicting, “a footnote is a much more reasonable location for [a redirection]”: It is not, because viewers are forced to scroll to the absolute bottom of the page for a mere redirection. Also explaining: 2.5) The purpose of these messages is to help and guide the reader to a redirection to a disambiguation or article page. Also, 3) I hope my comment may help you improve your knowledge on such templates. Thank you, and sorry if I had previously offended you by (directly) contradicting your text, quotes, comments, etc. Thanks again, A person who has been editing Wikipedia since October 28, 2010. (talk) 04:34, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I'm not talking about redirection templates. —Designate (talk) 05:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I know: a redirection to a different family name. A person who has been editing Wikipedia since October 28, 2010. (talk) 21:31, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I am baffled. —Designate (talk) 22:09, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

In many biographical articles, it is anything but "immediately obvious" which is the surname. This is especially true with new articles—often written by the subject himself or herself or a close associate or fan—whose authors use given names throughout, contrary to proper style. For those of us (and I think it's most of us) who aren't experts on the order of full names in a given language, these hatnotes seem to be the most efficient, least intrusive way to determine surname. The only alternative I can see would be a parenthetical note immediately after the boldface name in the lede itself. Now, that would be clumsy and distracting. Rivertorch (talk) 10:06, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

The "least intrusive way" is a footnote. This is putting undue weight on a style issue when the lead is supposed to focus on content. —Designate (talk) 18:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:ACCESS demands that disambiguation notes like this be placed before content. It is particularly important to people who use screen readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not talking about disambiguation notes. —Designate (talk) 18:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Right. Nonetheless, the principle is similar. Why should someone have to follow a footnote or scroll to the bottom of the page to discover one of the most basic facts about an article's subject? As well as summarizing the body of the article, the lede is supposed to state clearly, succinctly, and unambiguously what or who the topic of the article is. This template, rendered in one line of text, allows that obligation to be fulfilled. Rivertorch (talk) 19:03, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

• I agree that these notices are intrusive when formatted as hatnotes. A footnote makes information easily available to those who need it and does not distract everyone else. I don't see how this has to do anything with accessibility.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 14, 2011; 19:18 (UTC)
• I agree with the OP that these are not disambiguation templates (even though they, IMO, incorrectly, use the disambig metatemplate style). I agree with others that this sort of content should be addressed in the article, perhaps with footnotes. older ≠ wiser 19:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
• These are not disambiguation hatnotes, but they do share with dab hatnotes the feature of possibly informing readers whether or not they have landed on the right page. I see no reason why their style should be any different from a standard dab hatnote. I disagree strongly with the proposal to turn these into footnotes - it is useful to have this info at the top of an article, and I do not find it "intrusive" at all. I can see how notes of the form "name is X not Y" might appear "aggressive", but this can be dealt with by rewording. It's a content issue, not a style issue. --NSH001 (talk) 01:11, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm trying to picture how someone visiting Ban Ki-moon would think they were on the wrong page, for example. Even if someone thought his family name was "Ki-moon", they would still end up at the same page, wouldn't they? —Designate (talk) 01:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

• Delete or Reduce I propose either reducing in size or Deleting. Distracts from the Lead and is just an interesting fact about naming customs, not dealing with the subject at all. If the reader wants more information on the naming conventions used in a particular subjects demographic, he should be guided to the wikipedia article on the naming convention subject (ie. Spanish naming customs). Readers want to reach the history, living era, and acomplishments of the articles subject, not be bombarded with facts in italic type face as the first thing they see. Adding as a Footnote would be the same as deleting to me. QuAzGaA 01:34, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep hatnotes on the basis that they are informative and are immediately available to help a reader understand the structure of a person's name. You raised four points in opposition of these hatnotes. You said "only takes up space"; we are not a print medium, we have no space constraints, and frankly one line of text is not occupying much space to begin with. You said "distracting from the lead"; I do not find this to be the case at all, sorry. You said "presenting a slightly aggressive tone to the reader"; I cannot see how an informative line of text about the nature of a person's name can possibly be taken as aggressive. You said "if the family name is not obvious from the name alone, it will be immediately obvious within the first few sentences and throughout the rest of the article, because that is how we will address the subject"; this may be so, but it does nothing to educate the reader on why the subject is addressed as such. On the article Salva Kiir Mayardit you mentioned, it appears CycloneGU has removed the information altogether, and there is now no explanation whatsoever as to why he is referred to as 'Kiir' during the article. A footnote is certainly better than 'not there at all', but I don't see any compelling reasons why a hatnote is unsuitable in the first place. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 03:21, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Space is constrained by principles of good layout, which apply on the web just as much as print media. Simplicity is a universal principle (see Google vs. Lycos, Facebook vs. Myspace, etc.). The issue of what is "distracting" is debatable, but if it's in italics and has the word "not", it looks like a warning or an important message with a negative tone, and the reader's eye is drawn to it first. Screen "real estate" needs to be used judiciously: ideally the reader's eye would be drawn to the first sentence of the article before anything else, because that's the most important part of the entire article. If there's a good chance the reader is on the wrong page, a hatnote to a disambiguation page is unavoidable. It obviously can't go into the article body because it has nothing to do with the subject. But this hatnote, which is a minor note about the subject, is only at the top of the article because it doesn't fit comfortably into the text. That's not a good reason for prioritizing it, and a more subtle placement would be more appropriate. —Designate (talk) 21:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• Keep hatnotes. I agree wholeheartedly with TechnoSymbiosis' responses to the nominator's concerns. I believe it is important to alert a user that they may be misinterpreting the subject of an article as soon as possible, and this is certain true with names (especially BLPs). I disagree with the nominator's sentiments that hatnotes are "aggressive," and ask that they provide some evidence that these could potentially be disruptive, because I'm just not convinced by the current line of reasoning. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 05:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
• They are mostly unneeded and obtrusive, giving undue weight to a technicality, not relevant for the biography itself. If someone misuses the subject's name, then correct that use; in the few cases when highlighting the family name is important, then add it to the lead, or a to section. All in all, it is highly unlikely that the name structure is the first and foremost information sought in a biography - Nabla (talk) 19:30, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Note: This kind of hatnotes is pointed as an example of improper use at WP:Hatnote, since early drafts back from 2005. - Nabla (talk) 21:21, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

• Lose from articles - having looked for an example at "Lucky" Leif Ericson, the hatnote on Ericson not being his family name seems a pointless promotion of what is a side issue to undue prominence. On authors do we add a hatnotes "This is a pseudonym or pen name. The person's real name was.....?" GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:25, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Racial and sexist profiling in Wikipedia categories

Based on the "category by gender" discussion above, I went looking at categories to see if I was crazy, and I don't think I am, but please help me decide. Let's compare categories that we have, (which means as a community we think they are acceptable) compared to categories that we don't have, (which means that either they are unnecessary, or we don't think they are acceptable):

Jews/Christians/Muslims

• Category:Jews in the Land of Israel, Category:Jews in Jerusalem, Category:Jews in Ottoman and British Palestine, but not anywhere else.
• Category:Christians in the Ottoman Empire but not anywhere else and no Category:Muslims in anything

Nazis

• Category:Nazis in South America but nowhere else. Why here? There is no KKK category.

Men/Women

• Category:Women in war, Category:Women in politics, women in lots of things, but not Men in anything except Category:Men in Black (film series)

Racial profiling

• Category:Asians in film and theatre, Category:Black people in art and Category:Black people in European folklore, but not anywhere else. Why here? Didn't see any other race categories.

As a community how do we determine categories? Do we find this list acceptable? USchick (talk) 01:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Frankly due to the facts of history a "men in war" category would be unneeded because until quite recently it was EXTREMELY beyond rare to find women in war, which is why articles on specific women who fought in wars like the US Revolution exist, if it was common back then, then those women wouldnt be notable in the first place, they are notable because it was something notable to be a woman involved in war. Many of the other categories are along the same lines. As for no "Muslims in..." anything, that should be taken care of and hopefully is, you just have to find an editor who wants to take the time to find the relevant articles for such categories and take the time to add them in, but if no editor feels like doing it, then the category doesnt get made and it does NOT affect the legitimacy of the Jewish, Christian, etc articles. A category not existing does not as you suggest mean that it is unnecessary or illegitimate; it can in many cases simply mean–no editor cares enough to make the category.Camelbinky (talk) 02:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) I am going to answer your question in two different but related parts.
  • The culture and society at large has made women in XXXX or Black people in XXXX noteworthy by excluding them systematically from XXXX historically speaking. That we wish this was not the case doesn't necessarily make it so. We can wish for a world where gender and skin tone do not play a factor in determining one's role in society, and we can work towards it, but we cannot accurately portray the history (and indeed in many ways, the current world) as it exists by pretending such inequalities do not exist. Taking the gender role: The reason why it isn't noteworthy to make special mention of men doing certain things (like being soldiers) is that it is expected, by society at large, that men would do those things. When women do them, it is considered out of the ordinary to the point of being worthy of taking special note of it. Again, working for a world in which this is not the case (which we all should be doing) is not the same as accurately reporting the world as it exists. Thus, because the world in which we live makes special note of women doing certain things, Wikipedia reflects that as well. When men do the same things, it is considered commonplace and not worthy of making note of, which is why Wikipedia does not.
  • That being said, I do think there is too much reporting of things like gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, and the like. Wikipedia articles should only make special note (whether by text, category, infobox field, etc.) of the arbitrary categorization of a person where such categorization is intricately tied to the reason the person is notable. Thus, an article on Jackie Robinson may need to prominently note that he was a Black baseball player. One cannot accurately tell his story without noting it. It is intricately tied to that story, and to "skip" that part would make telling the most important parts of his life story impossible. However, merely because the Jackie Robinson article makes special note of the fact that he was Black, doesn't mean that every article on every black person needs to do so. Dontrelle Willis is a black baseball player, but there's no special need to deal with that fact in his article, because that fact isn't part of the narrative of his baseball career. There was never a time when white players were excluded from Major League Baseball, so there is never a time when whiteness is something that needs noting in an article about a baseball player (see my above point). The point of this is that sometimes, in order to accurately report something, mention of a person's race (or religion, or gender, or sexual orientation, or national identity, or whatever) is by necessity prominent. That does not mean that either a) every person who shares the same race (or gender, or religion, &c. &c.) needs to have that fact noted or b) that every race (or gender, or religion, &c. &c.) needs noting. It is only because Wikipedia strives to accurately describe historical (or even modern) events as they were that such noting is needed.
• In summation, I generally disagree that it is never appropriate to describe people at Wikipedia by gender, race, nationality, &c. However, I do agree that in many places, such descriptions (where irrelevent) are overused. Also, the fact that society made it unusual (and thus noteworthy) for women (or blacks, or jews) to hold certain roles means that that attitude needs to be reported accurately by Wikipedia. Since society didn't necessarily hold that a different gender (or race, or religion, or &c.) was unusual in serving that role, it isn't necessary to make special note of it at Wikipedia either. --Jayron32 02:19, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your answers, I guess this is more complicated than I thought. Maybe we should take them one at a time. USchick (talk) 03:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that it's beyond complex because it is a double standard driven by political correctness. No categorization allowed in "hot" areas unless it is to laud PC-favored groups or diss PC-disfavored groups. North8000 (talk) 12:47, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Nazis

• Category:Nazis in South America why is this group singled out and tracked by location? USchick (talk) 03:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Because historically South America was a big destination for German Nazi's fleeing prosecution (or worse from the Soviets) at the end of WWII, there was a plan to relocate to Paraguay and set up the Third Reich-in-exile and exist from a new S. American "empire". It's a notable topic that is researched by historians.Camelbinky (talk) 05:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Descriptions in categories are not common. However, this is a case where adding a description which explains why the category is relevant would be useful. Another option would be to avoid categories where categorization would not be systematically complete but use lists instead. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 10:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

This isn't "people native to South America who happen to hold Nazi beliefs". This is more like "High-ranking, mostly German, Nazi officials who decided to hide in South American countries with limited extradition treaties after WWII, for the purpose of saving their own skins". People know even a little about the history should have no trouble guessing the likely criteria, but I think that adding a description would be perfectly fine, if anyone wanted to do it.

Also, the redirect Nazis in South America should probably be listed in the cat. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I realize that this is 8 days old now, and all, but... "People know even a little about the history" is no small thing, unfortunately. Sorry, but I just couldn't let that one go by without comment. I agree though, that a description for the category would be a good thing. You know, there's really no reason that category pages do not contain content. Not that they need full articles, but the lack of content on category pages is really just laziness, and adding descriptions generally could help resolve a lot of these types of issues.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 14:53, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Tracking people

According to policy: Categories should not be based on religion unless the belief has a specific relation to the topic. There are too many categories that single out Jewish individuals and track them by location. Category:Jews in the Land of Israel, Category:Jews by region, Category:Jews in Jerusalem. There are no other religious or cultural groups being tracked by location, perhaps these categories should be reclassified in Category:Jews by country, which is a container category that lists various subcategories or Category:Jews and Judaism in Jerusalem. USchick (talk) 03:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Judaism presents a particularly tricky situation, since it is BOTH a religion and an ethnicity, and in some historical contexts, a "race", and the term represents a group of people which have been historically singled out specifically for being "Jews" and persecuted as such. To my points above, would you rather that the article about Elie Wiesel made no mention of his jewishness? Society at large cast "Jewishness" as a category unto itself which deserved special attention (especially historically), and that makes it quite different from other religions, like say being a Jain or a methodist or a daoist. Again, it shouldn't be this way, but it has been and to ignore the special way that Western culture has treated Judaism (as a classification of people) is to not cover the full story. Again, that doesn't mean that the label is always applied correctly at Wikipedia (or even that it happens correctly most of the time), but rather you need to take Judaism as somewhat different from many other religions. The article Who is a Jew? is particularly salient to this issue, and it is indeed very complex. --Jayron32 05:15, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Your premise is false. "There are no other religious or cultural groups being tracked by location"—except for Category:Christians by continent, Category:Muslims by continent, Category:British Hindus (and many more), Category:Indian Bahá'ís (and many more), etc. There are whole trees under Category:Ethnic groups by continent, and every ethnic group is (by definition) a cultural group. We have hundreds of these categories. You just didn't search thoroughly enough to find them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:17, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Using race as a category

According to policy Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality, Category:Race is never applied to subcategories of Category:People.

• Category:Black people in art can be reclassified in Category:Art by nationality
• Category:Asians in film and theatre can be reclassified in Category:Film by culture. USchick (talk) 03:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Let me point out to you this is not racial profiling. So please stop using that term in accordance to this. --Shakesomeaction (talk) 03:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree the name "racial profiling" should be changed for this section, and its further use in discussion stopped. African Americans (Blacks) are not a nationality. Asians are not a unified culture, Turkey is Asian, Iran is Asian, India is Asian. Even the "oriental" nations are not unified in culture, Japan and China and Korea and Vietnam and Indonesia are all quite different in culture. You gave bad examples.Camelbinky (talk) 05:09, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I changed the title of this section. USchick (talk) 14:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Your first proposal indicates that you don't understand the simple description at the top of the category. We can no more merge "Black people in art" into "Art by nationality" than we could merge commons:Category:Bananas in art into "Art made by bananas". That category is for works of art that show black people, not works of art created by black people.

"Asian", by the way, can be used to indicate race, ethnicity, or location. It is not as clear-cut as "white". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:23, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

What about this relatvely small category. In my opinion much more articles could (should?) be categorized here... S.I. Oliantigna (talk) 07:47, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Men/Women

There is no category "Men by culture." I understand about women's contribution in history. If you're looking for Spanish people (or any other people), and you go to the Category:Spanish people you won't find any women there because they have been intentionally excluded (and listed under "Spanish women"). Unless you really understand the intricacies of WP, you don't know to look for Spanish women separately from Spanish people. It took women hundreds if not thousands of years to be considered as "people" and even today women are excluded from the category of people on WP. There has to be a better way. USchick (talk) 03:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Women are considered people when they are a subcategory of people. If you do not consider women people under these terms, then people separated by occupation, whole families, and slaves are not considered people because they are included as subcategories. Men usually have a category by default. That has been true since the beginning of time. I would assume someone who is interested in women's history would be aware of that. --Shakesomeaction (talk) 04:01, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Women have always been considered people. Dont mistake the legal situation Blacks were in, in the US with the status of women in the US. Women were always considered people and citizens.Camelbinky (talk) 05:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you are confused by my examples. I used those examples purely to show those are sub categories in the African American people category (or any "people" category) , which has been discussed with this user in another conversation. Not because I am comparing either group's struggle. --Shakesomeaction (talk) 14:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I wasnt making that comment about your comment Shakes, I was talking about Uschick's. Sorry about that.Camelbinky (talk) 15:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Um, yeah USchick, I don't see any women listed under the category Category:Spanish women, and the sub-categories are fairly sparsely populated, all things considered, as I would expect them to be given the policy you keep citing. On the contrary to your assertation, I see MANY women listed on the page Category:Spanish people. Women haven't been excluded from that page, as you keep claiming. Women are also well represented in the subcategories as well. Just on the main "Spanish people" category, without going any deeper, I can see Estrella Archs and Infanta Cristina, Duchess of Palma de Mallorca and Sonia Martínez just to pick three at random. So I am going to call "bullshit" at your assertion that, and I quote you USchick, "you go to the Category:Spanish people you won't find any women there because they have been intentionally excluded (and listed under "Spanish women")." That is complete and utter bullshit, because it is demonstratable not true at all. --Jayron32 05:24, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Category:Spanish people is too diffuse and should be populated by subcategories, not individual biographies. I'm not following UShick's argument. Does it dehumanize Category:Spanish billionaires or Category:Spanish royalty to be subcategories of Category:Spanish people? The question is whether Category:Spanish women is a verifiable category. (I'd say if it exists, it should be populated only by subcategories for which a body of scholarship exists, for example Category:Spanish women writers.[3]) As I said in another discussion, WP:Cat gender permits the creation of gender-based categories if gender is key to "a topic of special encyclopedic interest." That's why "women's history" exists as an academic discipline. From some feminist perspectives, it may irk to have Category:Spanish women and not Category:Spanish men, because it may imply that maleness is the norm for "people" from which women depart. But categories exist to aid users' research, not express individuals' political sentiments or a philosophical stance. The discussion should be framed by the wording of the relevant guidelines. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:31, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I guess everything is fine then. FYI, the US Supreme Court only recognized women as people in 1971 in Reed v. Reed. And in 2010, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that corporations are "persons" protected by law, but women are not. [4] [5] USchick (talk) 14:59, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

That case had NOTHING to do with women being a person. A non-person can not vote in the US and women already had the right to vote. And the US court case did not exactly say corporations are people. You taking things out of context and drawing wayyyy to much conclusion from things. Women still dont make as much as men, but they are still people. Drawing arbitrary lines like that and saying women werent considered people because they didnt have all the rights men had is not the correct conclusion. You can be considered a citizen and not have all the rights of other citizens, to be a citizen you MUST be a person, so if you are seen as a citizen you are a person. Just ask the people in DC, Guam, and Puerto Rico if they are people, they are citizens without the full benefits of citizens in the 50 states.Camelbinky (talk) 15:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Uschick, you seem to have a major problem with misrepresenting information to serve your own purposes here. Reed v. Reed doesn't contain any language which seems to agree with your assertion that "US Supreme Court only recognized women as people in 1971". I cannot find any information in the article itself, in the text of the court ruling, or in commentary about the case which asserts that. This, coupled with your above misrepresentation, indicates that you are either grossly negligent in actually checking facts before you make statements, or you are deliberately bullshitting us and making false claims on purpose to try to make some point. Which is it? --Jayron32 15:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps he's simply reading the journalists he's linked? [6] says, in relevant portion, "The Supreme Court didn't get around to finding that women are people, too, until 1971...."? (Not a good idea to rely on a journalist's interpretation, really, but not bad faith necessarily. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I still hold that it is somewhat intellectually lazy to rely on someone who's only qualification is they have made a statement in public, without any attention given to the quality of that statement. I can write any old bullshit I want in a blog, and that doesn't make me any more correct than anyone else who is bullshitting as well. That the buck gets passed one level back isn't particularly great. So, instead of making something up that confirmed his preconceived notion of what he was trying to say, he dug up someone else who did the same thing instead. Big whoop. It is still wrong. --Jayron32 16:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't normally point this out, but seeing as the discussion above has to do with women being recognized, it's worth noting that USChick is a she (although it seems pretty obvious from the username alone). But that issue isn't limited to Wikipedia. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

She can be whatever she wants to be. It doesn't give her a free pass to make stuff up just to make a point. --Jayron32 21:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

No disagreement there. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:40, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I thought we established that she didn't make it up? Relying on a single (possibly incorrect or biased) source is an academic problem of one sort, but making stuff up is an entirely different kettle of fish. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:14, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Not made up: The Bill of Rights included white men only [7]] excluding most Americans and all women [8] until Reed v Reed [9] ruled that the 14th amendment applies to women, in 1971 [10]. See Timeline of Personhood [11] (this is posted further down, but some didn't read that far, and I don't blame them because this is ridiculous.)USchick (talk) 14:20, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

OMG. In the United States women got the vote in 1918. Feminism was founded off of the philosophies of early American suffragists--who were actually more extreme than 21st century feminists are in their thought, because they had to be. It might do you well to start reading all the feminist history articles in Wikipedia as well as this.--Shakesomeaction (talk) 16:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Are there no administrators to point out that this is not a forum for individuals' political views? The discussion should be focussed on whether or how the wording of specific guidelines should be changed. I haven't seen any suggestions on that. What on earth does the fact that my grandmother was born without the right to vote have to do with whether a Wikipedia category is a useful research tool? Injustice can't be cured by deleting or creating Wikipedia categories, and historical injustice can't be cured at all—it can only be studied and (one hopes) learned from. Which includes accessing information in an encyclopedia. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you are right, although I believe this user is getting things really confused in the idea of women's history--she keeps mentioning things related to women's rights--and that is why I spoke about it. It was just sheer frustration on the my part at the moment. I don't try to convert people to my political philosophies, but if someone seems obviously misinformed by them I feel I have to set them on the correct path. That was my only reasoning. --Shakesomeaction (talk) 17:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

The Bill of Rights included white men only [12]] excluding most Americans and all women [13] until Reed v Reed ruled that the 14th amendment applies to women in 1971 [14] [15]. See Timeline of Personhood [16] The suggestion being discussed here is not to treat the category of Women as separate from the category of People. USchick (talk) 17:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Apologies in advance if I sound exasperated, but have you read WP:Cat gender? What wording do you object to, and what do you think it should say instead? I don't like the supposedly positive example of "female heads of state" as "a topic of special encyclopedic interest," but at present I hesitate to state that too strongly because I haven't researched my suspicion that "female heads of state" isn't a clearly defined field of intellectual inquiry. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

I discovered only yesterday that this is standard practice on WP. I'm simply inquiring to see if anyone else thinks it needs to be addressed. USchick (talk) 17:35, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:Cat gender discourages Male and Female categories, which is probably what led to the existing category structure. There has to be a better way to categorize women's contribution in history than to separate them from the category of People. USchick (talk) 17:43, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. Propose something then. Claiming that "there has to be a better way" is completely meaningless. If the way we are doing it is so obviously poor quality, then you must have a picture in your mind of what good quality must look like, no? If you have that picture in your mind of what a proper categorization scheme should look like, then please share it. Otherwise, if you don't have something better in your mind, against which you are comparing the current system, what is the point? If what we have isn't good enough, you must have an idea of what good enough looks like. Would you care to share that with everyone else so we can actually improve Wikipedia? We'd all like that very much. --Jayron32 17:59, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Or to put it another way: I think you may have had it backwards at first, UShick: it explicitly is not standard practice, but WP:Cat gender outlines circumstances in which an exception may be made for a topic of women's studies or women's history as such. Which is what I'm taking Shakesomeaction's point to be with "African American women". Cynwolfe (talk) 18:13, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump had stated it very well earlier: 'we'd be better off without categories for people alltogether. We can of course have articles about such things, where the topic can be discussed properly, without attempting to shoehorn people into questionable categories that often encourage stereotyping'. --87.174.2.178 (talk) 23:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

We'd be even better off if the category system were converted to a series of database-searchable fields of metatags, with the "types" of fields determined by the software as dictated by consensus, but the field metatag "values" directly editor-determined like any other . Every biography, for instance, would have field types for sex, birthdate, and deathdate, and fields that can handle multiple values for religion, ethnity/race, places of residence, educational institutions, occupations, military ranks, awards, etc.; and then you could search from any article for others that shared however many fields you want to check off, or from within a field index. There would be a centralized process for creating or removing fields, so that way individual editors could not decide that "shoe size" or "breast size" should exist as fields, and field values could be tagged as equivalent so we wouldn't have arguments about whether British or American spelling should be used. Then and only then would we not have arguments over whether we should have categories for women but not men, intersection categories for religion and a particular occupation, or whatever.

Just a thought. It may be completely unworkable. postdlf (talk) 19:48, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

That's a brilliant idea if it's doable. Where is the appropriate place to propose this suggestion? USchick (talk) 20:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you're thinking of Semantic MediaWiki, basically. I think most people agree that we should do it, just we have to accept it's a massive technical challenge when there is lower-hanging fruit. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 09:29, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Disable Article Feedback Tool and Discuss

The Article Feedback Tool (see example at the bottom of Denial_of_Death) is being rolled out on the English Wikipedia with what looks like little or no discussion on the English Wikipedia. The only discussion is occurring on the tool's discussion page. This is an attempt to open up a discussion here on (or move it to) the English Wikipedia. I suggest reading through the talk page there first and than adding your thoughts here. According to Arthur Rubin, "Hidden in the documentation is a way for en:wiki to disable the feature, if we so desire, by adding a hidden category Category:no Article Feedback Tool, marking it as an exclusion category, and authorizing a bot to add it to all articles." He suggested I moved it from RfC to here and I have thus done so. --TimL (talk) 18:38, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

So, do you actually have a reason to disable it? Beeblebrox (talk) 18:45, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

His reasons were given on the MediaWiki talk page, which is almost unreadable, because of the LiquidThreads formatting. I'm not sure I can find them all. In any case, my reasons for exclusion is that it has little value (to readers or editors, and even the results would have little value to readers or editors, without a "friend"-based rating), takes up a lot of real estate, and is slow to generate and download, even if display is suppressed. At a minimum, a single click to remove all display and generation of these boxes should be in the box, although it would probably only work for logged-in editors. The results might have value to the Foundation (although I doubt it) if whether an article was excluded was up to the local Wiki, not to the editors of that article. However, that would be impossible to implement on this wiki. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:01, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there has been no discussion of the tool on the English Wikipedia, anywhere. --TimL (talk) 19:03, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I hate liquid threads now that I've used it, because it takes so many clicks for me to see the latest posts or all the posts. A search with Ctrlf doesn't work because of that. Anyway, one of the main problems is the lack of discussion before implementation and what appears to be lack of discussion of the pilots before a rollout. I'm concerned it will lead to gaming the system and more drama, and if the ability to leave text comments is implemented many more problems ranging from BLP violations to stopping our pages becoming forums. Some posts make it look as though the main purpose of this is to get more editors. Dougweller (talk) 19:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

A fix for this LQT problem was requested on Bug 29769. You can vote for it if you want. Helder 19:55, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

"No discussion of the tool on the English Wikipedia"? So the last three or four discussions about it that I've personally seen and participated in were... what, exactly? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:39, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Ignored. Wasbeer 21:28, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

And I searched on the wrong page. (AfC? I don't remember) Mea culpa. --TimL (talk) 21:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

As I understand the Article Feedback Tool is supposed to serve two purposes: (1) To assess the quality of the articles and (2) to encourage readers to become editors. Both of these purposes are, in my opinion, better served by other solutions: (1) Better internal evaluations of articles and (2) to better welcome, encourage and help new users. I'm also wary that readers using the AFT are not aware of the second purpose when they start to use it and some might perceive this bait-and-switch/foot-in-the-door technique as manipulative. Some might not care, or are used to it, because this is how one might expect a large company to treat it's customers. But we are not a company and our readers are not customers. Establishing such a company-customer relationship might be damaging in the long run. --Bensin (talk) 11:52, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Seems like a mis-fire to me. Extra clutter that doesn't serve much a purpose. There are far better ways to accomplish those objectives. North8000 (talk) 12:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I say let it run a few months, see if it provides useful feedback. If it does, continue it, if it doesn't, fix it or abandon it. Let's not make this a bigger deal than necessary.--SPhilbrickT 14:09, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying carry on with the rollout or wait before adding any more articles to see if it works? Dougweller (talk) 18:10, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Frankly, I hadn't thought that through, but not that I have, I would support continuing with the rollout. I don't see the potential of immediate ham which would justify interrupting it at this point.--SPhilbrickT 21:34, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

If those stars will show up on the Talk pages I have not much of a problem with it. In articles I see very few advantages compared to possible (likely?) irritation to me and others. I prefer not to do it. Never change a winning team... S.I. Oliantigna (talk) 07:52, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

According to the replies to mw:Thread:Talk:Article feedback/Please stop/reply (13), there is no intention to move the tool to the talk page. Helder 20:29, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, what are the other locations this discussion is being held? --80.101.191.11 (talk) 12:16, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

One place, as linked to in the first post in this section is here, mw:Talk:Article feedback. GB fan please tell me what you think of my editing 12:41, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

There is also Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Ratings poll a distraction?. Helder 20:29, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

birth dates of living persons

I am in an ethical quandary and would like some feedback. I recently discovered that a notable living person with an entry in Wikipedia is 14 years older than he claims. The source is reliable (birth records from the city where he was born) but not easily accessible (i.e., you have to pay to see them). The subject works in an industry where being older could be considered a liability. Do I correct the birth date on his Wikipedia entry? I'll check here for responses, but you can also post on my talk page if you prefer. Thanks -- MinervaK (talk) 19:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Could you give us the name of the article and what the source is for the current birthdate, is the information actually coming from the individual, perhaps the article has vandalism that never got caught or a source was used that had a typo. In most US states I was under the impression that the birth certificate can not be accessed from someone other than the individual (at least getting a copy of my own birth certificate required I showed the city I was born in my licence and social security card to prove identity). If this site is accurate and reliable for the birth records, being a paid site and limited accessibility is NEVER a problem, all that matters is accurate information from a reliable source. Bring it to the RS/N may be a better place to bring this question.Camelbinky (talk) 19:53, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, what is RS/N? On the birth record, I have access to it via a paid genealogy site -- it's not actually a birth certificate, just a record of the birth and the date. I guess you could call that a secondary source, right? MinervaK (talk) 19:57, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Generally, I don't think we should be using primary sources such as government records to establish biographical facts, particularly when it's a living person and no secondary source has disclosed what would ordinarily be private (even if obtainable). Are you talking about Ancestry.com? I have a membership; let me know what database you're talking about and I'll take a look. I also know from my experience on that site (if nothing else) that even using "reliable" government records, there is often a large degree of assumption regarding who a record is about given the possibility of shared names, transcription errors, or reporting inaccuracy in the first instance. postdlf (talk) 20:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, you can go there anytime and ask a question about whether any site, newspaper, book, anything in the world, is a reliable source allowed by our policies here in Wikipedia. And Postdlf is correct about Ancestry.com and the problems that can occur with such sites, though I disagree that an official verified birth certificate should not be used. I am of the personal opinion that a primary source that shows a secondary source is a flat out lie makes the secondary source no longer a reliable source and must be removed from Wikipedia. Non-BLP example- secondary sources say a city was incorporated in such-a-such year, but the official law stated that the city became incorporated on March 1 of the next year (to synch with existing laws of swearing in politicians or something we'll say), we must then change the article to say "XY state passed the law incorporating YZ city in June 1890, taking effect March 1, 1891" we cant say the city became "incorporated in 1890" because it clearly factually didnt in the eyes of the state because until the city had a functioning legal government it wasnt incorporated. Not the best example, first I could think of.Camelbinky (talk) 20:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that determining that something is "a primary source that shows a secondary source is a flat out lie" is often not straightforward. This is something we leave to others better qualified than ourselves to do. Even something as apparently simple as a birth certificate may be misleading - how do we know it doesn't refer to another person of the same name? We have WP:OR policies for a good reason, and making exceptions because our own research shows that something is obviously 'wrong' is likely to lead to endless arguments, and a deterioration in article quality. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:27, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Aside from the technicalities of determining whether information from sites like Ancestry.com are reliable secondaries or what, I'm curious about the ethical dilemma of "outing" someone who may be lying about their age for "good" reasons -- i.e., in the entertainment industry it's commonplace to say you're younger because it gets you more work. Does a person have a right to privacy that extends to lying about their age? MinervaK (talk) 20:47, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

IMO the emphasis Wikipedia puts on birthdates is misplaced, especially for BLPs. Unless the person's age is strongly related to their notability (e.g., youngest person to climb Mt Everest), then I wouldn't bother including it—certainly not more than the year of birth.

But the technicalities are significant here: It would be nearly impossible to prove that the record really refers to this person, rather than someone unrelated with the same name, a cousin, a deceased older sibling (some families will name a subsequent child after one who died very young), etc.

As for the dilemma: de-bunking sources isn't Wikipedia's job. I hear that The National Enquirer likes to do things like that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Respectfully disagree about the importance of birthdates in biographies -- it's always a point of interest, to me, to know how old a person is, because it bears on their sheer quantity of life experience. I realize that's a bit touchy-feely, but my guess is that most people want to know the age of a notable person as much as other biographical details. In this particular case, though, it's a question of whether the apparently bogus birthdate is a legitimate part of the subject's public biography, and whether or not it should be respected, given that it's quantifiably inaccurate. I understand that WP isn't an investigative journalism site, but isn't it within the WP spirit to be as accurate as reliable sources allow? How do we parse this with issues of privacy, is my central question, I guess. MinervaK (talk) 21:11, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that birthdate is always relevant, because when someone lived and at what stage of their life they did something is always important biographical information even if it isn't the reason why they merit an article. But trudging up a birth certificate from public records is a different matter than relying upon a news story or citing to a law (as Camelbinky analogized above). Without specifics as to your contrary sources and who the subject is, we can't really judge. postdlf (talk) 21:32, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

"Trudging up a birth certficate" doesn't accurately describe how I came upon the information; it's something that anyone with an interest in genealogy and the subject in question might easily happen upon. MinervaK (talk) 21:41, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that age definitely matters some instances, and might be worth mentioning in others (or at least alluding to: you might not say "born in 1948", but you might say "grew up during the 1950s" or "graduated from college in the 1960s"). However, I really can't imagine myself caring about the full birth date for any living person outside of my family. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:55, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, just found this over at the reliable sources discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_69#Ancestry.com_as_a_reference.3F. The birthdate in question has not been 'widely published by reliable sources,' so I'm going to leave it as-is. Thanks for everybody's input on this. MinervaK (talk) 21:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

A variance of 14 years is rather hard to explain away when related to other biographical details like hometown, schools attended, college graduation year, military service, etc. A year or two I could understand, but 14? Also, all other things equal, the correct year of birth is better to have in an article as opposed to an incorrect year of birth. patsw (talk) 23:31, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Pat, that's actually what made me look him up. In the biography published on his website, he gives a short personal history with highlights that don't jibe with his birth date -- i.e., getting a bachelor's degree before doing a music video that aired in 1982; being the oldest of five children, all of whom are in their mid to late forties; a filmography that extends back beyond the date when he would have been a kid, even though he's obviously not a kid in the cited performances; etc. It surprises me that no one else has noticed these discrepancies. It's kind of a sad commentary on the industry he's in that a person's age matters more than their skill level. MinervaK (talk) 00:42, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Have you checked numerous sources to make sure that this is not a typo? Like Patsw says, 14 years seems like a big difference and if he was sloppy enough that he didnt bother to update his personal history to jive with it, then it seems unusual that no one else noticed. And just so that everyone knows for the record- a primary source that contradicts a secondary source makes the secondary source unreliable and unable to be used for that information that is contradicted, clear as that, no interpretation needed, that's not my opinion that's how we work. We are not a regurgitator of secondary information, we do make opinions regarding what we do and do not use, this bull about OR is just that–bull.Camelbinky (talk) 02:47, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Camelbinky -- Yes, I've checked numerous other sources, although I wouldn't call them all reliable. One is his Wikipedia entry, the others are 'fan pages' and the like. I can't find a source in which he, personally, gives his birth date. MinervaK (talk) 05:44, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Nope, "a primary source that contradicts a secondary source" doesn't make anything automatically unreliable. We may need to make a judgement call on occasion, (best done by noting that sources differ), but we cannot automatically give precedence to primary sources that we may not be in the position to validate. Primary sources are often wrong. Indeed they are probably less likely on average to be right than secondary sources, for the simple reason that a secondary source implies that more than one person has been involved in the sourcing process. This is basic stuff, implicit in Wikipedia sourcing policy, and it isn't up for negotiation here. Yes, this may entail articles being 'wrong' some of the time, but the alternative implies that they will be 'wronger' more often. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:02, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The RS/N and village pumps covered this topic many times and you are incorrect. I'm sorry you werent around for those discussions. Your "interpretation" is wrong. A reliable secondary source does not need a another secondary source to outright say that other source is wrong. We do make judgement calls all the time and we do not knowingly put wrong material into an article just because a secondary source states something. If you want to bring this to the village pump (policy) and see if they agree with me, let's have the Community decide in a good ole fashion !voting session. Just literally reading a policy is terrible and should not be done. A policy is not prescriptive of what must or should be done, it is a description of current practice as best can be described at the time of the writing of the words, and should be taken with a grain of salt and used with caution as current practice of using the policy will vary with time and the policy itself will always lag. Much like computers and iPhones, they are all out of date before you get them home (We're on iPhone 4 now? In how many years since the original?!).Camelbinky (talk) 03:20, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

So what is it about what I've just written that you are suggesting is incorrect? I say we sometimes need to make 'Judgement calls', you say the same thing (along with a great deal of totally-irrelevant waffle). What exactly would anyone be voting on? AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:39, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, we have guidelines that explicitly reject using a primary source to de-bunk a secondary source: "Individual primary sources should not be cited or juxtaposed so as to "debunk" or contradict the conclusions of reliable secondary sources".

But the thing is, it's not clear to me that any of the sources are really secondary sources. It's not just a matter of counting up the number of sources in a chain, and WP:Secondary does not mean independent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:23, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, what if I changed the article to say "born on Month Day, 1966 or Month Day, 1953" and note that sources differ? Or is that just uneccessarily confusing? MinervaK (talk) 05:48, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

FWIW I don't know about the US, but in the UK birth, marriage and death certificates are public information that anyone can pay to have. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the use of public primary sources in general can be problematic. There is no editorial control over what is pushing a POV or is just plain irrelevant. For example campaign contributions are public information but they may be used in a campaign to discredit a subject (as actually happened on WP a few years ago). Birth dates are a bit different in that it's expected information, but I think putting information in an article that you wouldn't normally find in published material is to some degree an invasion of privacy and it falls under our OR policy. We probably shouldn't have information that's known to be false, but it falls to journalists, authors, etc. to discover what the truth is, not us.--RDBury (talk) 06:41, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Some people might be reading judgement call here and wondering what we are talking about. Assume here we are talking about a verifiable primary source item. We have to make a distinctions between the things that are neutral in terms of shaping public opinion about a subject and which typically are not subject to a dispute such as a middle name, the date and place of birth, etc. and the things that could influence public image such as a record of a complaint, violation, arrest, etc. for a minor crime, political affiliation, contributions, etc. These influence items need a corroboration of their significance to the biographical article, and the only indicator we've accepted for that has been appearance in a reliable secondary source. patsw (talk) 16:47, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I think what you're basically saying is follow the "there are no rules" rule if it applies, which I agree with. Keep in mind though that POV pushing can come in less obvious forms. Some people have there own personal axes to grind on issues so trivial that it's hard to believe anyone would give it a second thought, so it may be hard to tell if some fact is added as an attempt to influence opinion in some way. We can only guess what an editor's intent is, but the way the OR policy is phrased removes the question. An example might be adding hit counts on a YouTube music video; certainly publicly available and verifiable, but the info might be added in an attempt to promote the band by fan or it might be someone just trying to fill up article space.--RDBury (talk) 17:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

@RDBury. I think we need to be careful about giving journalists too much credibility - they are not well-known for being rigorous in the pursuit of truth. On the other hand, a birth certificate is a public record and an unbiased primary source, so it's perfectly legitimate to cite it. If people choose to lie about their birth date, then they need to stand by to be exposed! --Bermicourt (talk) 19:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't sound like the person in question has made any statements about his/her birthdate, so the "exposure" here would be "exposed as a victim of bad reporting by fansites", not as a liar. Furthermore, you're not dealing with the biggest problem involved in relying on birth certificates: They don't say "John Smith, who grew up to star in movies". They say "John Smith, and, by the way, there are forty-five thousand Americans named John Smith, so I hope you're not looking for one of the other ones". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Dont think that using a primary source like a birth record for factual information is wrong the main problem is as WhatamIdoing says it (the primary source) gives no evidence that it is the correct "John Smith" so really cant be relied upon unless you have colloborating secondary evidence. MilborneOne (talk) 15:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Title/PrincipalNamingCriteria no longer marked as a policy

Wikipedia:Title/PrincipalNamingCriteria (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Is it acceptable for an encyclopedic article to reinforce only one side of a controversial issue?

In the Conspiracy Theory article, vested contributors seem to feel no responsibility to write for the opponent based on assumptions that no reliable sources exist.

Making such assumptions, and disregarding any need for diligence, about generalized issues such as conspiracy theory might reflect a systemic bias. What has resulted is writing that is unnecessarily judgmental, dismissive or otherwise negative in tone. Vested contributors then insist that the article has neutral point-of-view – based on technicalities rather than any basis in fact.

Information about where this issue has been discussed would be appreciated. Tsnuemuozobh (talk) 00:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure where this particular issue might have been discussed, but I think this sounds like an issue to bring up at NPOV noticeboard. I see that editors have engaged in conversation on the talk page, what sources have you brought to the discussion that you feel are not being given sufficient weight? --Nuujinn (talk) 00:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I am asking about policy in general. I only used that article as an example.

It shouldn't be hard to find reliable sources for both sides of a controversy if one makes a good-faith effort. Tsnuemuozobh (talk) 00:21, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Hence my question. If such sources exist, they should be findable, have you tried to find such sources? --Nuujinn (talk) 00:28, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

That's a good question to ask someone who writes a one-sided article. Tsnuemuozobh (talk) 00:33, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:NPOV says we should include all significant points of view, giving weight in proportion to their prominence in secondary sources. Points of view that are insignificant or barely significant are covered by WP:FRINGE. We don't necessarily give equal space to both sides of a controversy, and we might even cover the controversy in a separate article, such as Myth of the Flat Earth.   Will Beback  talk  00:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Tsnuemuozobh, Nuujinn's question is also a good question to ask someone whom you hope to be able to absolve of laziness or bossiness. As a general rule, I'd be slow to tell other WP:VOLUNTEERs that it was their duty to spend their time finding sources to prove "my" side for me. If it's not important enough for me to spend my time finding those sources, then maybe it's not important enough for anyone to spend any time finding those sources.

Naturally, whether reliable sources can be found depends on whether any have been published. There are no reliable sources advocating that 2+2=22, or that Time Cube is a brilliant solution to the mysteries of the universe. We do not try to pretend that all sides in any controversy are equally valid, even if that means that our articles seem "one-sided" to children who do not want to agree that two plus two equals four. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:37, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

As a general rule, I'd be slow to tell other WP:VOLUNTEERs that it was their duty to spend their time finding sources to prove "my" side for me.

That, I understand, would be in the spirit of writing for the opponent. WP:VOLUNTEER says nothing about editors picking sides in a controversy.

Is an editor is free to start a new article from scratch and post it on Wikipedia under the assumption that all opposing points-of-view are unimportant? Tsnuemuozobh (talk) 01:00, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

VOLUNTEER says that if you don't want to write for the enemy—or correct typos, or fix formatting errors, or expand an article, or do anything else on Wikipedia—then you are 100% free to let someone else do that task.

WP:Content forks are prohibited. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

(ec)In regard to enemy, no, the point of that is to try to understand an editor with whom you disagree. In regard to starting a new article, sure, but if you don't include reliable sources that provide significant coverage of the topic, it will likely be deleted. And other editors will have to option to edit same to balance the article out, or suggest a merge, and what stays and what goes will be decided by consensus informed by reference to reliable sources. So you'll need to produce sources pretty much in any case. Now, if you don't know how to find sources, if you ask nicely, I'm sure some of us will help learn you how to find 'em. --Nuujinn (talk) 01:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:VOLUNTEER says nothing about letting someone else write for the enemy. WP:ENEMY says nothing about understanding another editor.

There aren't any recent requests to delete the Conspiracy Theory article, despite the attention that it has attracted. The article is written in an overly negative tone, while vested contributors insist that it has a neutral point-of-view. I've read the Myth of the Flat Earth article. It describes, for the most part, a systemic bias on the part of anti-Catholic Protestants with a political agenda. Tsnuemuozobh (talk) 01:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, VOLUNTEER says everything about your right to refuse to do anything that you don't choose to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:33, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

It is entirely possible to refuse to write from a neutral point-of-view. Tsnuemuozobh (talk) 06:46, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and you are allowed to refuse to write a neutral article, just like you are allowed to refuse to write an article with good grammar. You are allowed to work on another article or to quit entirely if you don't want to write a neutral article. You are not allowed to interfere with someone who is fixing the biased mess you made, but you cannot be forced to clean up the biased mess yourself if you do not choose to write a neutral article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

With all due respect, you're not listening, and you'll need sources to convince anyone to include your points of view. Sorry, but that's how it works here. Best of luck! --Nuujinn (talk) 01:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a gripe about including unsupported statements in any particular article. I am asking about Wikipedia policy concerning articles of controversial topics that present only one point-of-view. Tsnuemuozobh (talk) 01:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems like the answers been pretty clearly laid out, but I'll try a summary: articles that are non-neutral are bad (they violate WP:NPOV). The correct solution is to edit those articles to make them neutral. In a few very rare cases if an article is fundamentally non-neutral (like a theoretical article titled "Proof that 9/11 was caused by the New World Order") that there is no way to make it neutral (i.e., that it's a WP:POVFORK), then the correct solution is to delete or merge the information into a parent article. Barring that extreme situation, if you find an article that is non-neutral, you should try to fix it, or at least start the process by discussing it and, if necessary, bringing it to the attention of a message board. If you're asking if something should be done to stop such editors; well, if you could show that they routinely edited in a non-neutral manner to push an agenda, you could conceivably request that admin action be taken at WP:ANI or somewhere similar, but to do that you'd have to show, at a minimum, that you (and probably other editors) tried to fix the problem and they absolutely refused. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:10, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

My question is not about whether an article can be improved, but about assumptions concerning the availability of reliable sources. For example, "Proof that 9/11 was caused by the New World Order is fundamentally non-neutral" reflects a systemic bias. Tsnuemuozobh (talk) 06:46, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

To be clear this almost certainly is related to this discussion on the conspiracy theory article Talk:Conspiracy theory#This article is full of judgmental statements since the user that made this request also made another request on the NPOV noticeboard with the exact same title which linked to that very discussion. I though some context would be good in this case.--76.66.188.209 (talk) 05:10, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Someone who responded on that noticeboard basically said that it should only be used to request admin action, which is not my intent. Tsnuemuozobh (talk) 06:46, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you need to go read what Johnuniq actually said. He said that it's not normal or good for an editor (you) to jump straight to a noticeboard after spending less than one day in discussion on the article's talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Adopt an Article

There are several dozen projects that support some kind of "Adopt an Article" program, e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Richard Wagner, Wikipedia:WikiProject Poker. From what I can find (though perhaps I'm not looking in the right places) the individual projects are doing this under their own respective initiatives, though there is a lot of borrowing in terms of the language. In general it appears that the projects are encouraging the use of template:Maintained (or some derivative of it) and are careful not to come into conflict with WP:OWN. Was this ever part of a wider initiative? If not, should there be some sort of wider initiative to encourage best practices and avoid conflict with existing policies? There was a suggestion, Wikipedia:Suggestion box/Archive 2#Suggestion for Article Author Accountability (ca. 2005), in this direction though many of the ideas given there would not be practical.

I personally would like to encourage a trend away from new article creation toward article cleanup and expansion. Currently over 90% of assessed articles are either Stub or Start class and it's difficult to make a case that our coverage of important subjects is incomplete. So if article adoption can help turn some of the Stubs and Starts into C's and B's it should be encouraged.--RDBury (talk) 21:55, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems to be happening informally already (I know the few articles I've done substantial work on, and other than me they're essentially unedited, so I watch them very carefully), so codifying something would be a good idea. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:45, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

RfC: DYK quality assurance and archiving

An RfC has been launched to measure community support for requiring the explicit checking and passing of DYK nominations for compliance with basic WP policies, and to improve the management of the nominations page through the introduction of a time limit after which a nomination that does not meet requirements is archived. Tony (talk) 03:40, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Articles on chemicals inclusion of space-filling or ball and stick models

As a chemist, this is something that's bothered me for quite some time. Why do articles on chemicals include a picture of space-filling or ball and stick models in addition to (or even worse, instead of) just the skeletal formulae? These three dimentional models are "cool looking" but useless or confusing in actually portraying the chemical makeup of a molecule. Anyone who actually needs a 3D model is likely capable of generating one fairly quickly. Is it just the cool factor that perpetuates this?

(I posted this at the help desk, too, but I think this may be a more appropriate place for it.) chihowa (talk) 15:30, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, neither place is likely to generate good answers for you since most people don't work on chemistry articles and aren't likely to be aware of (or have an opinion on) the standards form chemistry articles. The better place to ask would be at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry which has a "structure drawing workgroup" who also may have some better answers for you. --Jayron32 16:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

A space-filling image is currently a FPC nomination and I think what appears in the chemistry articles is the business of anyone who has even a passing interest in chemistry, not just the experts who patrol the Chemistry Project. I'm not sure that the Policy forum is the the right place to post but given the diverse and often overlapping array of Wikifora from which to choose it might be better to say "might as well be here" rather than giving someone the run-around. The OP seems to have some background in chemistry and I suppose it's true that to a chemist the structural formula tells you everything you need to know. But WP articles are written for non-chemists as well and the 3D images convey information that would not be apparent to someone unfamiliar with bond angles and conformations. I've found the 3D images helpful in understanding things like crystal structure. Space-filling models are woefully incomplete in some ways, for example they misrepresent the modern understanding of double and triple bonds, but they do add value overall as an aid to understanding. As a matter of policy I agree that images placed in articles because they look "cool" even though they don't aid understanding (EV in FPC parlance) don't belong in Wikipedia, but I don't think that is the case here.--RDBury (talk) 19:56, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia intended for non-specialists. Chemists use models in the course of both elementary and advanced instruction to aid visualization, which is not something that comes naturally, and the same rationale holds here. Our chemistry articles are supposed to be accessible to those who have a minimal college education in science, and, as someone who has both studied and taught chemistry, everything helps. And chemists do use models in research--the classic example is Watson and Crick's structure of DNA, a discovery which depended on correlating the model building with the crystallographic data. And space filling models are real in the special sense that they correspond approximately to the actual occupancy of space by the molecular orbitals. DGG ( talk ) 03:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Categories for tractors and agricultural machines

I have created Category:Ford tractors as a sub-category of Category:Ford vehicles. I was going to do the same for other makes of tractor but this may not be the best system because some manufacturers e.g. Massey Ferguson produce combine harvesters as well as tractors. Please give your opinions on the most suitable system of categorization. Biscuittin (talk) 18:19, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The parent category for tractors is Category:Agricultural machinery. GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:59, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Why do articles on non-notable topics need deleting?

I'm interested to know why articles on non-notable topics are deleted. I mean, I get that not many people will read them, but if no one reads it it doesn't cause anyone a problem ( it's not like you have to scroll through an index of all the articles)and if someone reads it it is clearly at least marginally notable. So basically what I want to know is: what HARM do non-notable articles do? please can someone explain. Alicianpig (talk) 10:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I get the feeling you are misunderstanding what 'notable' means in the context of Wikipedia. It means that someone has taken the trouble to write something specifically about it in a reliable source. If an article cannot be supported with some sort of reasonable source it is just whatever the editor wrote. Wikipedia is not a blog for peoples ramblings and the more rubbish there is around like that them more cluttered and messy and filled with rubbish it becomes. People look up wikipedia and it is better they find nothing than that we waste their time on a load of garbage. The reputation of Wikipedia should not be sacrificed that way. Dmcq (talk) 11:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from. The area I would have a concern is biographical. I guess we wouldn't want Wikipedia to fill up with thousands of articles on people with little verifiable information. That could become a battleground for POV, vandalism or self-publicity and a host of other problems. It could add a huge policing and management burden! --Bermicourt (talk) 11:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem with a policy of allowing articles about any topic is that it makes Wikipedia look like a catalogue over the obscure. Typically, articles like this will only sourced by the subjects' own websites or publications. Wikipedia's purpose is to be an encyclopedia, not a directory, and without notability guidelines at all we dilute that purpose, this will in turn reduce Wikipedia's credibility. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:21, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

In the information age where technology allows someone to, in seconds, give you more "information" in seconds than you can read in a lifetime, we learn that real information is defined by narrowing. In this sense the vetting by the notability requirement increases the true information content of Wikipedia. North8000 (talk) 11:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Bermicourt: I see what you mean. That makes sense. Thanks Alicianpig (talk) 11:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Dmcq: I don't really see how it could be cluttered as you only find what you search for. someone looking up World War Two isn't going to find an article on Bob's favourite colour of fairy liquid. Surely however much rubbish there is you still find what you're looking for. Thanks Alicianpig (talk) 11:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

North8000: Surely it doesn't increase the amount of 'true information', rather it decreases the amount of information which most people may find useless and insignificant but which may be useful to a select group of people. Because you locate information by searching rather than by looking through a list, narrowing is not neccessary as it is easy to filter what you find by what you search. Thanks Alicianpig (talk) 12:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Sjakkalle: wikipedia already has very little credibility. Alicianpig (talk) 12:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

An encyclopedia is a compendium of knowledge, not a vacuum cleaner that sucks in every scrap in its path. We as editors choose what is important to the sum of human knowledge and what is trivial. Tarc (talk) 12:48, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

You say that "wikipedia already has very little credibility", so how is adding an "article on Bob's favourite colour of fairy liquid" going to improve wikipedia's credibility? In my opinion adding all these trivial pieces of data will reduce the credibility of wikipedia and in answer to your original question, that is the harm that non-notable articles do. GB fan please review my editing 12:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

• Related thread pump thread here started as a response to this AFD. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

GB Fan: If an article is of a non-notable subject which no one will look at, who will see it and think wikipedia is non-notable? Someone who would not think it was notable will not know about it to look it up, and someone who looks it up must think it is at least notable enough to be on wikipedia. Alicianpig (talk) 14:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

What you are describing is already available elsewhere. It's called the entire internet, searchable by Google.  :-) Wikipedia is different.North8000 (talk) 14:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the notability bar should be lowered, but not removed entirely. An article about your pet cat is obviously of no use to the general population. But, articles about household objects, no matter how obscure, might be of some value to somebody. StuRat (talk) 14:55, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I think a lot of this discussion focuses on verifiability is missing the main reason (imo) for notability criteria. WP articles should improve over time through the efforts of a number of contributors. The notability criteria insure that there will, at least in theory, be a pool of editors who are knowledgeable enough about the subject to improve it, as opposed to a single person who may put his/her own point of view into it. WP has been used as a vehicle for people promoting themselves or their own work and verifiability alone does not suffice to prevent this. For people as subjects there are privacy concerns as well. Notability also helps verifiability by insuring that it is possible to verify the information without overly specialized knowledge. If a subject is so arcane that only a few specialists can understand what the references are saying then it's unlikely that anyone but the author will be able to verify the information, in other words having references does no good if the only editor who can read them is the person writing the article.--RDBury (talk) 14:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't want my non-notable subject to be just on the internet, I want it to be in Wikipedia, which is much more prestigious because they don't allow articles on non-notable subjects. :-) North8000 (talk) 15:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

As this is a volunteer site, the culture is very important. You've heard of the broken window theory? Allowing articles on non-notable subjects will negatively affect the entire encyclopedia in the same way that a single damaged building negatively affects an entire neighborhood. It's easy to think that those articles aren't hurting anyone because they're "separate" from the real articles, but they will delegitimize our editing culture. We take verifiability, content, and layout seriously, and we hold each other to a higher standard than the bare minimum. If we stop doing that across the board, then there's nothing holding the ship together. Yes, some people will still care about those policies even if we allowed stray articles, but the culture of quality won't have the same energy or strength. Once you weaken that culture, you won't get it back. —Designate (talk) 16:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I admit that I find good arguments on both sides of this. I agree that we shouldn't add everything to the pedia but all too aften I have seen very weak arguments get articles deleted due to a perceived lack of notability. The problem is that notability is subjective. For example, international football players (soccer for us Americans) are less than notable for me and I wouldn't bat an eye if they all suddently disappeared one night, others would certainly scream. Likewise I would scream if someone deleted all the Medal of Honor recipients, others couldn't care less and consider all or most of them Wikiclutter. My point is that we should be careful to discount an article as simply being non notible because we individually don't care about it. In some cases there are very good references and enough information to build a very good article, even though the context of the article may stretch the limits of notability. One article of dubious notability that comes to mind is Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. --Kumioko (talk) 16:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree North8000 (talk) 17:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)