Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new, use the proposals section.

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


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Proposal for a new logo for policy pages

Proposed versions
This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.
This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.
This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.
Current version
This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.



A discussion about a possible "official policy seal" for our policy pages to replace the green tick mark,() has been going on for the last few days at WP:ATT, Official policy seal.

This is the latest iteration. Previous iterations are available in my sandbox. Here is a Diff of how this will look on the {{policy}} template.

Before I invest any more time on this, I seek comments from the wider community to assess if this proposal is worth pursuing. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:20, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This makes sense... I think seals are a bit more universally recognized in the context of a policy/mandate. The only caveat per User:David Levy is that it is better to make one without words in it for universality across all Wikipedia languages. (→Netscott) 00:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is a blank version available, that can be used to localize the text: Image:Gold seal.svg ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd prefer it without the text. "Official policy" is in blue and in bold in the box's text - there isn't a lot of point trying to get the image to illustrate the page when the bold text does that much better. And when shrunk down to the size used in the template, the tiny curved text strains your eyes. It would be good to replace the generic tick mark, though, so I like the idea of using a seal. --Sam Blanning(talk) 00:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As I've commented at the aforementioned discussion, I have numerous objections to this change:
  1. There's nothing wrong with the checkmark/tick. Jossi claimed that it's "US-centric," but that's patently false. It isn't even Anglocentric.
  2. This is proven by the fact that this exact icon file appears in the policy templates of Wikimedia wikis spanning no fewer than 26 different languages. This consistency is highly beneficial.
  3. In addition to being widely adopted by other Wikimedia wikis, the current setup (green checkmark for policies, blue checkmark for guidelines, red cross for rejected/historical pages) has been in use here since December 2005. It's highly familiar to many people, and there's no compelling reason to start over.
  4. The seal contains English text, thereby limiting its use to English-language wikis (or necessitating localization for each language).
  5. The text is difficult to read at my resolution/screen size.
  6. The text is completely redundant with the actual template's wording.
  7. The intended display size is far larger than the 30px icons used in the various page status tags. As a result, the template's minimum size would be larger for many users (thereby pushing the actual content further down the page).
  8. Jossi has proposed the use of gold coloring for policies and silver coloring for guidelines. This would reinforce the widespread misconception that guidelines are "ranked lower" than policies and can be disregarded by anyone who dislikes following them (because they're "only guidelines"). While it's true that guidelines sometimes have more wiggle room than policies do, they generally should be followed unless there's a good reason not to. The use of green and blue doesn't reinforce the notion that guidelines carry no official weight. Gold and silver (or any other "lower" color) would be counterproductive.
  9. I also believe that the connotation carried by the seal imagery itself is inappropriate. Another widespread misconception is that our rules are sacrosanct laws that must always be followed to the letter. To me, this new icon seems indicative of such a situation, while the checkmarks convey the reality that these are mostly consensus-based checklists of concepts determined to be appropriate via use and discussion (descriptive, not prescriptive). —David Levy 00:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry David Levy, but you might have wanted to disclose the fact that you've had a hand in the adoption of the Green and teal checks for use in tagging policy pages. (→Netscott) 01:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I mentioned that more than once in the aforementioned discussion. In case you didn't realize, I didn't design the checkmark. I merely converted it from an SVG to a PNG (which renders properly in IE6), created a blue version, and added these to the templates. I also had absolutely nothing to do with the icons' adoption at any of the other wikis. —David Levy 01:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a version (#2) without caption and with ribbons as requested by some editors:

Looking very good. (→Netscott) 01:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's a nice icon, but it resembles an award of some sort. —David Levy 01:16, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well the ribbons aren't truly necessary.... but let's see what others think.. (→Netscott) 01:20, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, of course. —David Levy 01:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Let it be known, I am not attached or feel strongly about making a change. Only that I think that as the project evolves, and our content improves, we need better graphics as well. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:22, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To me, the proposed change seems like a step backwards and a solution in search of a problem. (No offense intended. As I said before, I'm incapable of designing an SVG approaching this level). —David Levy 01:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, David. But exploring possibilities, has the potential to discover them. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:08, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No argument there. I'm just expressing my opinions.  :-) —David Levy 02:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree with all of David Levy's objections; particularly the cross-wiki consistency, and size/colour comments. However, (just to be difficult!), how about draft#3, in white instead of gold, with the green/blue tick in the center? I'd still be recognizable and minimal, but would get the redesign-proposal's point across. --Quiddity 04:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have only one thing to say about this, KISS. The checkmark is humble and it is simple. Fanfare to a minimal. If you want to use something else, ok, but do not forget the awesome power of simple. -- Ned Scott 04:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree with Ned Scott which is why I'm tending to prefer this image . (→Netscott) 04:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about your display, but on mine, that looks remarkably like a depiction of the sun. —David Levy 04:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I mentioned this to Jossi and explained that it would be good to make a better more well defined version for smaller sizes (like above here)... he explained that he wanted to test the waters here before he extended more effort on this idea. (→Netscott) 04:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the gold seal looks rather silly on a policy page, and at any rate it's not such a good idea to affix any kind of Official Seal Of Authority to our policy pages. WP:NOT a bureaucracy. >Radiant< 12:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can see that there is no traction for this proposal. At least we have now a dozen seals in the public domain at commons... ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Last attempt I did yesterday night, below. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.
This I like. Checkmark as a clear sign that it has approval, gold seal showing it's official. Definitely makes it a clearer distinction at a glance from guidelines. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As Radiant and I noted above, a gold seal carries a connotation that's best avoided. And again, the "distinction" to which you refer already is far less significant than many people believe. Additional emphasis would be highly counterproductive.
As Ned Scott noted, simplicity is good. There's no need to replace a small, sober icon (the dimensions of which have been standardized across our page status templates) with a large, fancy distraction that increases the tag's size and pushes content down the page.
And frankly, a seal with a protruding checkmark makes little sense. —David Levy 23:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm more for keeping it as a simple check mark. It gets the point across nicely without being distracting. —Remember the dot (talk) 04:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GO to anything so policy and guidelines are more distinct from one another. Put a frowny face on one and a smiley on the other, but make them look different! (And Radiant!, since when aren't we a bureaucracy... God forbid anyone should ever try to print hard-copies of all our guidelines and the few, way too few, policies.) // FrankB 09:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, support seal with checkmark. --Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 18:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I like the seal with the check mark too. Its pleasant but no too distracting. YaanchSpeak! 01:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In commenting on another of Jossi's proposed policy icons, SMcCandlish perfectly conveyed the problem with using a seal for this purpose:
"...I think it sends the wrong underlying message whatever it would look like - that some far-away body of comptrollers in an ivory tower has declared something inviolate and sealed it forever and with regal authority (look into the origin of 'seal' in this context and you'll see why that implication is present). WP policy doesn't actually work that way."
That's what I was trying to say above, but SMcCandlish did a much better job. —David Levy 02:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why change it? Is the checkmark bad? ^demon[omg plz] 23:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


User pages on Google

I don't think user pages and user subpages should be searchable on Google. Some people like to keep private versions that lean towards a POV not approved by consensus. In at least one case the user subpage appears higher in Google search rankings than Wikipedia's own article. It should be relatively easy to fix the software to treat user pages and subpages like talk pages and not let them be searchable. Thoughts? --Ideogram 12:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So, how do you stop it? Realistically. I know, there is the "Robots.txt" file that is supposed to set up rules about what can and can't be searched by "legitimate" search engines on any given website, but I don't think it necessarily applies in this situation either.
What goes into any page here on Wikipedia, including user pages, is very much a public page. Perhaps that needs to be made more clear on the edit box itself, but if you are posting information here, expect that all of it including the user pages is going to be read by anybody and everybody, including employers, government law enforcement agents, ex-spouses, children (even grown up children), parents, friends, enemies, political opponents, and others. Even if these pages weren't made searchable, there is nothing that the Wikimedia Foundation can reasonably do to stop others from going into these pages and seeing what you may have written.
In addition, all of this content is not only made searchable, but you can even download it all in one massive file for all user pages, and some interesting searches have been made recently of user pages of a statistical nature to try and find out the demographic make up of Wikipedia contributors. If this policy of prohibiting a google search of user pages is to happen, you should also prohibit even the ability to download user pages as well. --Robert Horning 13:32, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I went to WP:USER and would have thought that having a POV fork of a page in your userspace would have been listed as bad. You probably could WP:MFD the POV page and claim that it's a POV fork and/or the temporary work in progress isn't actually being worked on (depends on the edit history). I don't think limiting searching is a good idea. Being able to search in Google for items that may be contained in userspace is useful, especially with the current state of our in-house search. --MECU≈talk 13:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My concern is that if the POV user pages show up in a standard Google search someone might go to them thinking they are legitimate Wikipedia articles. This can be alleviated by tagging them with {{Userpage otheruse}} (which I have done) so at least there is a partial solution. I'm not opposed to them being available in general, I just don't want them confused with real Wikipedia articles. --Ideogram 14:04, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree in concept, but if the person searching is paying any attention and has and sense about them, they will note that the page they are looking at is headlined with "User:SoAndSo" or what ever the user's name happens to be. If I saw that, I would at least look into whether or not it was an actual article about the topic or just a user who happened to have the same name as the topic for which i was searching. SpadePrince Talk Contributions 16:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Remember that a lot of people are new to Wikipedia (Wikipedia and Wiki are the most commonly viewed pages). Most people are stupid. (Actually, they just aren't paying attention, but the result is the same.) --Ideogram 17:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hey! Since when did Talk pages stop being searchable in Google? That doesn't seem to reflect any part of Wikipedia's configuration (neither robots.txt nor meta tags prohibit indexing talk pages), but they do appear to be largely missing. Compare "Talk:Earth" on Google and the same on Yahoo. It appears that Google has independently decided not to index the article talk pages. Oh, and yes, POV forks in user space should be deleted. Dragons flight 16:32, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have archived all those contents in edit histories. The materials should no longer be possible to be searched on Google. Please consider retreating your MFD nomination. Thanks. — Instantnood 22:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also, this has been around before; see here, here, and here for old discussions, none of which really came to a satisfactory resolution. Of the top ten google hits for 'Opabinia regalis', I'm #3, 4 (or 3.5), and 10. [1] Opabinia regalis 05:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why does anyone associated with WP want to have the user pages searchable in the first place?DGG 02:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some editors have created hundreds of subpages in their userspace to organize various things. Things get lost! --Quiddity 19:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of articles with "allegations"in their name

Definition of "allegation":

al·le·ga·tion /ˌælɪˈgeɪʃən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[al-i-gey-shuhn] *Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun

  • 1. the act of alleging; affirmation.
  • 2. an assertion made with little or no proof.
  • 3. an assertion made by a party in a legal proceeding, which the party then undertakes to prove.
  • 4. a statement offered as a plea, excuse, or justification.
  • [Origin: 1375–1425; late ME < L allégātiōn- (s. of allégātiō), equiv. to allégāt(us), ptp. of allégāre to adduce in support of a plea (al- al- + -légāre, deriv. of léx law; see legal) + -iōn- -ion]
  • —Synonyms 1, 2. charge, accusation; claim, contention.

(from dic.com)

Wikipedia's official guidelines regarding the use of the term:

Alleged (along with allegedly) and purported (along with purportedly) are different from the foregoing in that they are generally used by those who genuinely have no predisposition as to whether the statement being cited is true or not. Newspapers, for instance, almost universally refer to any indicted but unconvicted criminal as an alleged criminal. Therefore, there is no neutrality problem with using them. However, there may be a problem of ambiguity—they should only be used where the identity of the alleger is clear.

...

O.J. Simpson allegedly murdered his ex-wife and a friend of hers in 1994. [In the context of crimes, alleged is understood to mean "alleged by government prosecutors".]

(Taken from WP:WTA#So-called.2C_supposed.2C_alleged.2C_purported)

Currently on Wikipedia, there are some articles with that word in their article name. Noted:

and on and on. Please see this google search to find lots more

These articles discuss the allegations, and then give examples of when the term is used.

But, there are also articles like this:

etc.

So I was wondering, what is the current status of these articles? I don't think it makes sense for some articles to have "allegations" in the title, while others don't. I think either they all should, or they all shouldn't. Thoughts? --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 20:20, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How does Holocaust fit into your list? --Dschwen 20:38, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It fits because the Holocaust is alleged to have happened. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 20:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's not "alleged" to have happened, it did happen. WP:V applies here, as I explain below. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 20:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
According to the definition of alleged, it has been alleged to happen. There is a considerable minority of the world which do not believe the holocaust occured. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 20:53, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking frankly here, I think this was a productive discussion until you made your last point. Obviously there are events that are universally acknowledged by scholars as real and should be treated as such (e.g. the Holocaust) and there are interpretations of historical events (e.g. most of the items of the first list) that are inherently allegations. We need to have a discussion about "criticism of x" and "allegations of x" articles, but if we can't distinguish between things that are certainly true and things that are certainly alleged we'll end up with either "Allegations that the Earth is Flat" or "Controlled Demolition of the World Trade Center". GabrielF 22:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You say "certainly true". WHO decides whether something is certainly true? Sources? Wikipedia editors? "Certainly true" is something which is contestable in and of itself. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 16:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
WP:V is critical here. "Allegations" is perfectly acceptable in article titles where the article exists to document an unverifiable, albeit possibly noteworthy, belief. An example of this would be Allegations of Israeli apartheid. The existence of "Israeli apartheid" apartheid at all is itself quite questionable, but the question being posed by many on the political far left and political far right is a valid subject for Wikipedia to document. The ideas themselves are unverifiable and thus cannot be accepted as fact within Wikipedia, but the argument can certainly be made that the allegations are noteworthy enough to justify an article about the allegations themselves. Conversely, Islam and antisemitism, Christianity and antisemitism and The Holocaust are not allegations, they are historical (and in the case of the former two, also present) realities. Thus, per WP:V, they can be considered fact.
I'd argue that the "State terrorism" articles ought to be moved to "allegations of..." but beyond that, it looks good the way it is now.
The subject of the article is coalesced in its title; "Allegations" articles document the allegations themselves, whereas non-"allegations" articles document facts. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 20:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand what you mean by "unverifiable". What is "unverifiable" about Israeli apartheid? For some people, it is considered a fact. Opposite goes for Holocaust. Some people don't consider the holocaust of fact. I think these selective titles may be an example of Systematic bias (Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias) --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 20:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It fails WP:V and is therefore unverifiable per Wikipedia standards and policies. The criteria for what makes information verifiable for the purposes of Wikipedia is clear and remarkably simple. Remember that Exceptional claims require exceptional sources. I have seen no exceptional sources suggesting "Israeli apartheid" exists and therefore it fails WP:FRINGE. Sorry. Systemic bias isn't an issue here, it's Wikipedia's content policies that you have a problem with. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 20:57, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Exceptional according to who's definition? I could say "I have seen no exceptional sources suggesting that "holocaust" exists and therefore it fails WP:FRINGE". --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely do not want to start titling articles like Holocaust with the words "allegations of" before it. To me, "allegations" a term that should be reserved for very specific legal instances. In the case of "Israeli apartheid", it's a descriptive term that's in use in different political circles. Those who use it are not alleging that Israel is an apartheid state, they are insisting it is. That term and its associated debate deserve representation in an article titled after the concept itself. The controversy can be discussed in the article, much as it is in Islamofascism. Tiamut
Tiamut, I must say that was my point in bringing up Holocaust. Thanks for putting it in better words than I have. I also would NOT like to see Allegations of the Holocaust. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note how Allegations of the Holocaust doesn't even redirect to Holocaust. I just realized that now. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nor does Allegations of Holocaust exist. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
An "exceptional" source is defined according to Wikipedia consensus. The applications policy are subjective, but the fact is nonetheless they are subjective of consensus more than they are subjective of any individual editor. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 21:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's exactly my point. The consensus is subject to systematic bias. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So what are you suggesting? Destroying WP:V and WP:CON because they don't allow for the views of a political fringe to be accepted as fact in Wikipedia articles? I'm sorry, but no one will go for that. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 21:19, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I find it extremely offensive that you consider Israeli apartheid as fringe; notable scholars such as Noam Chomsky have spoken of it. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:45, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also, look at WP:FRINGE. It has the apollo moon hoax, creation science, and the paul is dead hoax as examples. Are you seriously suggesting that the discrimination towards Palestinians in the occupied territories is equivalent to those nonsense theories? --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Official discrimination by the Israeli government with the intent of wiping out the Palestinian population over a long period of time so that the Jews can have all of Israel as God intended, then they will expand their colonial empire from the Nile to the Euphrates as the Bible says and destroy all who stand in their way? Yes, I am saying that argument is as credible those nonsense theories. Sorry if I sound condescending, but if you want something treated as fact in Wikipedia it must conform with WP:V and not fall into the category of WP:FRINGE. If you don't like Wikipedia's policies, you have two choices:
  1. Don't edit. There's no mandate from god or from your government (wherever that may be) compelling you to edit Wikipedia.
  2. Propose changes to policy. If you think policies get in the way of Wikipedia being successful and accurate, propose changes to them. Policies are not implicitly "perfect", but they're all we have at the moment. If you have a better approach or a better way, propose it and see if it gains consensus. Either way, if you want to edit you have to follow the policies that do have consensus.
Editting Wikipedia is a privilege, not a right. Whether or not you follow policy in your editting is the prime criterion for determining whether or not you deserve that privilege. Just because it is given by default does not mean you are owed it; and if you don't like our policies, and decide that you don't want to follow them while editting, it may be taken away. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 14:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Telling me "don't edit" is inane. Please don't be a total dick and tell me to go away. How would you like it if I told you "don't edit". Your belief that Israeli apartheid is WP:FRINGE is just that; a belief. Also, last time I checked, this is the village pump regarding policy, so instead of saying "follow policy", why don't we discuss the policies instead? That's the whole fucking point of even bringing this up.
Also, I don't like your condescending attitude (as evidenced on this page) towards me. Please read WP:AGF. Thanks. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 16:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Even Israeli apartheid should not have "allegations" in the title. It's superfluous, non-neutral and unprofessional. We should write in an objective style without implying a point-of-view. — Omegatron 21:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By making an article about a subject, we are making an implicit claim that it exists, and that claim must pass the acid test of WP:V. If it cannot pass that acid test, it cannot be on Wikipedia. "Israeli apartheid" cannot be verified to exist, and therefore an article suggesting it does has no place here. We can, however, discuss the allegations made by some that it does exist, which is what we do. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 21:23, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I completely disagree with your "implicit claim that it exists". We have articles on creation, aliens, etc. etc. and not Allegations of creation, Allegations of aliens, etc. etc. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The subject of an article could exist in fiction or in popular thought--The only thing that matters here is that it can be verified that it exists therein. I can verify, by checking the first Star Wars film, that there is indeed a character called Luke Skywalker. I cannot verify, however, that "Israeli apartheid" exists in any world, real or fictional. Remember, Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought. Kari Hazzard (T | C) 21:36, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Israel apartheid DOES exist in popular thought. Many notable scholars have used the term. Also, just because it's not popular where you live doesn't mean that it isn't popular in other places. Again, an example of Systematic bias.--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • "If you can't differentiate between historical fact and political rhetoric, then there's hardly a point in responding. The Israeli apartheid is a terrible historical event. "The Holocaust" is a political epithet. Please try to use less egregiously offensive and, frankly, silly arguments in the future. Thanks."--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So...are you proposing a page move or what? If you are, just make your proposal at WP:RM and be done with it. The discussion here seems more like soapboxing. --Minderbinder 21:30, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not proposing anything, besides consistency. I don't want to swarm WP:RM with several hundred pages with "allegations" in them. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:38, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Consistency" isn't really something that can be proposed as a blanket rule of all articles. "Allegations" is appropriate when the topic dictates it, there's no reason all or none should have it. What are you hoping to accomplish, getting the word removed from articles that have it, or adding it to others? --Minderbinder 21:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, either they all have "Allegations of" in their titles, or none of them do (except in legal uses of the term). Either way is fine with me. (but admittedly with a bias towards those words being removed). --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Even if you could somehow define "they all" whatever that is (All articles? All articles anyone disputes?), it's never gonna happen. You're tilting at a windmill here (or at least making your stink somewhere trafficked enough to get your ranting read by a few people). Nothing to see here folks, let's stop feeding the troll. --Minderbinder 21:51, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Any article that has WP:NOTABLE notable disputes should have "Allegations of..." in the title heading. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:53, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Any article that has WP:NOTABLE disputes should be brought to WP:AFD, and then the matter should be settled. WilyD 21:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake. Didn't mean to have the "WP" showing.--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 22:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also, don't be a WP:DICK by accusing me of being a troll. I have been on Wikipedia for quite a while now, and have no history of blocks. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:55, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I do not know where this is headed. but it seems to me that there are very clear cases where the word "allegation" can be used. Leave these to be discussed in the specific articles. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC) Here's how I think we should make the distinction between allegation and a fact.[reply]

  • If the event/condition/issue is debated by reliable (preferably scholarly) sources, then it should be an "allegation" or "controversy".
  • But if the event is disputed only by wiki users, on unreliable sources, then wikipedia considers it as fact, but gives all POVs due weight.

What do you gusy think about that?Bless sins 22:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wily, that sounds about right. But look at the Islam and antisemitism article, which is filled with allegations that Islam is antisemitic. What do you think of moving it to Islam and antisemitism allegations?--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 22:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

    • I think you're on to something, but don't know if I follow your point on "But if the event is disputed only by wiki users, on unreliable sources, then wikipedia considers it as fact" . Can you elaborate? Majoreditor 22:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • That part is right, but the first point isn't. The article should only Allegations of ... if it ignores the subject and only talks about the debate about whether or not the thing exists. Allegations of North America should not have the population of North America - that's rightly placed in North America, but the debate about whether Columbus was in a new land or Japan might reasonable be titled Allegations of the Amercas. WilyD 22:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Alright, I think I understand your view now. I'm sorry if I come off as condescending by asking too many questions. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 22:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Not at all - better to ask too many questions and understand each other better than necessary than the reverse. WilyD 22:23, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Resetting indent). There's an important distinction here. At least 90% of the facts that give rise to the idea of apartheid are not under dispute - characterizing it as "apartheid" is an interpretation that by its very nature is subjective. The Holocaust is a proper name for a series of specific events that are accepted by 99.99% of anyone who calls himself/herself a historian. (Oh, and Noam Chomsky quite clearly holds fringe positions, and isn't even a historian, nor - as it turns out - such a great linguist). --Leifern 00:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hey, just because Chompsky is terrible at a lot of things doesn't mean he's a bad linguist - the reason people listen to him when he hasn't a clue what he's talking about is because he's such a good linguist. Anyways, I sort of agree - realistically, Israeli Apartheid should redirect to Treatment of Palestinians in Israel or whatever, not Allegations of Israeli Apartheid, which seems to be the right article at the right place. WilyD 00:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've long believed that we should avoid using the word "allegations" in article titles. There will obviously be the need for some exceptions (eg. the 1993 Michael Jackson article), but the word is too easly co-opted for political ends.

The Allegations of Israeli Apartheid title is a bad compromise, and was chosen during highly politicized negotiations last summer. At the time of the article's creation, the concept was relatively marginal. Since then, it has been referenced by a former American president, a United Nations report, and countless journalists. And yet, the "allegations" title has been retained, due to ongoing political divisions on the page itself.

It may be noted, by way of contrast, that the disputed concept of New antisemitism is not referred to as Allegations of new antisemitism, notwithstanding similar objections that have been raised around the concept's viability. CJCurrie 03:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CJCurrie, that's a good point. I've added New antisemitism to the list uptop. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 04:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Categorizing the Holocaust as an "allegation" undermined your own cause. Speaking of which, this whole proposal is an attempt to make a WP:POINT. ←Humus sapiens ну? 10:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Again, important distinction here. The term "New Antisemitism" doesn't attribute antisemitism to a particular group, or entity. If the title had been Robert Fisk's antisemitism (and I'm not claiming he's antisemitic), the comparison would have been apt. --Leifern 10:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Don't attack the user, who is not (at least here) violating WP:POINT - he's trying to make a good point in a constructive, nondisruptive way. There is an inconsistancy that comes from editors who try to apply WP:NPOV without having read it. WilyD 13:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Getting away from what is by definition a POV argument... let's look at this with complete dispassion: In naming articles on Scientific topics, we do not add "Allegations of..." in front of theories held to be factual by mainstream consensus. We should do the same for historical events (or theories) held to be factual by mainstream consensus. Since the vast majority of historians hold that the holocaust did in fact occur, we should not lable it as an "Allegations of..." article. Now, there might be some argument that the opposing view could be an "Allegations" article (ie "Allegations that the Holocaust did not happen")... except that such an article already exists in a much more NPOV manner as Holocaust denial.
In fact, that's why I tried to talk about topics where Allegations of X sound funny. But I will say on scientific topics, we don't use Allegations of ... for non-mainstream stuff either, or even false stuff. MOND is not Allegations of MOND, Caloric Theory is not Allegations of Caloric Theory, Aether is not at Allegations of Aether and so on ... WilyD 15:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I do think we need to think about the propriety of having any "Allegations of" articles... so many of them are thinly veiled POV forks... but that is a different issue. Blueboar 13:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blueboar, I understand your concerns. But what about science which has mainstream consensus among scientists, but not among the general populace? I think it would be incredibly silly and stupid to have an Allegations of Evolutionary theory article. As gracenotes said, I think that if there is relevant, sourced, notable dispute of a subject, then the article should not allege it as a fact. For instance the holocaust is considered fact by the vast majority of historians. But there is a notable minority which disagree with the extent of the holocaust. But that does not mean that the Holocaust article should be moved to Allegations of the Holocaust. And the holocaust itself is such a controversial subject that a move to "Allegations..." would be offensive. And that is my point with the Israeli apartheid article. Most historians agree that Israel has isolated and separated the Palestinians in the occupied territories. But there is a notable minority (mostly from the United States and Israel) that claim there is no persecution of Palestinians. But moving the article (as it currently stands) to "Allegations..." is offensive. As user Tiamut earlier above said: "Those who use it are not alleging that Israel is an apartheid state, they are insisting it is. That term and its associated debate deserve representation in an article titled after the concept itself." --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 14:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Those who use the phrase are still making allegations, regardless of whether or not they believe them to be true. Jayjg (talk) 14:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I find the allegation that I am violating WP:POINT to be entirely self-defeating. The whole point of the Village pump is to discuss issues BEFORE doing something major. If I had went and move all those articles to "Allegations of..." (or vice versa), that would have been a WP:POINT.--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 14:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Most historians agree that Israel has isolated and separated the Palestinians in the occupied territories."
The article isn't titled "allegations that Israel has isolated the Palestinians", the article is titled "allegations of Israeli apartheid". Most historians do *not* agree that this isolation/separation constitutes apartheid. Ken Arromdee 19:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've found this: WP:WTA#So-called.2C_supposed.2C_alleged.2C_purported. Added to top.--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 14:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Added Pallywood.--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 14:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You forgot Islamophobia. I added it for you. Jayjg (talk) 14:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. If you find anymore, feel free to add them. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 14:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article Allegations of Israeli Apartheid is, strictly speaking, about the allegations rather than the actuality of any discrimination or colonialism which would be better served by an article entitled something else. At least, that was the reason behind the writing of the article by my understanding. That isn't even considering the compromises that reaching that title entailed. Islamofascism is about the neologism, Islamophobia unfortunately conflates a neologism with a real phenomenon along with allegations of the phenomenon, and New antisemitism is similar. --Coroebus 20:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite sure why Pallywood is included in this discussion. The article is admittedly problematic - it's a neologism used almost entirely by blogger-activists and promoted in a self-published video essay by an academic working in a personal capacity as a political activist. The notability of the neologism, the video essay and the academic's activism is questionable to say the least - it emphatically isn't widely used or recognised beyond the blogosphere. (See Talk:Pallywood#Notability questions for details - comments from other editors would be very welcome.) However, it seems to me to be in a rather different category from the one that Kirbytime sets out above. -- ChrisO 02:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Although the article itself states that it is about the word "Pallywood", reading the discussion page it seems clear that many users including SlimVirgin and Leifern have decided that they want the article to be about alleged incidences of what might be called Pallywood, hence the dispute about referencing articles that don't even mention the term (e.g. here and here. This is extremely problematic as Wikipedia really shouldn't be adopting partisan neologisms as the titles of articles about things, unless the article is about said neologism. It is one of the main source of conflict on articles such as Allegations of Israeli Apartheid (where the same editors consicuously take the opposite view insisting that the sources must include references to Israeli apartheid) and Islamophobia and Islamofascism. --Coroebus 14:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's time to put all of the "Allegations . . ." articles up for Afd, as they all violate our rules against WP:NOR#Synthesis_of_published_material_serving_to_advance_a_position, codified at WP:SYNT.  MortonDevonshire  Yo  · 21:03, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Straw poll

Sign under the statement with which you most agree. Discuss in comments section.

The article titles, as they currently stand, should be changed in some way

  1. --Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 17:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. --Sa.vakilian(t-c) 03:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Andeggs 08:50, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article titles, as they currently stand, do not need to be changed

  1. --Sefringle 02:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. -- Ken Arromdee 19:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all of the "allegations" articles as violative of WP:SYNT

  1. --  MortonDevonshire  Yo  · 18:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment- That makes you part of the first category. --Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 19:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Undecided

Comments

There is nothing wrong with most of the current titles. The topics which there is serious uncertianty about have alleged in them. The ones where uncertianty is uncertian do not. Calling the Holocaust, for example, alleged, is giving undue weight to antisemites.--Sefringle 02:12, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The term is so frequently used in newspaper accounts regarding criminal activity, that it by now has acquired that connotation, and should only be used when specifically criminal accusations that have not yet been decided are the topic Many of the uses are more general, and hence inappropriate.DGG 02:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pages called "alligations" should be about the alligations, pages without should be about the thing. aligations that I am a baboon should be about the claim I am a baboon, baboon should be a page about baboons themselves. It's not saying something is less true, it's just definieing the focus of the article, is it talking about a thing? or talking about talking about a thing?

I agree with you. But the problem is, Zionism and racism redirects to Allegations of zionism and racism Zionism and racism allegations, when they are "allegedly" two different subjects. --Ķĩřβȳ♥♥♥ŤįɱéØ 21:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This attitude has got to change

In the link Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#Proposed_Change, Radiant! 'just blew off a well intentioned suggestion' that certain steps should be added to process, and damned the matter as a perennial suggestion that comes up once an month, effectively closing the discussion with that judgemental dismissal. If he's right, that indicates there is a body of thought thinking similar to myself, that the current practices are very wrong to keep and retain good and knowledgeable expert editors which can otherwise move the project to a higher average quality. So I'm asking some Admin to set up a straw poll, on whether this, and further, that the voting be split into a section by whether the respondent is an Admin, or a regular editor. I have the utmost respect for that group of editors, and frankly feel they are the most victimized group within our community, but as a rule they are the most active and most influential. In this case, I feel short term self-interest may be biasing what is a better practice for the long term health of any Wiki project and the greater interests of the community as a whole need to be thought through carefully. This is a matter which BITES people and alienates them repeatedly, and should not be born because of convenience. Like a little gas-pedal pressure, it has great effects on the long term results--if held in place unchanged we'd see one result--if modified at some point (now, or at 90 mph, etcetera) another different outcome. // FrankB 18:59, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here. Do you want a straw poll to decide whether admins should vote in a separate section to other users at CfD, or are you asking whether active editors of a category should be contacted when it's nominated for deletion, or is there an issue with the general way in that changes are made to policy? Tra (Talk) 19:59, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, the point is that it is a perennial suggestion that comes up once a month. So is censorship, for instance, and so is standardizing on English spelling, and so is everything else on WP:PEREN. We have that page for a reason, you know. >Radiant< 13:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
to clarify
I would like an in depth airing of whether deletion policy (outside of AfD, I agree, holding my nose at the hypocrisy needed for that.) should or should not include an attempt to notify key interested parties, the so called instruction creep. My suggested threshold is the most active five or last five editors that have made a non-minor change. IMHO, WP:CIV is held up as sacrosanct, yet in practice, the community thumbs it's nose at it by being discourteous and not enforcing a minimal level of courtesy notification. Concurrently, it presents a further hypocrisy saying "Anyone can edit", yet functions at a pace that requires huge amounts of time to participate in many forums and decision making pages. I'm not sure whether some people are independently wealthy, ultra-efficient, or someone stiffing their employers to keep up such a pace, but outside of academic circles I'm baffled that someone can have time to edit and participate much at all in wikipolitics and still make significant edits to articles. I also have to wonder what percentage of our key (and presumably best) editors' time is devoted to such matters, at the expense of losing their contributions in main space edit improvements. I reason that outside article space, there is plenty of time to cycle through a deletion and discussion process of several weeks, yet many of those have extremely short cycles from my point of view as a working man, so that it's tough to get around on patrol and still do the wiki work of ongoing projects. Double that tough state for many key discussion pages. Yet we are told "If you care about it, you have to see it on your watch list". Well, with more than 2,500 pages on my watchlist, there is always change to check should I have the time. I wish I had the time to look at a watch list once a week, much less watch it daily or several times a day. All of those administrative matters takes me (and You, and you and you...) from other priorities like editing and improving content. Some of us have vast amounts of time on wiki editing, others have to ration and balance that volunteer donation with RL priorities. A template, or a category, or redirect, or page finding it's way to MFD is hardly causing harm, and can usually wait, for it's been there for months in all likelihood. More to the point, someone cannot and does not reach it by "Random Article", hence none need the driving haste of AfD proceedings. My thesis is this all goes to retaining people, people buring out, people making quality edits, but many of us are unable to participate at an unrealistic daily pace that only some of us—a small few really— can hope to maintain. That unneeded haste creates a certain hostility and a lot of frustration with the environment here. It costs editors and almost certainly quality. The pressure to keep up is large, the desire to participate is present, is it too much to ask that if something is going through a major shakeup that the party making the decision to shake things up should be willing to pay the minor price of spaming some talk pages and attempting to email the same parties? Is it going to ruin someone's day to wait another week for resolution and closure of an XfD decision? With longer cycle times wouldn't more people be able to find time and add their wisdom to the mix? Must such matters be on a school-boys schedule with time to throw away? Things should be more deliberative, better balanced. You want speed, add a quorum floor number (ten participants say) and if 2/3rds agree, then close the matter. If there is different constructive discussion, let it go a couple of weeks. Yes, a Notification process adds 10 minutes or so to the nomination cycle, but it keeps people from feeling abused, and if it's such a good idea to change the status quo, then ante up by golly, pay the price in courtesy. The community needs to address these matters so they aren't matters of stamina, but measures which lead to the inclusion of greater numbers. If a decision can't get ten participants, it's not likely it's important one way or another— so start with that. No decision should be blessed without a 2/3rds agreement and a quorum. You certainly can't say three people reflect consensus, yet many so called policy discussions devolve into a handful of participants without a formal community endorsement. It's no way to run anything. Best regards // FrankB 23:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia a Laughingstock?

I for one have been too embarrassed and shocked at this Essjay affair over the last week or so to edit at all. Now that I can gather the ability to get on Wikipedia again I must ask the question that has been simmering in all our minds lately:

Is Wikipedia becoming a laughingstock? I mean, the Essjay matter has been reported on all media outlets, including the network nightly news. This sort of unwelcome attention can only attract a flood of people who deride Wikipedia. In fact, I think the ONLY coverage of wikipedia EVER in the media is negative, and plays up our shortcomings in being a reliable encyclopedia. And now academics, the very people who we need to approve of us, are so much further from ever doing that.

Furthermore, I would argue that the last high-profile snafu here, the Siegenthaler affair, has attracted more users who come here to deride us. While some people come to wikipedia curious about our bad publicity and eventually become bona fide contributors, I think the larger percentage of them come here to vandalize and cause trouble. Just think of how much vandalism and disruption have increased exponentially since 2005-06. Thank you for your time. Hallibrah 01:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If Wikipedia is becoming a laughingstock, then what do you suggest we do about it? Captain panda In vino veritas 03:21, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So you are agreeing with us that it is becoming a laughingstock? Or is that the general consenus anyway these days here? Hallibrah 03:23, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, my comment was not directed at whether Wikipedia is a laughingstock or not. As for your question, I would not go so far as to call it a laughingstock, but it is certainly seen quite badly by many people. Captain panda In vino veritas 03:26, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well since you basically agree that Wikipedia is becoming a laughingstock, what do you think we should do about it? Hallibrah 03:43, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the ONLY coverage of wikipedia EVER in the media is negative - *rolls eyes*. Whatever. You obviously have some agenda and this thread appears to be a troll. -- Stbalbach 03:56, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, what is the Essjay affair, and what was the Siegenthaler affair? zadignose 04:17, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stblebach, that last comment was not particularly helpful. Please be civil. Hallibrah 04:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you're too embarassed to edit, then don't edit. I for one don't care what the rest of the world thinks about Wikipedia: I'm editing for myself. --Carnildo 05:07, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For my part, most of those I know have generally gone to Wikipedia when they need a quick bit of information, or a starting point for some in-depth research, just like one would use any encyclopedia. After all the recent events...wait, nothing's changed, the same thing still happens! So I guess not. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:03, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. When doing serious research (as opposed to casual reading) Wikipedia is a great place to start, but a poor place to end. Raymond Arritt 06:07, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To get an idea of recent reporting of Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Press coverage. Some of it is critical, some of it is positive. That's always been the case. There's also a lot of coverage which doesn't get onto that page. Today I was reading my local TV&Radio magazine (the New Zealand Listener), and in an opinion piece on state housing there's a sentence "By international standards, New Zealand towns ... have a very low density of population ... according to Wikipedia". Some pages later, in an article on spam, the Wikipedia discussion page on palm oil is mentioned. Wikipedia has become an essential part of everyday life for many, who for the most part have never heard of Essjay.-gadfium 06:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As I stated in another thread, usability and practicability are far more important than credibility. This is a matter of what my Mom told me when I was young and trying to face the harshness in the world: "Keep your chins up". The Wikipedia is OUR BABY. We will do with it as we wish, and if others find it useful (and they frequently do!), great, if not, whatever. We will not ever even consider closing shop just because of any degree of external derision. As Dumbya Bush says, "Bring 'em on!". I don't care. Meanwhile, I and many others will continue to contribute and build an increasingly fine and usable encyclopedia. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 02:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Who cares if we're a laughingstock? We're a FUN laughingstock! More to the point, the reason we get lambasted occasionally is not because nobody takes us seriously but rather because people take us far too seriously, not catching on that we really aren't a reliable source. (Besides, who seriously thought Essjay was a professor anyway?) --tjstrf talk 02:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win." (Eric Raymond attributed this to Ghandi) -- llywrch 17:42, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia doesn't need academics, or anyone else engaged in the professional production of information. They see us as a dangerous competitor and a threat to their privileged status. They have been hostile of years, but their hostility has had no meaningful effect. Most intelligent adults I know that have discovered Wikipedia think it is a great resource for their personal use, and that is the main endorsement we should want. Why is there this fixation with what goes on between kids and professors? Let's just forget about them. They aren't relevant to the mainstream adult world. Most adults have put the education system and its issues behind them. Wikipedia should do the same. LukeHoC 00:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any essays on AUTHORITY of editors

I have done a little look for this. But after about 10 minutes thought it might just be easier to ask people who might know.


Are there any essays/guidelines explaining how editors should not use their personal authority on a subject (eg. as a politician, university professor, leader of a band's fan club etc.) to add Original research to articles without Attribution. I am looking for something that specifically deals with someone saying that they have in depth knowledge through personal experience on the subject, so it doesn't really matter that they haven't sourced their contributions, because they are "true".--ZayZayEM 00:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This has been an ongoing issue with Wikipedia and one that has VERY recently come full force into the spotlight, due to a recent incident which attained some media prominence. By and large, the policies of WP:COI, WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:ATT are what guide us -- and you already appear to be aware of all or most of those. If you can provide a verifiable reference to support your claim and the other user cannot find a reference of their own, then as best I see it: it sounds like you're in the right -- the burden of proof is now upon them to find information which runs counter to your evidence.
I have used the argument of "I know this because I do" quite often, myself. I use it only when I am truly confident in something, such as in cases where it is clearly apparent to absolutely anyone with the slightest bit of knowledge on the subject would know that I am correct. I do not use that approach in situations where users provide a reference counter to how I see it; though sometimes I may attempt to discredit a provided reference should its verifiability be up to debate. Users whom claim professional experience on a particular topic and wish to cite their own studies should have a published paper on the subject, published by a respected media. --Bossi (talk ;; contribs) 00:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And even if you yourself absolutely know it to be true, it still needs a source so that any reader who comes upon it, not just the ones with knowledge, can check it and not just take your word for it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 03:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There might be others, but this anti-appeal to authority proposal is possibly what you seek: Wikipedia:Ignore all credentials. --Quiddity 06:02, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hooray! WP:IAC is exactly what I was after.--ZayZayEM 09:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The answer is very simple: no editor has such authority. -- Visviva 08:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try User:Uncle G/On sources and content#Tips for editors, also. Uncle G 01:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The problem here is that there are a lot of people with a lot of knowledge who are in professions without much in the way of professional, peer-reviewed publications available to cite as reference; there is also the problem that some knowledge inevitably does not make its way into those publications that do exist. To use myself as a close-at-hand example, I'm an infantryman in the U.S. Army. Say that I am creating or editing an article on battle drills. I could describe, in the article, a given battle drill as described in, say, the Ranger Handbook. But what if I want to point out that although battle drill X is described in such and thus a manner in the Handbook, it is often in the real world performed in a slightly different fashion? My knowledge in the matter would be professionally-based and learned from other, more experience professionals but I can see no way to include the material in an article without violating the "no original material" rule, unless I can find somewhere that such a variation is recorded in print so that I can cite it as a reference.

I'm not taking a position here; I fully understand why it's invalid to just say "I'm a professional, so take my word for it". But, the essential quandary is still there; how can editors contribute the knowledge that they have accumulated professionally but which represents the accumulated "oral knowledge", so to speak, of their profession? --Molon Labe 08:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia mainly as source of reference

In the world there are some reports about people using Wikipedia as a source of truth. Since anyone can edit, the validity cannot be verified. Hence, school teachers and such are not so happy with the use of Wikipedia for research.

For this reason, I use Wikipedia as a source of reference; if I find something, the most value is in the reference to non-wiki sites like vendors, organisations about the topic, researchers on the topic, books, etc. They have their own level of validity that can be verified.

So if wikipedia is promoted less as an encyclopedia and more as a reference, then it would not have to deal with the validity issue. Users who are looking for information can read up on a topic and afterwareds find useful sources through wikipedia.

This could be implemented by having editors focus on further reference on the topics.

Maybe this idea has already been suggested, in which case my apologies. If you know this is the case, please try and close this thread.

Regards, Philip. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lafeber (talk • contribs) 19:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Wikipedia classifies itself as an 'encyclopedia', which in itself should imply that it is not designed for serious academic research, but rather, as a general guide and reference. Encyclopedias are by their very nature rarely regarded as reliable academic sources. -- Chairman S. Talk Contribs 09:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We make a good faith effort to publish authoritative content. While we often fail, especially in the case of hotly contested issues, we should continue to pursue the goal of being an authoritative reference. I have been here now for 5 years and have seen vast improvement. Certainly following up on the references used leads to more knowledge, but our mission is to create reference works. Fred Bauder 18:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds like the goals that have attracted me. Philip makes a valid point. Any dynamic system is going to give a shifting source of research, by definition. But I wonder if these criticisms are a wider misunderstanding of the "www commons". Many people still regard a webpage as exactly that...a page. That name was only ever meant as a bridge between paper world and digital realm. Wikipedia is neither a Reference or an Encyclopaedia it is a "WIKI - Pedia", a modern, electronic hybrid of both...with both strengths and weaknesses. Some pages are brilliant reference works while others are merely works in progress. DJ Barney 18:24, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
When I was an university it would never have crossed my mind to use an encyclopedia as a reference. True, my university was one of the most prestigious, but I assumed things were the same elsewhere. Is it really the case that at the average university students give Britannica as a reference in their essays? I would never have guessed that could be the case, but it is what this recurring debate implies. LukeHoC 00:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A competent author will sometimes find her/himself confronted with a fact that needs a source to verify its accuracy, yet it is not important enough to justify the time to do the research to find that source; she/he must either exclude the fact or find a source that is "good enough" to verify it. (I can list quite a few otherwise reliable books where this has been done.) In those cases, the author may cite an encyclopedia as verification, trusting that up to this point she/he has proven their competence at the craft & hoping the reader will overlook this bending of the rules. However, students (by definition) are still learning the craft of writing; they are expected to follow the rules (e.g. don't cite from encyclopedias) until their instructors say otherwise. -- llywrch 18:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should we have hidden categories?

Sorry if this has been proposed before. People seem to love creating categories, and other people object to having huge indigestible wads of categories at the end of an article. Maybe the answer is to have a short list of visible categories and another link called "More categories". If you click on "more", you see that huge list. For instance, I could imagine the end of Turkey Vulture looking like this (but in blue):

Categories: Cathartidae | Birds of North America | Birds of South America
More categories

If you click on "More categories", you might see:

Categories: Birds of Canada | Birds of the United States | [snip twenty-odd additional countries] | Scavengers | Birds with good senses of smell | Birds commensal with humans | Birds that rock in flight | Birds that breed colonially | Examples of convergent evolution | Species that are imitated by other species | Species that appear in Thornton Burgess's stories | Species with scientific names of uncertain origin | etc., etc.

This would put the power of hypertext at the service of curious users without cluttering up the articles. Why shouldn't somebody who reads that the TV has a good sense of smell wonder what other birds do too? Why shouldn't they get an answer with a scroll and two clicks? Of course people would have to do the work. But there seems to be a strong impulse to work this way; maybe it should be indulged.

By the way, I thought of this when participating in the debate at Category_talk:Biota_by_country, which may need some more thoughts. —JerryFriedman 05:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • We are in fact trying to cut down on excessive categorization. See WP:OCAT for details, and if you see an overly-categorized article feel free to drop some of those categories on WP:CFD. >Radiant< 10:55, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is a proposal to allow categories that you and I consider excessive. If they're hidden, we have the advantages of all those categories without the disadvantages. The hidden ones would be those deprecated at WP:OCAT (more or less—categories with only a few members and no room for growth might be forbidden even in hidden form). —JerryFriedman 14:29, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Having hidden categories is a good idea. Well I do have another proposal which is to re-categorize into flora and fauna by eco-regions described by the WWF (See: Eco-regions) and (See: reason). Luffy487 14:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do not think that the show/hide system by itself would solve all problems as described. It is easily conceivable to picture the "more categories" display becoming simply too long to read for some articles. For example, imagine categories for every country, state, province, territory, department, division, and oblast where the house sparrow is found. When shown, the category list would be too long to read or use effectively. What is also needed is some type of organization mechanisms for categories that would present the categories in a more easy-to-read fashion. At the moment, categories are simply displayed as a paragraph-like mass of links at the bottoms of pages. Improved category formatting (such as displaying the categories as bulleted lists and sorting them into smaller lists) would help substantially. Coupled with the show/hide options described above, the system could be very useful. Dr. Submillimeter 14:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not to mention, having hidden categories will just encourage people to overcategorize. People will be adding more categories to the hidden cats than they would have otherwise added to non-hidden cats had hidden cats not existed. I'm talking about the "well, it's hidden anyway, so let's just add the article into every category that technically fits" line of thinking. I don't think it'll be all that helpful - categories are supposed to help with navigation. If you have 20 categories on an article, what are the chances they'll actually be useful to someone? It'll be much better to have just a few categories that are each useful, and readers can look at the categories, then look at the sub/super categories. Then again, i doubt many readers ever look at categories at all, regardless of how many or how few cats there are on an article. Cats is mainly an internal organizational thing for us editors... --`/aksha 15:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a bad idea, but I think it will just shift the current arguments about what categories are important enough to exist into arguments about what categories are important enough to be visible. And there will still be plenty of categories created that aren't even fit for hiding. Postdlf 16:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, having sections of any sort that could be hidden or shown would I believe be the next evolutionary step to Wikipedia. For being not paper, this place sure does set everything up like it was, having to have a totally separate page for anything that doesn't quite fit in a main article. Owlofcreamcheese 17:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree completely. Too bad I'm not a programmer and can't do anything to take fuller advantage of WP's non-paper-ness. Various show/hide options (references, for instance) seem like an easy place to start.
To answer a comment above, I don't think this suggestion would end all the arguments, but it might produce a result that would work better for more people.
Anyway, if the present dissatisfaction in some quarters gets worse and more widespread, I hope someone will remember this compromise possibility. —JerryFriedman 05:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
All this would do would be to move the debate from deletion to which articles should be on the main list and which should be extras. LukeHoC 00:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another perspective about categories

When I try to go through categories, I would like to point out another viewpoint here to try and resolve. Often when I go to some categories, I see that there are hundreds (or even thousands!) of articles that are in that category. This sometimes get to be very time consuming to try and find something specific if you are actually going to use the category system to look up a piece of related information.... IMHO the main reason to be using the category system as a reader. The point being is how many people here actually look on page seven (listed 200 articles per page) of the category listing to actually find an article? Even with alphabet bars and other navigational techniques, it becomes something nearly meaningless.

I don't think anything will help with that except 1) careful subcategorization and 2) displaying all the categories on one page so you can use your browser's search tool (when you know the word you're looking for). —JerryFriedman 05:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See Category:Biography articles of living people for a good example.

My question as it relates to these hidden categories is how would this help at all in this situation? To me, it would cause some of these categories to grow even more substantially. Perhaps there is some minor value added to these sort of monster categories, but I'm not sure what it really is. --Robert Horning 21:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This triggered an impression I've had before... the 200 per page limit is really too low. There is nothing to commend that ceiling number which I can see to justify it save that maybe it provides a bit of server unloading. But compared to a page's length in bytes, the length of any category is relatively trivial, even if huge. Making an educated guess, I'd presume it's because category pages may not be cached as aggressively as main space pages, thus require an on the spot database search for the category at the time of page access. Perhaps this needs re-examined and caching be considered in an quad-divided alphabetized scheme -- so there is a set of four virtual category sub-pages, if you will under any long category. Most of the time I want to search such a list, I get frustrated by not being able to just page down or mouse cursor down. Not being able to page down takes away much of their utility. And I'd double that disdain for the alpha sorted ones using the template. While I'm making a wish list, add it'd be nice to have a click box on a cat page to display in two or four columns, not just three— where page titles vary suitably, and also another, so their is less vertical whitespace, perhaps switching to a smaller font as well... allowing more of the lists to show. // FrankB 23:54, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

National Library References

Wikipedia is a digital encyclopedia that is composed of multi-authored articles on a great variety of topics.

To write quality articles, one needs reliable resources. Since Wikipedia is an online project, the preference naturally goes out to resources one can check online.

National libraries store quality resources that have been selected and categorized by people who know best how to do this: national librarians.

It is also the librarians who know best what is stored in their libraries. For this reason, it makes sense for them to help authors and readers to find their way to the resources that fit their needs.

However, the guidelines of Wikipedia indicate that people who refer to the resources they (or organizations they represent) store automatically have a conflict of interest.

In short, librarians who refer to resources stored in their libraries have a conflict of interest, and are thus breaking the rules of Wikipedia.

Furthermore, a person or organization who repeatedly adds external links could well be a spammer. (Against current developments, this is an understandable assumption.)

Indeed, this happened in my case. I have been busy adding external links to national library resources, and this led to some disturbance among editors and a blacklisting of the site I was referring to: The European Library. This webservice has also been chosen by the European Commission as technical and organizational foundation for their proposed European Digital Library.

I would like to know how you feel about the following:

1. Wikipedia’s quality would go up if it accepts references from national librarians. Organized library references need to be considered added value, not spam (NB: Several editors have suggested that references are more appropriate than external links.)

2. The references could go either to the “library record” of the cited resource (if applicable showing possibility to view the full resource online) or to more online information (image / short description) when the article is about a so-called ‘treasure’ of a national library. In the latter case, this includes a picture reference.

3. Keeping in mind that The European Library gives centralized and direct access to Europe’s national library resources, representatives of this organization should be allowed to add references to the articles.

4. If needed, we can create a template for making national library references (making further editing unnecessary).

Thanks.Fleurstigter 14:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A librarian would have a conflict of interest about the institution they work for but I don't see a conflict over the data they have in there collection (in general, there could be specific cases if the collection is biased). Having someone find a reference for you does not conflict the reference so if the librarian finds a book for you this should not be a problem for you.RJFJR 19:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. They may have a COI over their workplace but not over the content in it. For one thing, COI is a guideline, it has exceptions. For example, would you say that a resident of the USA shouldn't edit the United States article? Also, COI mainly applies to writing about organizations/people who pay you, self-promotion, or campaigning. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 19:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the larger issue here seems to be the spam blacklisting of the site. What we have here is the unilateral action of a small number of admins that has negatively affected the ability of wikipedia editors to accurately write and reference articles. The content of the site in question is academic in nature and should be availible for use. Yet, what we have here is the example of a punitive action by admins... What they have said was "the site was spammed (added to wikipedia articles by employees of the organization) and thus the entire site is blacklist. What they are saying is: We are punishing the EU libraries website because its employees are acting in a way that we don't agree with. Spam blacklisting, like all admin actions that block or otherwise restrict access at wikipedia, should NOT be about punishing, it should be about damage control. I can understand blacklisting a site with no academic content, where such a blacklisting serves to stop the addition of said site to articles; such a blacklisting is not punitive in nature, it is pragmatic. However, we are not dealing with a commercial website here. If the librarians in question are acting in contravention to wikipedia policy, they should be adequately warned, and maybe blocked. But to declare that the site is blacklisted is a punitive measure against the organization in question, saying "We will punish you by not allowing your website at wikipedia". This is cutting of our own noses to spite our faces. The fact that such action can be taken without regard to consensus, and based on the unilateral action of a small number of admins, is a flaw in the spam blacklisting process. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 19:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If it is on the spam blacklist it needs to be talked over at m:Talk:Spam blacklist. There is likely a reason for it, and I'm sure someone there will look it up for you :). I will say it was not blacklisted using en.wikipedia admin tools. —— Eagle101 Need help? 20:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've edited your link to the talk page to fix a minor typo. Adam Cuerden talk 20:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I promised Fleur to wait for some time before I would give my PoV in this case, but I see some answers now, which IMHO slightly misform the situation. This is what happened. I saw Fleurstigter (and 2 IP's) adding links to the external links sections of several sites. Per WP:SPAM:

Main pages: Links normally to be avoided and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam. Although the specific links may be allowed under some circumstances, repeatedly adding links will in most cases result in all of them being removed.

I reverted those and added a warning and an explanation to the user talk page of Fleurstigter (diff of two edits). Fleurstigter emailed me from an email address connected to 'kb.nl' (Dutch Royal Library, Koninklijke Bibliotheek). I also informed her that she had a COI (the other point is technical; the site only works in a couple of browsers, and most of the links were not really directly pertaining to the subject).

At this point Fleurstigter went on, and another user also warned her that what she was doing was spamming (diff). The links were still only added to the external links sections, while the user was repeatedly informed that when the links were used as references, they could be allowed, when taking the policy WP:A in account (this specifically does state things about COI:

See also: Wikipedia:Autobiography and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

.

You may cite your own publications just as you would cite anyone else's, but make sure your material is relevant and that you are regarded as a reliable source for the purposes of Wikipedia. Be cautious about excessive citation of your own work, which may be seen as promotional or a conflict of interest; when in doubt, check on the talk page.

So yes, one can cite works one owns (with caution), but IMHO, adding only links to an organisation that one is affiliated with to external link sections is not improving the wikipedia, I regard that as pushing the links in order to advertise or improve the interest of the organisation.

Since after several discussions the additions continued, and additions were mainly performed by IPs and people connected to the European Library, the link was blacklisted on user:shadowbot (note1: this does not affect referencing, shadowbot should not revert when a link is in a reference, only when it is added as a plain link to a document, and reverting shadowbot does not result in another revert; note2: the link is not blacklisted on meta, and that has also never been considered). I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: The site has already been removed again from the shadowbots blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:52, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

>>

Thank you all for your reactions.

If I understand correctly, we agree that references of The European Library add value to Wikipedia, and that representatives of The European Library are allowed - encouraged maybe - to add them.

Please note, I am using the term 'references' NOT external links

Have a nice afternoon. Thank you.Fleurstigter 13:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not so fast! You have set up a number of new articles that are not at all encyclopedic in tone, very badly written, and show a complete disregard for WP style and conventions - examples are: Van Hulthem (manuscript), Gospel Book (Ethnike Bibliotheke tes Hellados, Codex 2603),Khitrovo Gospel, Brussels Coin Cabinet, Oktoikh - and plenty more. These are blatently just pegs to hang your links on (the links have now been removed). In some cases (like the last) other articles on exactly the same subjects/books existed, but you did not bother to check. Some of your links added as references to existing articles are equally cavalier. You should realize that articles like this serve little purpose - very few will see them. Nor do they add value to WP. From your user page, and almost all your contributions, it is fairly clear that your only interest in WP is in promoting the European Library, and apparently you are editing WP in your working hours as part of your job. I don't think this helps either WP or the European Library, at least when done as crudely as you have been doing it. I've said elsewhere that it is far preferable to block you (and your colleagues if need be) as editors rather than the European Libraries site - we do this frequently to badly-behaved American high-schools. Just putting your links in as references does not in itself change the situation if you add them in the fashion you have been doing. Also I'm sure that in some cases the better link would direct be to the member institution - British Library etc - rather than through the EL. Just being a reference does not stop a link being spam. Johnbod 18:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again. I am sorry for giving you the wrong impression. Yes, I started a number of new articles - why? Because I felt these topics are important, and deserved their own articles. I did check. At that time I didn't find other articles.

Earlier I didn't know anything about Wikipedia or how things work here. Now I do. For instance, I understand now that one should not create an article because you think the topic is interesting, and you hope other people agree and help creating a proper article.

Have a nice evening, Fleurstigter 19:23, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, I think this decision is a bit fast, Fleur. I would like to see this subject to be expanded a bit more, since I feel that certain points have not yet been fully addressed. For example, I don't think the subject of the conflict of interest is fully addressed here, or defining the mass additions of links as spam, regardless of the quality or the appropriateness of the page being linked to.
Concerning this, indeed, if a librarian would go into his/her library, grab a book, and add and cite information out of that book into the wikipedia, that person would not have a conflict of interest. Things change when one has that copy available online, and one would, in the reference to the cited work on the page on wikipedia, add a link to that specific online copy. I believe that at that point one does have a conflict of interest. Also, if the link is to a non-unique resource (many libraries have copies of a certain book, though there are some that are unique); is it then appropriate to link to a copy you own (or even, is it appropriate to add such convenience links; I believe this is not covered in a policy or guideline)? And even if the target of the link is appropriate and good, mass-addition of such links is spam, certainly if the person who adds it has an interest in the target of the links. Hope to hear more about this. --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree the articles Fleur wrote were not very good the way they were written, I'd like to stress very strongly that to create articles on topics like these (individual notable historic manuscripts) is a very worthwhile thing to do in principle, and I will warmly welcome Fleur as a Wikipedia editor if she wants to contribute in this field. We have a Wikipedia:Systemic bias in Wikipedia that works against such topics, and there's a huge amount of room for improvement of coverage here. And if we can get well-written articles on interesting manuscripts, then I would not worry too much about "spamming" - what could be more relevant in an article about a book, than a link to the library that holds the book, with a page describing the book? The external pages I saw were certainly informative and link-worthy, and the mere fact that a single editor might add a lot of those links wouldn't constitute a problem for me. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I certainly concur that articles are welcome. And of course members of libraries are welcome to help us with first hand information on data that they have, providing they edit with a WP:NPOV. But that indeed means content with references, not only references because we have the information that is mentioned in the wikipedia. And when the library has a unique copy of a book, that is certainly worth a link, no doubt. I will leave it at this, and hope that a lot of new information will be included in the wikipedia. Hope to see you around! --Dirk Beetstra T C 00:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If Fleur does want to actually contribute, she should start by wikifying the articles she has already started up to the level of a reasonable stub - with links, dates, categories and encyclopedic language. There are plenty of stubs in Category:Illuminated manuscripts she can see the style & terms from. Johnbod 01:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


>>> Hello everybody,

About making references/links, and the things Dirk Beetstra said about this, for instance:

"(..) content with references, not only references because we have the information that is mentioned in the wikipedia"

Why? If you agree that national librarians know good, quality references, why complicate their work and only allow content with references? Isn't a good thing that they are willing to step outside their libraries and tell people where they may find good , reliable info about a particular topic?

The European Library gives access to Europe's national libraries. If the particular item is not online available, this portal tells you where you it is stored. This means that a reference to a library record of The European Library tells you which library/libraries in Europe have it. So.... doesn't this umbrella characteristic make The European Library a great Wikipedia referent?

Greetings, Fleurstigter 13:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, it doesn't. Wikipedia is primarily about having information on line on this site, not about telling you that a hardcopy book is available in the Lithuanian National Library, which you could probably have worked out anyway. We have very few links of this sort to American libraries, which are more relevant to most of our users. We also have rules and policies about how and where information is presented, just as your National Libraries do. If you want to edit here, you need to respect those. Wikipedia is not generally a place for telling people where to find copies of a book, although it is about naming books that are used as references.Johnbod 14:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Johnbod raises an important point: why do you need to link to this source? If I made a similar link to a US library -- my hometown central public library, the Library of Congress or an institution somewhere in between -- at most the only thing this link would supply is the ISBN number of the book. If that is important, we should just add that number to the article & forget about the external link. Now, if it the case that the link leads to an image or article about the subject at the Library ... you need to explictly tell us that is the case. -- llywrch 18:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You like references to online items that are made available by the libraries, but you don't appreciate references to the bibliographic record? Is this what you mean? Fleurstigter 14:22, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand your question. How is a ISBN, a Library of Congress, or British Library number not the same as "the bibliographic record"? -- llywrch 18:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
it's what I mean, and I suspect Llywrch too. I am in favour of links to Illuminated manuscripts and (very) rare printed books featured, as opposed to just catalogued, online, where they are in articles written in WP style, and where are no better sources around. Often they are the only images available, and the ones on the site are too low resolution to be useful for Commons, in my view. It's an unfortunate by-product of Fleur's spamming that many such links that have been around for two years have now been removed after the site was blacklisted, so there are currently fewer links to the site than when she started. But later printed books do not need a reference to the site: WP is not a compendium of library catalogues.

Johnbod 14:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Johnbod, just as a remark, I have been working from the the contributions-list from Fleurstigter and the two IP-addresses that were adding ('spamming') the links to pages; there have not been that many links to the European Library as yet (the site is relatively new). I have only removed the links from pages where these accounts added links (which is generally the strategy I use when a domain gets spammed, only for bad links I work from the linksearch-page). I must confess that it may have been that links that were there before one of these accounts added another one has also been removed, but I do not recall removing links from other pages.
As a general note, I do not have a big problem with librarians pulling a very rare book out of their collection, and improving a wikipedia article with the information they pull out of that book. If that book is the only copy available online I would not have a big problem with a link to that book (though it is not a must, and of course it should be a reference with focus on the book, not on the link). When more (or many) libraries have the book available (even if there is only one library that has the book available online), I would advise to use an ISBN, a plain description of the book (even without a link), or a general link to a independent linkfarm. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There were a number of East European manuscripts added in mid-2005 by User:CristianChirita who just cut and pasted the info from the Treasures section of the EL site. I think all these links were removed after the recent black-listing. See Codex Vyssegradensis for an example - link removed by ST47. I don't approve of those articles either, not least because I have ended cleaning up several of them, like that one (compare the original version). But if they are there the the link to the image should be too (I have restored this one, but I can't remember the others). Maybe there aren't all that many. He removed (march 3) a number of other links too, but mostly not from articles on specific books. I'm all for more articles on important manuscripts, but they should be in WP style, not just cut & paste, and if possible with an image. Johnbod 17:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, another high-throughput editor, but I found the mentioned set of link-removals. I had a quick look, though did not look into all the link removals (I will look later this evening). The link removal you mentioned above was actually the removal of a reference. That removal was reverted, and indeed, it was there a proper reference, the text linked to does state the same as what is mentioned in the wikipedia document (though the wording of the reference could be better).
From the contributions of ST47, the first page I clicked (Orhan Pamuk removal diff) contained a link to the homepage of the European Library, which indeed does not comply with the guidelines on external links. The second (on Latvia, removal diff) removed three links, one is to a general searchpage, one to a document on an artist from Latvia (the country being the subject of the page, not the artist), and the third a link to the address of the latvian library on the site of the European Library. None of these three links are directly linked to the subject of the page, or violate other parts of WP:EL. I do concur with the removal here, these links really don't expand or improve the page. I will look through the rest of the diffs later.
With me the following question starts to come up. There have been (or are) several links to the European Library on pages, which did not link directly to the document where one can find the information, but which link to searchpages or collection pages where one has to search on the page for more information. Does the site of the European Library not allow to directly link to the appropriate documents? If that is the case, then there are certainly better sites to link to. Hope to hear more. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes there often will be better sites, as I have said above or somewhere, certainly for the big Western European libraries. But for the East European ones the EL site Treasures section is still a good reference for important MS not covered elsewhere. I have spent a little time rooting around the EL site without finding much else of WP interest, except links to the British Library, BnF Paris, Royal Dutch sites etc, which are well known & best linked to directly. Each library adds its own bits, so apart from the Treasures section there seems little consistency so far. Early days perhaps. I don't argue with the removal of links to search pages etc. Johnbod 18:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have checked the other removals, and in most cases the links are only sideways linked to the site, or again, general or search pages. I also checked the 13 occurances of *.theeuropeanlibrary.org in mainspace at this moment. A couple of them are references (Alonzo de Santa Cruz, , Codex Vyssegradensis, İbrahim Hakkı Erzurumi) telling the information that is stated in the sentence (though in these cases I had to flip back and forth to see which item I needed, as I stated above, the description could be better, etc.). The others are all external links. On the pages European Library, German National Library (an internal link to European Library would suffice) and library (linkfarm) . On Biblia Pauperum, Velislai biblia picta, Oktoikh, Rosarium philosophorum, and Penny Dreadful the links are mainly to the item under discussion or an item similar or closely related to the item under discussion (for some I have to see the link first to understand it is indeed appropriate). Not all really very informative, and still, but that is a technical shortcoming of the site, there are more items on one page, and one does not get a link directly to only the required information, which is a bit confusing (certainly when the information is not directly linked to the subject one is browsing from).
I hope indeed that this is a problem of 'early days' (as with browser compatibility, which is being worked on), and that things will improve. --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Thanks for sharing your views.

The European Library can directly link / refer to the subject of the page. Soon you can also find direct referrals to specific treasures (making it no longer necessary to scroll down).

What do other editors think?

Have a nice day, Fleurstigter 11:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo's question at WP:ATT

As many of you know, the policy pages Wikipedia:No original research (WP:NOR) and Wikipedia:Verifiability (WP:V) were recently merged together under the title: Wikipedia:Attribution (WP:ATT), while the Guideline page Wikipedia:Reliable sources (WP:RS) was merged into a FAQ page attached to WP:ATT.

Jimbo Wales has expressed some concerns about how this was done. He has suggested a straw poll to determine what the community consensus on this is. The poll is still in the formative stage (tweeking the wording and format)... but should be ready for people to cast their votes soon. Please see: Wikipedia:Attribution/Poll. Blueboar 13:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Attribution

Join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Community discussion

≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:14, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a community discussion to discuss several questions that have arisen concerning the recent merging of WP:V, WP:NOR (and to some degree the guideline WP:RS) into one combined policy page: WP:ATT. We are trying to determine if there was community support for this merger and what should be done with the Policy and Guideline pages that were merged. Please swing by and comment. Blueboar 12:35, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cosmetic images

Am I right in thinking that we don't include images in mainspace where they are purely cosmetic and add no value to the article? Chris cheese whine 21:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Such as what? Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 21:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Such as this. Chris cheese whine 21:42, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, those don't add any more than regular text could. I would suggest sending them to WP:IFD. I thought you might have meant images that don't really add any encyclopedic content to the article but do add some worthwhile illustration like the ones along the side of here. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 21:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about that. The example you give, the articles don't necessarily add content, but they are at least illustrative, and do more than simply make the article look good. Chris cheese whine 21:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

High Schools

(Moved from the talk page ) --83.253.36.136 22:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen, quite often' a statement that High Schools are intrinsically notable. Can someone tell me if this is in fact stated in WP:POLICY, and if so, where?--Anthony.bradbury 22:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  1. This talk page is for discussion about the Village Pump. You want the project page itself.
  2. Didn't you already ask this once before?
Short answer: There is no such statement either in favour or against this position. The stated position of the community is that it is sick and tired of the schools debate already. Chris cheese whine 22:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Yes, I did ask the question before, but the discussion got archived and I lost it. My bad. And for the record., I am not trying to re-open a debate, and am personally sick and tired of being told in AfD, when I oppose a clearly non-notable school article, that High schools are intrinsically notable - which is the point of my question. If I am on the wrong page, I apologise. But thank you for your answer.--Anthony.bradbury 22:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't sweat it too much, we're all entitled to make mistakes. Part of the whole "human" thing. :-) Chris cheese whine 01:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Only thing to do is for us reasonable people (smile) who think some are and some aren't to keep arguing, and ignore the all schools and ignore the no schools-- the randomness of particular AfD decisions is a little disturbing, though. DGG

I am very comfortable with "some are and some are not". I just want to be able to decide in AfD without some twerp telling me that my edit is pointless because notability is WP:POLICY.--Anthony.bradbury 01:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FORTHEPEOPLE

Hello... I posted an addition to the arguments to avoid in deletions essay, labeled as WP:FORTHEPEOPLE. Would more people be willing to look into this? I feel it has merit. - Denny 23:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Deletions Problem

When an article is speedy deleted, people who have the article on their watch list have no way of knowing. The article simply stops showing up, and the watcher may forget about it. We must have a mechanism to inform watchers that a watched article has been deleted. Also, some deleting admins. will delink links to the deleted article. This, however, seems to be destruction of evidence. Although certainly not the sole criterion, the number of links to an article could be one indicator of its notability, for example for a restoration debate. --Nélson Ricardo 01:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Check your watchlist, there is a edit this list link, that shows all pages on a watchlist including the deleted page. as for removing red links, the article was deleted for a reason, and thus should not be recreated removing red links also deters recreation. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 01:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, we are not going to force users to click deeper just to keep track of their watched articles. Your arguments for delinking are specious and disingenuous. --Nélson Ricardo 02:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You miss the point. Speedy deletion is for articles with no redeeming value (see WP:CSD). Things that get speedied do so for a reason (namely that they shouldn't be on Wikipedia in the first place). They stay on your watchlist, however, so you can see when they've been recreated (and may need deleting again). Sorry, I've just noticed that you're trolling the Pump because your pet article got deleted. Get over it. Chris cheese whine 10:41, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Dude, I do not appreciate your accusation that I am a troll. I have a valid grievance. Your flippant remark just pisses me off even more. Are people just trying to annoy me intentionally? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nricardo (talk • contribs) 10:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]
Also, you miss the point. Speedy delete is to be used judiciously in the most blatant circumstances. The article in question was not a valid candidate for speedy, but somebody got a bit overzealous. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nricardo (talk • contribs) 11:13, 23 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]
This is a bug at MediaZilla: #881 and related bug #778 requesting that image uploads register on the watchlist. It would be nice to have. I think that, however, unless a user who is not a developer develops the code, it will not be implemented very soon. Fact is, the developers have the critical bugs and roadmap issues to deal with. That said, I wish all log events for a specific page registered on the watchlist. I also wish I could help with the development, but with my poor programming skills, that is unlikely. --Iamunknown 02:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It appears that Chris is correct. This entire thing seems to be about ADERANT, an article about a company that has been created and maintained almost entirely by the user who started this discussion. It also appears that this user has made it a habit to engage in personal attacks against other users who disagree with his opinion, calling people "bitches" and such. In fact, he has a recent final warning from an admin for this behavior on his talk page. It is my opinion that since no valid policy discussion is even taking place, this discussion should be disregarded. SpadePrince Talk Contributions 14:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Notwithstanding possible bad behavior, I think there is a valid point that speedy deletes do not register on a watch list, and this is a shortcoming of the wiki software. A possible workaround would be for admins to always apply a tag or make some other edit to an article with an edit summary first, even if deleting it immediately thereafter. This way it will show up in the editors' watchlists with an explanation. It will also make sure the speedy deletion is marked in the edit history if the article is restored. Although this adds an extra step, it could save extra work in the long run. Dhaluza 16:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-commercial bias?

One thing I have noticed is that some passionate WP editors seem to have an anti-commercial bias. I think this stems from an over-reaction to the need to remove commercial spam content from articles and links. Some editors take this to an extreme and try to stamp out any trace of commercial activity or interest anywhere on WP, even where it doesn't exist. Since in the English speaking world capitalism is the dominant form of commerce, and most economic activity is conducted for-profit, disfavoring anything commercial would create a systemic bias. Two recent bad examples I have run across were the speedy tag slapped on Camp Alvernia claiming blatant advertising, despite the fact that it is a historical landmark operated by monks in a not-for-profit organization. The other is the (ham fisted) removal of a citation[2] in List of notable glider pilots to a bio by the Academy of Achievement, claiming that links to this site are spam, again even though this is a not-for-profit organization, and the bio was actually a very good secondary source. We need more citations on WP, not less! Has anyone else noticed this Anti-commercial bias too? Dhaluza 01:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. My recent experience with improper deletion of ADERANT has left a bad taste in my mouth. --Nélson Ricardo 02:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I think much of the problem arises from editors simply describing the company and listing its products/services without any indication of notability. A quick read through ADERANT leads me to think it was fairly prodded. Most of the company's history is about its being the orphan of serial divestitures; other than that, it's chief claim to notability seems to be "Despite the short life of the present company, it has existed for over 25 years in previous incarnations." The article itself is well-documented, but what is missing are any clues as to why it's noteworthy or whether there are even any laurels for its products. I don't think it needs to be deleted, but this weakness does need to be fixed (and promptly). Askari Mark (Talk) 04:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I believe you're exactly correct. We've certainly got articles on plenty of corporations and companies, but we also get in a veritable flood of attempted advertising. (And yes, when you see "We are the leading providers of..." in a new article, it's an ad.) Some people then do start to see spamming where there's not any, but given the flood of real spam, a false positive is an easy mistake to make. The best solution to it is: write an encyclopedic article if you're going to write about something commercial. If the company's been criticized or been in some trouble, state that. Say why it's important, what they do, the history of the company, why they matter-stuff you'd expect to see in an encyclopedia, not what you'd expect to see on a product list. Guaranteed, you start up an encyclopedic, balanced article in a neutral tone, and indicate why the company is notable, no one will even consider deleting it. Start something that looks like an ad or puff piece, and it'll be flagged before you can blink. Oh, and we get plenty of spam for nonprofits, it's not limited in any way to for-profit companies. Nonprofits can (and do) advertise, and sometimes, they take a shot at doing it here, just like others do. But in the end, I don't think it's a "bias", per se. If one site we can use as a reference has a ton of ads, and another of equal reliability and quality has few or none, we should pick the one with very few. If a paywall source's information can be gotten from a free source instead, we should prefer the free one, all other things equal. If a commercial site offers nothing over and above noncommercial references, we shouldn't have a link to it in an article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 12:45, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest that the false positives are more damaging than the flood of advertising, because it discourages editors from writing, which hurts the project more than nonsense that readers can simply ignore. I'm not suggesting that we allow advertising--I remove it myself, and will prod vanity articles, etc. But we need a much more careful and measured approach. I think we have too many zealous deltionists prodding anything they don't like. The whole project would be better served if they stopped trying to expand the envelope on the limits of deletionism, and instead focused on improving questionable articles, reserving deletion for the really obvious cases. The ADERANT example given above is an excellent example of trying to push the limits of notability. The company itself has an obviously non-trivial economic impact, which IMHO suggests inherent notability. The article just needs more independent sourcing to meet the notability guideline, but standing ceremony is not productive, and deletion is a rather extreme remedy in cases like this. Dhaluza 11:43, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Last time I checked, NPOV does not require that if we have an article on one company we must have an article on all its competitors. Chris cheese whine 12:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, it simply requires that we have balanced coverage of a topic (WP:UNDUE). So if a significant commercial market segment has only two dominant competitors, and we have a detailed article on one, and no article on the other, this is not balanced. Dhaluza 16:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Common Knowledge and Its Enemies

I have the title of this section, but haven't worked out my thoughts. I welcome others' contributions in advance of that. My question, essentially, is are there segments of the intellectual community that do not want Wikipedia to succeed. More broadly, the type of knowledge it represents. If so, what are we dealing with? I am not sure how this very general question could translate to policy, but maybe. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ismark (talk • contribs) 19:41, 23 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Improper page protections and templating of one such protection

I posted these originally at WP:RFC/POLICIES but I'm told that doing so rarely garners a response because that page is used mostly to "advertise" new proposed guidelines and stuff. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 00:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Unprotection of WP:RS (and perhaps others): Page was protected along with WP:ATT on the basis of "stability" which is not a recognized reason for page protection at WP:PROT; a later reason that editwarring is immiment was brought up to preserve the protection, but there is no actual evidence of editwarring; rather, there is broad consensus to restore material that was deleted without consensus before the protection - even the person who reverted that restoration immediately before the block agrees with the consensus and said they did the revert for the "stability" rationale. Others, at both WP:RS talk and in a related, larger thread at WP:ATT talk, challege the blocks as unilateral (cf. Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources#PLEASE - NO CHANGES RIGHT NOW), without consensus and against policy and process, and that disputes about the future of WP:ATT have nothing to do with whether the policies and guidelines that were melded to create WP:ATT, and which have been restored to active status, need to be protected from editing. Probably due to concerns about corewarring, WP:RFPP have been reluctant to get involved. The issues raised also extend to the protection of WP:V and WP:NOR. So, broader community input is sought on whether any of these page protections should remain, and whether WP:RS in particular should be unprotected immediately. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 00:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC) Update: The protection is also thwarting application of the proper merge tags to the various original policy pages, as discussed at WP:ATT talk and at at WP:RS talk. 18:19, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Protection of WP:ATT without {{Protected}} tag. Short version: Article was protected pending outcome of a poll. Req. made at WP:RFPP to tag the article with {{Protected}}, which is not only normal but highly appropriate in this case because WP:ATT is heavily disputed as to its status and as to its particulars (and {{Protected}} specifically references dispute as the defensible rationale for the protection under WP:PROT). An RFPP admin responded by doing the requested tagging. A party to the disputes at WP:ATT removed the tag. RFPP admin replaced it, dispute participant removed it again, and replaced it with a POV statement of the situation that is strongly disagreed with by other parties to the debates. Should the {{Protected}} tag be restored, and debate partcipants reminded to leave the article alone while it is protected, since the purpose of page protection is not to create an admins-only editing environment? The relevant RFPP material is here — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 00:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC) Update: The {{Protected}} tag was put back on this one (for the third time). — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:36, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion for helping to scale back vandalism.

I have a suggestion that I HOPE could be considered as one of the ways to scale back vandalism on Wikipedia. A lot of the vandalism I see on Wikipedia I think are by people who just happrn to see an article and they perhaps just see the "edit" link, so they click it and type something simple which comes to mind and hit save. My suggestion is this: Wikipedia (I think I had read somewhere) is supposed to be open and allow anonymous submissions as well. However, I think one of the ways to curb vandalism but allow through real legit. (albeit) anonymous entries would be this.

If you're an anonymous user, (meaning you don't subscribe for a free ID) you'd still be able to submit entries for Wikipedia articles. However, the part that cuts down on vandalism would be--- that you must get TWO people (with real IDs) to nominate your anonymous submission for inclusion into the real live article. I was toying around in my head if the two nominations should be made by admins, or just anyone with a real ID but I figure that should be up for discussion too and their may not be enough admins to overlook all entries... (Although then again there would have to be enough admins to revert that same number of vandalism instances so this argument might be moot.) If the person is a vandal there's less of a chance they will get the two required nominations to make the vandalism part of the live article. But people who are anonymous and submiting real credible stuff will likely get their two nominations by someone. Does anyone think the idea could be workable? Again by becoming a legit user they can bypass the whole credibility check of their entry. Sure Sockpuppets may be an issue but they can be handled as they are now. CaribDigita 01:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Progress is being made on implementing 'Stable versions' of articles (a contractor has been hired – can't find another link at the moment), and there is a feature in the software to patrol edits (which I think will be tied into the stable versions), although it is not enabled here. mattbr 09:47, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's on the mw:MediaWiki roadmap as well. mattbr 09:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I spend time each day on edit patrol and sometimes I'll have to revert the same article three times in as many minutes, I never give it that third edit, I just report it, but my point is that the vandals are using bots as well, or at least it seems like it. Sue Rangell[citation needed] 00:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The one good thing I noticed that will hit back at the Vandalism-bots is I noticed now Wikipedia has one of those images-- with the made up text in the image... The one where you have to re-type what the image reads? Well now you have to do that with your submission as an annon. Try loging out and trying to submit something sometime. You'll see what I mean.  :-) CaribDigita 02:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) You mean a captcha? I've seen people mention this before: the capcha only appears if a non-established user (new account, anonymous IP) tries to add an external link. Any other edits, I am told, do not trigger this. -- llywrch 18:21, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Spot on... That's what I guess it is called. Those things from what I'm told keep automated processes or bot type things from changing things. But I propose as a way to scale back vandals is have a 2 vote nomination process to add annonymous content to articles. Anon. edits which are credible will likely get the two votes. However aditions like "Hi George,sally says hi" or nonsense like that likely wont. CaribDigita 01:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unbanning

I, Jason Gastrich, politely request the overturn of my ban. I promise to stay away from Christianity- and religion-related articles, and to edit quietly under this account, and only this one.

No more sockpuppetry, or meatpuppetry.

I ask that the community seek forgiveness and let me return. --Jason Gastrich 11:05, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that you have made similar commitments before, which you have broken. Can you explain why you want to return to editing here, and what contributions you seek to make? -Will Beback · † · 13:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The user has already been blocked, so cannot reply here. However, I have copied his request to his talk page -- where, according to WP:BAN#Appeals_process, it should have been posted in the first place: "Generally speaking, the banned user will make the request on his or her talk page, which will be copied to WP:RFAR by a clerk." May I suggest that the process be continued from there? -- Ben TALK/HIST 22:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Um, as I understand it, that means an RfArb clerk should copy the request from User talk:$$'s and sense#Unbanning to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jason Gastrich. -- Ben TALK/HIST 05:43, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's policy on articles about words

Wikipedia has no policy on articles about words. I wanted to propose that we actually create such a policy, but I believe the chance of it happening is approximately zero at this point. In the meantime, I've written an essay about this, Wikipedia:Articles about words, which attempts to explain what our general practice is on word articles. Please come read this essay and then use the talk page to tell me how much the essay horribly sucks. --Xyzzyplugh 20:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We do have a policy on articles about words: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. --Carnildo 02:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Though, if you read the essay, it acknowledges this policy, points out some inconsistency in its application, and addresses exceptions that are generally permitted.zadignose 04:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A policy proposal to restrict templates/list that annoy readers

I have penned a policy proposal that consists of two provisions in Wikipedia:Readability#Policy_proposal, in a section of the essay written by me. Please discuss it here or under Wikipedia talk:Readability/proposal discussion page. Thank you! Wooyi 22:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Username policy/Draft

Based on complaints that the policies were too lengthy, complex and convoluted, several people have revised the username policy page, to clarify it, remove redundancy, and incorporate material from a few related policies, in particular WP:SOCK and WP:DOP. This is not a change in policy, just a reworking of the relevant pages. The draft can be found at the link above; unless there are big objections, the intent is to move this over the present username policy as a new version; the second step would be to verify that it contains all relevant material from the related policies mentioned above, and complete the merge with a redirect. Please comment on the draft's talk page rather than here. >Radiant< 12:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Performance of Microsoft FAT 32

A comparison of Microsoft FAT32 and other filesystems can be found at:

http://m.domaindlx.com/LinuxHelp/resources/fs-benchmarks.htm

The first column names the filesystem tested. The second column records the total time (in seconds) it took to run the filesystem benchmarking software bonnie++ (Version 1.93c). The third column records the total number of megabytes needed to store 655 megabytes of raw data.

SMALLER is better.


FILESYSTEMTIMEDISK USAGE
REISER4 (lzo)1,938278
REISER4 (gzip)2,295213
REISER43,462692
EXT24,092816
JFS4,225806
EXT44,408816
EXT34,421816
XFS4,625799
REISER36,178793
FAT3212,342988
NTFS-3g>10,414772


Each test was preformed 5 times and the average value recorded. SMALLER is better.

The Reiser4 filesystem clearly had the best test results.

The FAT32 filesystem had the worst test results.

The bonnie++ tests were preformed, with the following parameters:

bonnie++ -n128:128k:0

More detail on the tests can be found here: http://m.domaindlx.com/LinuxHelp/resources/fs-benchmarks.htm

The above site provides a script, so that you can check these results for yourself.

Where do I officially COMPLAIN?

I have the knowledge to help out, but of course, I won't help an organization that allows jerks like Strangnet AlistairMcMillan Nick Ryulong Chacor Golbez & RJASE1 to totally abuse the system.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.88.90.59 (talk • contribs) 14:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity: How is this related to Wikipedia? Do you wish to put this somewhere? x42bn6 Talk 17:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the text you removed after asking the above actually somewhat "explained" that. --83.253.36.136 18:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ooh, now I get it. I just thought the multiple headings were some messed-up heading editing. x42bn6 Talk 18:55, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And why is there a mediation template on the top of this page regarding this? x42bn6 Talk 18:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For more information on this, see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive217#Bizarre_vandal_on_Hans_Reiser, and for a reply to the material, see User talk:219.88.77.237, and Talk:Reiser4#This_section_was_removed._WHY.3F.-gadfium 21:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • How on earth does any file system use 900+ megabytes to store 650 megs of data? >Radiant< 15:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair-use images in portal revival

I'm attempting to reopen the discussion orignally begun here. This is a proposed amendment to WP:FUC#9 and the proposal is located at Wikipedia:Fair use/Amendment/Fair use images in portals2. -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 22:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spiffy new way of choosing the TFA

I have designed a new policy for choosing the TFA in a way that will make everyone happy and solve a lot of problems. Please add to the debate at Wikipedia:SweeTFA proposition!   David Spart (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) 22:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Resolution:Licensing policy

I want to make everyone aware of the resolution taken by Meta at Resolution:Licensing policy. I think the fair use policy should be redefined acording to it Perón 14:37, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, that page isn't at, meta, it's at the wikimedia foundation page. These are different sites. Anyway, it looks like that the resolution says that all existing fair use images must be examined to see if they really are fair use. mrholybrain's talk 16:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Notability (pornographic actors)

Why should we have special guidelines to lower the bar for porn actors etc.? Is disrobing and copulating really a valid rationale for easier inclusion at Wikipedia? Please evaluate these standards: Wikipedia:Notability (pornographic actors), and join the discussion. --Kevin Murray 18:34, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I believe those special guidelines are there to raise the bar for pornographic actors, not lower it. Given that the notability guidelines in Wikipedia:Notability (people) for general entertainers include "Have appeared in well-known films, stage plays, television, and other productions." Mere appearance in a pornographic film (even a "well-known" one) would be appear to be insufficient under the Wikipedia:Notability (pornographic actors) guidelines. --Stormie 04:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Use of archival tags on Images and media for deletion debates and proposed image prod process

Unlike other deletion debates, such as WP:AFD, IFDs are not currently utilizing archival tags when closing a debate. I think the use of archival tags should implemented here on IFD. I have created a tag that could be used: Template:Ifd top would be used at the top of a debate and Template:Afd bottom would be placed at the bottom. I am looking for a few opinions about adding this to the closing instructions. --24fan24 (talk) 20:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it would be that useful. AFD is run as "I think this should be deleted. Does anyone agree?" IFD, on the other hand, is "I think this should be deleted. Does anyone object?" Since the vast majority of IFDs have no discussion other than the original nomination, archive tags would just be pointless paperwork. --Carnildo 20:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good point. This got me thinking though, perhaps we should develop a prod process for uncontroversial deletes and keep the ifds for more controversial deletions? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24fan24 (talk • contribs) 22:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]
A prod process would also be easier for the nominating users. A prod tag is far simpler than adding a tag and going to another page to list a reason. --24fan24 (talk) 22:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll coin the phrase: "iprod". I think this is a great idea. Then the archiving of IFDs that actually have discussion should occur with the templates listed above. --MECU≈talk 23:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You raise interesting points, but I don't think that either archival or proposed deletion would be useful. I get the indication that fewer people include images they have uploaded or otherwise have interest in their watchlists, so they might not see when an image has been prodded. If you find the ifd process laborious, then install User:Howcheng/quickimgdelete.js to your monobook. Administrators will have to go through every single image anyways, so I argue that it would be better to include the arguments for and against deletion on a single page. I don't think that ifd is broken, so I don't think it needs to be fixed. --Iamunknown 23:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just my two cents: if users aren't watching an image they won't notice an ifd any more than they would a prod. I agree that ifd is not broken but that doesn't mean it cannot be improved. --24fan24 (talk) 02:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Today's Featured Article proposal

It has been proposed below that Today's featured article procedures be amended. The original proposal was rejected at as per discussion at the archive.
Discussion is now open on the amended proposal 2 below. Support or oppose the amendment should be on the proposal page, under the heading "Survey". If, after a few days, a clear consensus for the amendment is reached, please notify the administrators noticeboard for further assistance.


TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio) 21:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reverting talk page vandalism

I reverted some vandalism on an article and left {{test1}} on the perp's page. He then left a nasty message on my talk page. Finally, a well-meaning editor reverted that last edit.

IMHO, destructive vandalism of user talk pages (e.g., deletion or massive addition) should be reverted by whoever finds it first, but that merely incivil comments should be left for the user/owner to deal with.

Is there a policy or guideline about this? Matchups 01:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Not really, but you may want to point them to WP:RPA which is definitely not a policy or guideline. >Radiant< 11:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Infoboxes and navigational templates

I was wondering whether anyone else thinks that whilst the quality of infoboxes is generally very good, vertical-style navigational templates are generally low quality, irritating and often POV? They appear at the top of many articles yet are only rarely well thought through. For example:

Some navigational templates work well because they allow the user to navigate to other articles of the same type. For example, Human rights uses the Template:Africa_topic. But others (e.g. those listed above) presume the reader is looking at an article with a particular angle and this can be POV. In my experience editing templates is difficult because:

  1. Some editors don't get involved because of the technical challenges
  2. People protect templates and assume there is consensus even when there is not

Does anyone else have thoughts on this - can anything be done? Andeggs 09:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

link to private company offering services at bottom of article dd form 214

I have a company that obtains military records. The article dd form 214 in wikipedia describes this important document. At the end of the article a competitor keeps adding a link to his site which is allegedly a consumer advocacy site, in reallity it is just a site to refer business to another company he owns.

Is this allowed? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Steveljones (talk • contribs) 14:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Dispute over OR - comments sought

The blogger 'Zombie' of the blog Zombietime took photos of an antisemetic sign at a San Francisco antiwar rally on Feb 16 2003. At any given large antiwar rally, dozens of people take photos, and many such photos would no longer be on the www 4 years later. Zombie's photo gained prominence on right wing blogs. An article in the Santa Cruz Sentinal states : "In addition to the Elders of Zion protocol published in New Jersey, war protesters at a recent San Francisco peace rally were photographed displaying pictures of the devil with a dollar sign over his head standing over a globe, surrounded by the words "Zionist Pigs" and "Stop the War Pigs." and provides a link to the site of the conference. Neither the article nor the conference credit or even mention Zombietime. The conference uses a pic, that under close examination might be Zombie's or might not be. The contents of the site are copyrighted however, with no credit given to Zombie. Several editors, including Admin Slim Virgin are claiming that since Zombie's picture was prominently discussed on right wing blogs, and because they think the photo used on the conference site is zombie's that this makes it OK to use the Santa Cruz Sentinel article (which never mentions Zombietime) as a supporting ref for the article as second instance of evidence that zombie's photos have been used in the mainstream media. I say that this is speculative unsupported OR. The photo on the conference site might actually be zombies, and it might not be, but unless it credits Zombie, it's still OR to claim that it is. Admin Slim Virgin suggested that someone contact the conference to ask them if they used Zombie's pic. Wouldn't this be more OR ? Opinions sought. Thanks Link Thanks - FaAfA Aloha 21:29, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Zombie certainly claims to have taken the photo. The question is whether Zombietime is a reliable source.--Runcorn 21:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that Zombie may have taken the pic (although it's odd that the UC wouldn't credit him on a copyrighted site) but for the article to claim that this passage "war protesters at a recent San Francisco peace rally were photographed displaying pictures of the devil with a dollar" was referring to Zombie and only Zombie is OR. - FaAfA Aloha 22:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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