Wikipedia:Village pump (policy): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:10, 3 December 2012

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

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

« Archives, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168

Actresses categorization

Although it could be insignificant at first sight, the distinction between Category:Actors and Category:Actresses (the latter being a soft redirect currently) could be very useful and handy in Wikipedia, particularly in terms of navigation and accessibility (browsing the entire Category:Actors could be particularly inconvenient, when one needs a narrow subject for research purposes, for example Category:Norwegian actresses). The WP:Cat gender statement "separate categories for actors and actresses are not needed" does not give any reason for that. It's a case where the gender-neutral language seems to be unneccessary, if not troublesome in terms of WP:PRECISION. Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Gender-neutral language suggests gender-neutral language only "where this can be done with clarity and precision", which is not the case. Linguistically, this is especially so when the person bears a unisex name, like Robin Tunney when it's unclear whether it's he or she. The articles about actresses consistently refer to each as "actress", not "actor" and we already have long-standing categories of women by occupation, that have male counterparts: Category:Priestesses, Category:Abbesses, Category:Nuns. Considering all that, I propose this motion to drop the restriction on actresses in WP:CATGRS so that we could restore Category:Actresses and foster all relevant subcats, like Category:Actresses by country. Brandmeister^talk 01:29, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It is a gender issue. Traditionally people who are actors who are women have been called actresses, but they have pointed out that no, they are just as much an actor as any male actor. Apteva (talk) 02:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yet the word "actress" is not an anachronism in English and is obviously neutral as it's neither an offensive word nor a word to avoid. As far as I know it's simply grammatically incorrect to call for instance Jessica Biel an "actor" instead of "actress". Brandmeister^talk 09:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It's not grammatically incorrect (at least not in standard UK English); the distinction was common in the past, but has now become a lot less clear-cut.

Women did not appear on stage in public in England until after the Restoration of 1660, following which the terms actor and actress were both used to describe female performers. Later, actor was often restricted to men, with actress as the usual term for women. Although actress remains in general use, actor is increasingly preferred for performers of both sexes as a gender-neutral term. [OED 3rd ed., 2010; note to "actress, n", sense 2a] Andrew Gray (talk) 10:25, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we should not prefer some unclear trends over encyclopedic purposes and having double standards (like Category:Priestesses but not Category:Actresses) is odd. There is still Academy Award for Best Actress, as well as a dedicated Category:Film awards for lead actress (not actor). Many dictionaries themselves still have the entry "actress". Brandmeister^talk

Since this is on WP:CENT, I've tagged it as an RFC. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:25, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
I wouldn't categorize female actors separately from male ones, just as we don't categorize female singers separately from male ones. The fact that a different word happens to exist doesn't mean we have to use it in our categorization system. I would only categorize by sex in professions where being of one sex rather than the other is somehow exceptional for that profession. Victor Yus (talk) 11:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with Victor, and add that Cat:Priestess is a good example of this, because no matter what the religion, the priesthood is almost always dominated by, if not exclusively restricted to, one gender. Diana was served by women, and Jupiter by men. Exceptions to this approach have historically been rare. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The Screen Actors Guild, the very union which represents Hollywood actors, gives out the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. If they want to call themselves female actors, why should we object? 69.62.243.48 (talk) 21:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, we do categorize singers like that. Category:Female singers by nationality, Category:Male singers by nationality. --Brian the Editor (talk) 18:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I just had to add at this point that we have seperate categories such as Category:American female singers. I even at one point made a nomination to get rid of such categories (but retain categories such as Category:American sopranos and Category:American tenors that while geneder specific, are also by voice type) the move was defeated.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

We have enough problems fighting over what sexuality or religion someone is for categorization purposes. I don't think the benefits will outweigh the inevitable conflicts that will arise when it comes time to decide on an article about an actor of ambiguous gender. Gigs (talk) 00:26, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
We have gendered categories for politicians, writers, singers, golfers, comedians, and many other occupations. In the rare cases of people of ambiguous gender, I have seen no evidence that categorising them in the existing gendered categories has caused any particular problem. So why should it be a particular problem with actors? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:15, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
To all but the older editors like myself, "actress" is a quaint anachronism like "aviatrix", still maintained by certain fogies like the folks who broadcast the awards shows! --Orange Mike | Talk 02:44, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Terms like poetess, authoress and comedienne were used when I was young and they have all fallen by the wayside and things did not fall apart when this happened. As others have mentioned above those in the profession have moved to gender neutral language. As to dictionaries these, especially the Merriam-Webster definition here [1] whose 1st example of usage in a sentence is "my sister went to drama school to become an actor". Other dictionaries here [2], here [3] and here [4] all of which use gender neutral definitions. This writing style guide [5] gives us another reliable source for us of the word actor for both genders. Documentaries like The Celluloid Closet and programs on The Biography Channel and TruTV identify men and women as actors. Although many acting awards retain the term actress the associations that present them have moved away from it as can be seen in the In Memorium segment of this last February's Academy Awards [6]. Our MoS has long had this section Wikipedia:Gender-neutral language and it applies to this discussion as it always has. MarnetteD | Talk 22:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Just a clarification - Gender-neutral language is an Essay, and not a part of the MOS. Apteva (talk) 21:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

But Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality is an editing guideline and it specifically says "As another example, separate categories for actors and actresses are not needed, but a female heads of government category is valid as a topic of special encyclopedic interest." Apteva (talk) 21:59, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

That guideline sets out a series of general principles for deciding when gendered categories should be created. The first principle is "Do not create categories that are a cross-section of a topic with an ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation, unless these characteristics are relevant to the topic". In the case of gender, it says "A gender-specific category could be implemented where gender has a specific relation to the topic".
The specific guidance against categorising actors by gender contradicts those general principles, and should be removed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:34, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Most of those terms have, indeed, fallen by the wayside and I'm not averse to combining both categories into one. Still, a distinguishment between the two is still noted (the Academy Awards are a prime example), and a separate actresses category wouldn't be bad. Perhaps there could be "actor" and "actress" subcategories of one larger one, though I'm not sure what you'd name that larger cat. dci | TALK 02:24, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Did you not look at the link I provided that showed that the Academy Awards listed men and women as Actors, including Jane Russell and Elizabeth Taylor, in the years In Memorium section? They may not have changed the name of the acting award - yet - but they have certainly acknowledged the gender neutral use of the term "Actor". MarnetteD | Talk 15:18, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that there are two different issues raised here. The more important issue is whether we should categorize actors by gender. Victor Yus, WhatamIdoing, and Apteva address this issue above, and while they give cogent arguments against gender categorization, I think that gender categorization would be useful and appropriate for the reasons noted by Brandmeister, Brian the Editor, and DCI2026. The less important question is whether we should revive usage of the word "actress": since "female actor" accomplishes the same goal without the perceived baggage of the traditional term, we should just go with "female actor" and "male actor" as subcats of "actor". Any "actors of ambiguous gender" can be handled by recourse to the sources (see, e.g. Jaye Davidson, Divine (performer), RuPaul, etc.) or in the unsolvable case left in the parent category.--Arxiloxos (talk) 06:16, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
"Female actors" sounds fine to me, if there's going to be categories by gender (I'm not that big a believer in categories in the first place, so I'm also good with not having any distinction). I've heard elsewhere that the term "actress" is older usage in mainstream film and theater, and "actor" (for either gender) is preferred. "Actress" these days may be associated mostly with porn, not that I would know. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 04:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
We really need to avoid genderization of categories except where absolutely necessary, for the same reason we don't have Category:Gay black liberal actors with a disability. This obsession with labeling people by something that can be discriminated against isn't particularly helpful. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 07:53, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
- Quite. When there is a reason for someone to need to find actors that happen to be female, there should be linked data tool-oriented methods to do so (e.g. DBpedia) - using categories for this kind of extremely basic metadata is not only crude in terms of sophistication but has the many unwanted side-effects of the kind discussed above. — Hex (❝?!❞) 13:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
  - This is not DBpedia, and we don't have those tools, because Wikipedia:Category intersection has never been implemented. So we still have static intersections categories, include many other categories for the intersection of gender and occupation ... and we have a set of long-term stable criteria for deciding when we create categories for such intersections. It is not, and never has been policy or guideline to follow SMcCandlish's desire to "avoid genderization of categories except where absolutely necessary". The guidance is that "a gender-specific category could be implemented where gender has a specific relation to the topic", and the case of acting it is a central aspect of the topic. This is illustrated by long-standing existence of dozens of categories of industry awards restricted only to women, some of which I have grouped together under Category:Actresses by award. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:22, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Like it or not actor/actress are not unisex roles, an actress plays women, an actor plays men. The cat is as specific/inflexible as category:Spanish male tennis players. As for English, try "the actress Marilyn Monroe" in Google Books, then try "the actor Marilyn Monroe". The current category labelling is not massively helpful, particularly with non-West-European names where looking at category:Thai actors won't be remotely clear to most readers, though List of Thai actors + List of Thai actresses fills the task. (Though I don't think this actor Marilyn Monroe issue is as silly as category:German conductors (music), to distinguish from German conductors (electrical), while we're mentioning unhelpful cat names..) In ictu oculi (talk) 10:24, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
There are at multiple productions which focus on males playing female roles and females playing male roles, for example Tootsie and Victor Victoria/Victor/Victoria (musical). In Shakespearean times there were no female actors and males played the female roles. It is certainly plausible that someone somewhere has put on a wig and played Marilyn Monroe, and that someone has cut their hair and played Cary Grant. Why does anyone care what someone's gender is? We have categories of golfers and female golfers and male and female tennis players, because there is a specific golf tour that prohibits males from participation and tennis tournaments prohibit females from playing in the mens tournament and males from playing in the females tournament (though Billie Jean King trounced an aging Bobbie Riggs). Wimbledon now pays identical purses for male and female winners. Anyone can play in the PGA, it just so happens that only one or two females have tried, and none have "made the cut" (Ms 59, Annika Sorenstam, came close). Apteva (talk) 17:26, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I oppose reinstating the actress categories. I don't care much one way or another about whether the word actress is maintained in the relevant articles, but I see no real argument for why the two genders have to be sorted into two different categories. (If you want to maintain the word "actress", why not Category:Actors and actresses?) Victor Yus sums up my views. Calliopejen1 (talk) 06:05, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Please see this discussion at CfD. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 19:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Please note that I have asked for that nomination to be withdrawn until this RFC has closed, per WP:MULTI's principle of keeping discussions centralised. Sadly, Lugnuts has declined my request. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:36, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

First off, I think the a lot of people are missing the real issue. I would say that actress is still used, but would be willing to go with "female actor". We have the article Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress among others which shows people still use the term and I was able to find lots of hits, including some from British newspapers in the last two-years with the google search "Actress picked for Lois Lane". However, it is also clear that actor will be used in gender neutral ways as well, so I am fine with either term. In general the roles people are given (although there are exceptions) corespond with their gender. I think it would work to divide out the actors by nationality categories into male and female sub-sections. There is such a high overlap between singers and actors, I really do not see how we justify dividing singers by gender and not dividing actors by gender, so I think we should divide actors by gender.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:52, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Should either be merged into Category:Actors or moved to Category:Female actors. Personally I don't see the point of us categorizing every possible human topic by gender, but oh well. Kaldari (talk) 04:09, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Comment Just incase anyone still had a doubt, actress redirects to, yes you've guessed it - actor. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 10:09, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Split We split categories in fields where it is noteworthy to split. In the case of other celebrity fields like modeling or sports, it is so routine to segregate or talk about men separately from women that it would be absurd to not categorize them apart. Since female and male actors are so commonly spoken of separately (e.g. in awards ceremonies), it makes sense to follow that convention while categorizing them. And, as pointed out in the original proposal, this would be a convenient and reasonable scheme for navigation. I can easily imagine the value of sorting through female vocalists just like I could see the value in sorting through females who are actors/actresses. For my money, "actress" is in no way an anachronism and I find "actor" when applied to women jarring. This is purely anecdotal and I don't have any data on how common "actor" as a generic term is versus "actors" for males and "actresses" for females. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:09, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Split since we do this for singers, we should do it for actors as well. Actors roles are more determined by gender than those of singers.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:39, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - I don't think a split by gender is justified in this case. Splitting singers is justified because there are distinct differences between male and female voices, and songs are often written for either a male or female singer. But there's no inherent distinction between male and female actors; yes, some awards differentiate by gender, but others don't. The distinguishing features for actors are what they perform in (stage, film, television, etc) and their nationality, but not their gender. Robofish (talk) 13:18, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Support - I always favor precision in language (as explained by Brandmeister). Dropping actress would be an instance of gender neutrality causing obfuscation, rather than clarity. Another editor comments that "aviatrix" is a quaint anachronism. Well, "aviator" is not frequently used any longer, either, but, in cases where it were used, aviatrix would also be appropriate. To retain actor and actress serves a useful linguistic purpose. Dropping the word actress would be an inappropriate application of gender neutrality. It would apply gender neutrality simply for the sake of gender neutrality, and not because it provides any benefit. Hackercraft (talk) 23:36, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. This would be a retrograde change and harms more than it helps. —chaos5023 (talk) 00:20, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
That's WP:JUSTAVOTE. Please explain why you think it would be a retrograde step. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:34, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Split. Acting is a rigidly gendered profession, in which men and women work in the same settings but have roles defined by their gender. Unless a casting director is trying to make a counterfactual point, women don't get to play Hamlet and men don't get to play Ophelia. This gendered split is acknowledged at all the major awards in the profession, which have separate awards for men and women.
The relevant guidance at WP:CATGRS stresses the principle that "A gender-specific category could be implemented where gender has a specific relation to the topic", and that is clearly the case here. We have gendered categories for singers Category:Female singers and Category:Male singers) for similar reasons, and in both cases there are specific exemptions in the UK's Sex Discrimination laws to permit differentiation by gender. (I presume that the same applies in other jurisdictions such as the USA, or women would be suing Hollywood for not being cast in the lucrative and more plentiful male roles).
Note that the guidance also says that "separate categories for actors and actresses are not needed", but offers no reason for this breach of the general principle. The general principle that we make a decision on whether "gender has a specific relation to the topic" works fine in every other area of human endeavour, and we should apply it here too.
The overwhelming majority of contemporary dramatic performances (whether for stage or screen) are cast according so that characters are portrayed by actors of the same gender. By far the largest exception to that is in some art forms or cultures where there is a convention that some or all of the parts are played by actors of the opposite gender (as in pantomime, with its tradition of cross-dressing, or when women were excluded from medieval theatre). In those cases, the gender of the actor is still a defining factor in casting: women don't get cast as pantomime dames, because that is a male role.
There are some rare and notable exceptions to this, but they are notable precisely because of their rarity. The overwhelming convention of theatre is rigidly gendered, either by actors playing characters of their own gender, or by them playing opposite-gender chraacters who are customarily portrayed in that way.
Look at the careers of some leading contemporary actresses. Of the top of my head, I took Judy Dench, Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Julia Roberts ... and in those 5 articles have found not one single example of these women playing a male part. These care not porn stars; these are women who act with their clothes except for a few sex scenes, so what's between their legs is irrelevant. The clear fact is that being female overwhelmingly restricts them to female roles.
Note that the question of terminology should be separated from the decision on whether to categorise by gender. Concerns expressed by some editors that the word" "actress" is outdated do need to be considered; it seems that "actress" is falling out favour, but is still widely used. However, there are several other ways to title gendered categories for actors, so a rejection of the term "actress" does not prevent us from having gendered categories under a different title. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:48, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Some women who act prefer to be called actors, some directors would not think of casting a woman as Hamlet or a man as Juliet, yet in an all girls school only women play both roles and in an all boys school only men play both roles. Historically, originally only men were allowed to be actors, and the word actor came to mean a male actor, just as postman, fireman, chief came to mean a man, even though other than chief women have broken through to many male dominated occupations, and we create categories of women by occupation to chronicle not just nuns and concubines, but every occupation that has had a recent influx of women. An actress category would have been appropriate in the 17th century, but not in the 21st century. If a second category is to be created, it should be "male actors", not actresses, and leave actresses in the actor category, or if that seems too bizarre, two categories, male actors and female actors, but I categorically oppose relegating women to being second class citizens. It is women who are important in the world, not men. Apteva (talk) 00:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Are you /seriously/ saying you think having it be split into "male actors" and "actors"? Because that's how I read what you said. Are you insane, or just trolling? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:51, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
I am saying that it would be better to split actors into male and female than to create actresses. If that sounds absurd, then that makes creating actresses as a category even more absurd. Apteva (talk) 03:13, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
So is this saying you support spliting but to category:Male actors and Category:Female actors per the precedent of Category:Male singers and Category:Female singers? This whole discussion has been muddied by people obsessing about terminology when the most basic issue is whether to split at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:43, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
No, I oppose splitting and think that if anyone inadvertently or on purpose creates a subcategory of actress, such as List of actresses of Kuwait, that it be made a category of actor, not a category of actresses. Apteva (talk) 04:38, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Apteva, what do you mean? Why should a subcategory of actress not be a sub-category of Category:Actresses? An actress is "a female actor" (source=Shorter Oxford English Dictionary), so if we have categories of female actors, why treat them any differently to the other occupations under Category:Women by occupation?

It appears to me that like many other participants in this discussion, you are confusing the decision of whether to have gendered categories for actors with the question of what titles to use.
If we create gendered categories for women actors, then we can decide whether to call them "actresses", "female actors", or "women in acting" (like Category:Women in politics), or something else ... but the titling decision is secondary to the decision on whether to have categories.

If we have categories for women actors/actresses/female actors, then they all belong under Category:Actresses (or whatever we call it), as well as relevant actor categories. See for example how Category:Indian women in politics is a subcat of Category:Women in politics,Category:Indian politicians and Category:Indian women by occupation. See also Category:Women writers and its subcats.

Separately from deciding whether to create categories for "female actors"/"actresses", we can also decide whether to create Category:Male actors etc. But whether we have gendered categories for male and/or female actors, Category:Actors remains a common category for actors of whatever gender, just as we do with all other occupation categories.

Your comment above at 00:02 13 November suggests most of your concerns relate to the word "actress". I have no particular view either way on that term, but I respect that it arises strong feelings in some editors, so I would not oppose using something "female actor". So, if we used "Female actor", would you object to the existence of Category:Female actors and subcats? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Comment I have yet to see anyone offer any explanation of why we should not seperate actors by gender when we seperate singers by gender. Until someone presents some sort of argument for this I will find it very hard to believe we should have one system for actors and a different one for singers.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:16, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Oppose to splitting men and women. That's discriminating, that is, pointing differences where there aren't. --NaBUru38 (talk) 19:53, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia's job is to report the world as it is reported in reliable sources. As editors, our job is neither to oppose discrimination nor to support, but to report the facts and interpretations in reliable sources.
If men and women shared roles in the theatre, there would be no point in categorising them separately, but the careers of actors are entirely gendered. Look at the roles played by the 5 women I listed above: Judy Dench, Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Julia Roberts. I can't find a single male role played by any one of them. Why does NaBUru38 describe this as "pointing differences where there aren't"???
What on earth is going on here? Why do editors such as NaBUru38 appear determined to deny that acting is a gendered profession? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:39, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Oppose using "actress" to refer to female actors. Using this kind of diminutive suffix contributes to the sexist and non-neutral impression that female actors shouldn't be taken as seriously as the male ones, and the acting industry itself has moved away from this sort of language in the names of its awards. I don't have a strong opinion about whether or not to break the acting categories into subcategories by gender, but if they are split in this way it should be done in an equal manner ("male actors" and "female actors", not "actors" and "female actors"). —David Eppstein (talk) 01:05, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Comment The arguments about actress being "sexist" ignore actual usage. Here https://www.google.com/#q=Actress&hl=en&tbo=u&source=univ&tbm=nws&sa=X&ei=giatUMLWGqqV0QGP2ICQCg&ved=0CHMQqAI&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=db0dad5452b41f3b&bpcl=38897761&biw=1024&bih=623 is a link to a google news search I just did, that shows that news headlines still will refer to a person as an "actress". It is clearly the term people actually usage, and no griping that it is somehow "sexist" changes the fact that it is the term people overwhelmingly use.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:10, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Split this is a very common way to categorise people, so there is no reason to not do it for actors also. The roles are very clearly split by gender. I am not oppose to the use of the term actress, but female actors would be satisfactory alongside the male actors. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:14, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Split into separate categories. There is a very significant difference between genders in acting. (No opinion on the naming.) — Wolfgang42 (talk) 20:25, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
Split. Sheesh. The fact that you can come up with specific examples of situations where women play male roles and vice versa doesn't mean that acting isn't predominantly gendered. Those are unusual cases; most people in the acting profession play roles specifically meant for their gender. And has been pointed out, awards are even given based on gender. I feel that this discussion has been dominated by people trying to argue something that is manifestly not true in the hopes of driving everyone else to exhaustion trying to prove something that would be common sense outside of Wikipedia. I really hope we don't end up with someone counting the !votes and saying that since X percent think acting is gendered and Y percent think it's not, Wikipedia can't take a position on that so we must do nothing.

And I also agree with using the word "actress". Wikipedia is not for remaking society (which is not a WP:ISNOT but perhaps should be). The term is used and the fact that you would rather it wasn't isn't a reason to treat it like it's not. Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:03, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Someone put into the guideline that "actresses" was not needed six years ago.[7] Why would it be more useful today than it was in 2006? Anyone who gets out onto a stage is an actor. Why call some of them actors and some of them actresses in a category? As a category, why not just leave them all as actors? They all put on a costume and recite lines in front of an audience. Why is gender important? It is not like female heads of state where there are only a few, and making a category is useful, it is more like tall actors and short actors, with half in each category. Not a useful distinction. I just do not see the point of putting Robin Wright into one category and Robin Williams into another. Apteva (talk) 03:14, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Split. When was the last time that males had equal chances at female roles or females had equal chances at male roles? Shakespeare, when males had 100% chance of both and females had 0% chance of both? Unlike height, which can change over time and which has no clear boundaries, whether you have XX chromosomes or XY chromosomes is permanent and just almost always unambiguous. Nyttend (talk) 22:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Suppressed redirect right

Recently, I had to move an article about a song because it had the wrong title - it's called "Take You There" (the Donnie Klang one, not the Sean Kingston one), and someone had created it as "Take Me There." Since I'd already turned it into a redirect to Donnie Klang, I fixed the double-redirect created by the move, and then promptly tagged it for R3; Amatulic deleted it 13 minutes later. But that got me thinking about times I'd seen admins move pages without leaving redirects, and having recently successfully requested the Rollbacker permission, I wondered if there was a way that I could request this right, too. It turns out that, apart from admins, 'crats, and stewards, it's only extended to bots and global rollbackers, and it can't be requested. This surprised me mostly because we allow people to request all sorts of far more sensitive permissions, such as Edit Filter Manager and Account Creator (both of which could be used to cause temporary, but major, disruption to Wikipedia - picture a lockout of all edits, or simultaneous swarms of 20 sockpuppets to every major article on a sensitive topic), so I figured there'd be some way to obtain this flag, even if it had some heavy restrictions on who can get it.

I'm stopping short of outright proposing that we make suppressredirect available at RFR, but I was wondering if some more senior editors could explain the reasoning behind it not being there in the first place. The way I see it, it isn't a particularly dangerous right to give out, especially since you can always just remove it from editors who abuse it (the warnings about misusing rollback have scared me so much that I still haven't even used it!). There's also a huge difference between making a right requestable and granting it frequently - I was manually confirmed because I was on RCP and AIV had been semi-protected, and, since October 1st, that flag has been requested 134 times, and has only been given out to four editors, myself included.

So, as I said, not a proposal yet, just a question about why the status quo is what it is. — Francophonie&Androphilie (Je vous invite à me parler) 04:32, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

It's an admin only right since it theoretically gives you the ability to delete a page. While even though you're merely re-locating the page, in reality, you're moving a page, and deleting the original title. Legoktm (talk) 04:39, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure MediaWiki defaults to putting the suppressredirect into the admin package. Why it's that way, I'm not entirely sure. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:44, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Can admin-package rights not be given to non-admins upon approval? (Serious question; I'll reply to rationale points once I'm clear on the technical side.) — Francophonie&Androphilie (Je vous invite à me parler) 05:29, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes — take a look at this and the table here, which you may find of use. Rather interesting: it appears global rollbackers get access to suppressredirect... —Theopolisme 05:35, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, okay, now that we've established (i.e. now that I've figured out) that it's possible on a technical level, my answer to Legoktm is this: yes a suppressredirect user can delete a page, but they can't delete its history or content. In other words, any confirmed editor can de facto revert a suppressredirect deletion, simply by moving the page back. Which means that all-in-all the risk for abuse is fairly low - no higher than the risks associated with rollback or autopatrol: Some fairly small percentage of users will abuse the right, and waste a very small fraction of other users' time. before they lose it. But we judge that risk as being less significant than the general utility of there being a rollbacker class. And I don't see why that same evaluation wouldn't apply to suppressredirect. Once again, I'm not asking why all editors don't have it, or why most editors don't have it, or why I don't have it - just wondering why no one can have it (without becoming an admin, steward, or global rollbacker). — Francophonie&Androphilie (Je vous invite à me parler) 07:55, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The bottom-line reason it's not available to non-admins is because there is no consensus for it, as shown in this proposal from August. The ability to move a page without leaving a redirect is easier to abuse than you might think. Anomie ⚔ 15:10, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I've seen that proposal, and I think its proponents made a very weak argument - for starters, the OP wasn't proposing it as a permission, but as a right one's automatically granted after a certain point. And I'm aware that there isn't a consensus, clearly; what I'm wondering is why there isn't. — Francophonie&Androphilie (Je vous invite à me parler) 15:25, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Among other things, it means that bluelinks could much more easily be turned into redlinks, and except for pagemove vandalism, that's almost never a good idea when pages are simply moved. I've had this permission for five years, but I very rarely use it — a substantially more common situation is seeing someone move a page and tag the left-behind redirect for an inappropriate speedy deletion. Nyttend (talk) 14:53, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree - suppressredirect should be used rarely enough that it shouldn't create much of a burden to either non-admin requesters or admin answerers to do it via speedy requests. --– Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 05:53, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Non-Latin signatures

At present our policy on signatures in non-Latin characters is that editors with names in non-Latin character sets are "encouraged" to add Latin characters as a courtesy to other users. I really think that should be upgraded to a mandatory requirement. (Wild notions dept.: possibly even to the point where the signature settings would warn you if your signature doesn't contain at least one Latin word, but I'm sure somebody would find a reason to balk at that.)

Please note that I'm not suggesting that we ban non-Latin names. (That's a bad idea; see much previous discussion.) — Hex (❝?!❞) 21:13, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

A somewhat related issue (where people cannot communicate with a user due to their name and a MediaWiki problem) was discussed at VPT here (permalink). Johnuniq (talk) 00:18, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that this presumes that users know, or care, or would even be bothered to, customize their signatures. Requiring a subset of users, especially those who may not know English all that well (because many of our non-Latin users are SUL users from other Wikipedias) to figure out how to customize their sigs, just isn't realistic. --Jayron32 04:31, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Good point. I don't think that it's practical to require every SUL user to change their signature upon arrival, no. However, I think that it should be the case that if a user asks you in good faith to add a Latin component to your signature, you should have to. At present, there's a loophole; even as an administrator, I can't require someone to modify their signature in that way. Making it so that any editor, not just administrators, is entitled to ask, would reduce the amount of administrative overhead (i.e., having to go find an administrator to tell someone to change their signature). If they declined, then enforcement could be requested. — Hex (❝?!❞) 08:48, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Before we discuss how to ram this down people's throats it might be good to discuss why we would want to in the first place. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:46, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Because it makes no sense to leave a loophole that could conceivably be used at a future date by a person to justify making it difficult for other editors to interact with them. I'm far from the first person to propose something like this. (E.g.: 1, 2.) — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:52, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

We don't make rules that inconvenience well meaning people just to stop hypothetical future people who may or may not use "loopholes" to disrupt Wikipedia. People being disruptive are blocked for being disruptive. There's no need for this additional rule. --Jayron32 18:21, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

That somebody, any participant on Wikipedia, may suggest and encourage a user to add a Latin component... I'm fine with that. That is even in the guideline. To require, coerce, suggest that they may be banned or to use any sort of threat of any kind that they must change the signature and that they are required to have a Latin component? Absolutely not! You should not have to do anything at all, even if you are participating in a multitude of discussions and have tens of thousands of edits. Admins especially shouldn't be forcing this down anybody's throat or even using some tool of some kind to make the change on behalf of that user. --Robert Horning (talk) 03:16, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

You should not have to do anything at all... because? I'm here to discuss this, but just "no no no" isn't very illuminating. — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:52, 21 November 2012 (UTC)]

Why "forcing" a user to do this? In a project being run by volunteers, this is a pretty lousy way to treat those same volunteers and to piss them off to the point that they don't even both with future contributions. Coercion never works in terms of regulating behavior. This is also a situation where instead of a person committing an act (such as vandalism, sock puppetry, or engaging in an edit war), the person is guilty of inaction and failure to actually perform some sort of act. Such things should never be a part of a volunteer project, ever. Wikipedia doesn't even require users to log in for editing, why should they be "forced" to create some sort of standardized signature? --Robert Horning (talk) 03:52, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Would you feel comfortably if in Arabic Wikipedia, after you show up to fix an interwiki link, you get a message in Arabic on your talk page, and next time you show up in a year to fix another interwiki link you find yourself blocked?--Ymblanter (talk) 07:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I've had messages in other languages before. You know what I do when I get them? I read them. Anyway, your example doesn't even make sense. Why would someone request a signature change from someone who had never used their signature in a discussion? If you're not specifically referring to a signature policy, well, that's what's under discussion here. Incidentally, we're in a privileged situation here. The Latin script is so widely read that it's unlikely that another language project will have sufficient difficulty in reading Latin user names to the point that they need to formulate a policy. Possible, but unlikely. — Hex (❝?!❞) 09:52, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't really see a case as having been made that the proposed rule would even be a net benefit, let alone a case strong enough to justify compelling users to comply. In fact, I think it is likely to be less confusing if the user name and the name used in the signature at least in some way reflect each other. Monty ₈₄₅ 04:59, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
This seems to me to be a solution in search of a problem. Has this been a problem lately that we need a policy-solution to it? Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see the need. Legoktm (talk) 06:01, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
That's what I was getting at in my first post. Show us the problem before you present a rather draconian solution to it. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:10, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. Solutions in search of problems lead to instruction creep and a more complicated/hard to use encyclopedia. Solution to actual problems, on the other hand, (hopefully) improve the encyclopedia. So unless there is an actual problem... --– Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 05:50, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm just not sure what problem we're trying to solve here. If you need to address the user by name, then use cut and paste. If you need links to the person's userpages, then find the name in the page history. I've never found myself unable to do my work because of someone else's username.
You should also think about what you mean by "mandatory". The only true "mandatory" situations are (1) the software won't let you, and (2) we'll block you if you do. Do you really want to block people over this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Heternormative "sexuality-related" symbol

Hello,

I think Wikipedia is a wonderful resource and I'm very disappointed to find that it uses interlocking signs for male and female to indicate that an article has to do with sexuality. I don't expect Wikipedia to be behind the times or exclusionary and I hope this is just an oversight that will be corrected very soon.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.168.89.245 (talk) 02:05, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to {{Sex-stub}} and similar templates? If you wish to suggest that a template be altered to adopt a new image, everyone, readers included, are welcome to comment on the template's talk page. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:13, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

It might be a complaint about {{WikiProject Sexuality}}. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Copyright/COI, etc

Resolved

I have reverted an edit (see here) at Opal card as it was:

a large slab of 'semi-promotional' text added to the lead,
then I noted it was unreferenced,
finally I found that it was almost word for word from http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/opal

However that website has a "Copyright and Disclaimer" here' [8]' that says "This material is copyright but may be reproduced without formal permission or charge for personal, in-house or non-commercial use."so it seem that we may use it, as Wikipedia is 'non-commercial'.
• Does this type of statement suit Wikipedia's copyright^© policy? - 220 of ^Borg 08:41, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

No, this is incompatible with the CC-BY-SA licence Wikipedia content is licenced under, which allows commercial use. January (talk) 08:59, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok, so it would be a copy-vio to use the text irrespective of their statement, as it could be copied from WP and used for 'commercial purpose', is how I understand it? Another valid reason to have reverted then! - 220 of ^Borg 09:59, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's correct. We can't licence the article for commercial reuse if some of the text is copyrighted by an organisation which only allows non-commercial use. January (talk) 10:06, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much January! I will advise the editor involved (gently, it's their first edit!) - 220 of ^Borg 09:22, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Linking to essays on Policy and Guideline pages

When is it appropriate (and when is it inappropriate) to link to an essay on policy and guideline pages... are their limitations, and if so what are they? Blueboar (talk) 15:53, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Anyone? Blueboar (talk) 02:42, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

In practice, I think it is unstable. WP:IAR and WP:N have had many and few linked essays, for example. In theory, I think for an essay to be linked, it must be comprehensive, NPOV (not required for essays, but the best are NPOV), and directly relevant. Essays that preceded and informed the writing of the policy/guideline should be linked (eg Uncle G on Notability). Essays disputing policy are a complicated question. Where there are many assays, a link to a collection of essay links may be appropriate. A few essay that are for "further reading", which explain and are fully consistent with the intent of the policy/guideline should be welcome. Note that the intended audience of project pages are a different group to the authors of project pages. I think this is often forgotten, and policy pages are used for strained, high-level-language debates between old Editors. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:35, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Should there be some some level of "support" for the essay before we link to it? (Not necessarily a majority, but some level of support)? My personal feeling is that it would be appropriate include essays that outline "minority views".... if the minority that holds them is significant enough. However, if an essay only reflect the views of a few editors, then linking to it on a policy/guideline page would be inappropriate. Am I off base? Blueboar (talk) 14:11, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

My opinion is that POV essays should not be linked directly from policy. POV essays include majority view and minority view essays. A neutral point of view essay should not be subject to support or opposition, but should be widely accepted as comprehensive and fair, and should assist in comprehension and interpretation of the policy page. It may include mention of continuing debate, and may itself link to POV essays, if first putting then in context. Including direct links to advocacy for or against the status quo is likely to be confusing to random readers. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:28, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

What does "link to" mean? Inline links? {{Further}} links? See also links? Navboxes? The standards will be different in each case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:30, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Category:Public domain images ineligible for copyright in the United States but not in its source country

Are images supposed to be ineligible for copyright in the United States? If that's the case, why does the WP:NFC say that anything copyrighted in the original source country may also be copyrighted in the United States per URAA? --George Ho (talk) 20:34, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

The language at NFC is an over simplification of things, what it basically means is that if a foreign work could have been still subject copyright in the US, and wasn't, it is treated as if it is. There remains the possibility that an image could be subject to copyright in a foreign country under that countries laws, but not be subject to copyright under US law. For instance, a work published before January 1, 1923, anywhere in the world, is public domain in the US, regardless of foreign law, URAA doesn't change that, as the result would be the same even if every US formality had been followed. Likewise, the Freedom of Panorama rule for Buildings applies regardless of whether the foreign country recognizes it. I imagine there are a few other similar circumstances. Monty ₈₄₅ 20:24, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the category reminds me of another case, logos that are not sufficiently creative to receive protection under US law. Other countries may have lower standards, but we aren't required to lower ours as a result. Monty ₈₄₅ 20:28, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

(ec) U.S. copyright law is in many instances stricter than foreign law regarding what threshold of originality is required for the work to be copyrightable. Other countries may also cover certain kinds of works under copyright law what the U.S. might instead place under trademark or patent law (and thus public domain for purposes of copyright law). postdlf (talk) 20:30, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

The line from this policy is now discussed at policy talk page. --George Ho (talk) 21:01, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Surely a better title for the category could be contrived. This title is simply awful. Perhaps Category:PDUS images eligible for copyright in their country of origin.LeadSongDog come howl! 22:16, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Request for links to past discussions

I am currently putting together an FAQ page for an article related to white supremacism, and am looking in particular for discussions which have established the reliability of the Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Law Center, and similar organizations with respect to the issue of classifying organizations as white supremacist. If we don't have anything on record quite that specific, I'll settle for whatever is closest. Thanks! Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:02, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

There have been numerous discussions about both groups at WP:RSN (the Reliable Sources Noticeboard)... the page has a search function to help you find these discussions in the archives. Blueboar (talk) 14:14, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I did a preliminary search there before posting, but my terms were probably much too specific. I think I have what I need now; Thanks! Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:04, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

two questions regarding Wikipedia advertisements

I know Wikipedia's official stance at the moment is that it won't run ads. But given Wikipedia's popularity, it has the potential to generate a lot of revenue. As such, I have two questions:

Does the Wikimedia Foundation ever get approached with offers from ad networks? If so, how often does it happen? Does the WMF just turn them down (without burning bridges, of course) immediately?
There has been talk of enabling opt-in advertisements, but there seems to be no consensus on the subject so far. On the other hand, this doesn't seem to be too hard to implement. A user can create an account on an ad network (such as Infolinks) and set Wikipedia as "their" website. They can then write a user script that inserts the ad placement widget. Anyone who installs the script would get ads on Wikipedia.

However, there are two issues to this approach: 1) there is no transparency unless the script author shares the PayPal account information with the WMF, and 2) Wikipedia can get in trouble if something goes wrong (e.g., if the user breaks the ad network's service agreement).

So my second question is: is there any policy against creating an ad placement user script?

Just curious. --Ixfd64 (talk) 06:20, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

These would be questions to take to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:25, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

The current policy is that advertising would compromise the content's neutrality. I totally agree with that policy. --NaBUru38 (talk) 17:46, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

This issue has been beaten to death on the Village Pump since the very earliest days of Wikipedia. See also Wikipedia:Advertisements for much more information about this issue.

There is an advertisement script that can be used on user pages for advertising Wikimedia-related projects (primarily Wikipedia Wikiprojects and interest groups). More information about that can be found at Template:Wikipedia ads

Really, this is just a tarpit of flaming if you want to push this any further, but those places are very useful to check out if you want to understand what is going on with advertising in regards to Wikipedia. --Robert Horning (talk) 19:45, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reviewing has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Commons categories has been marked as a guideline

"See also"

This part of articles is out of hand. Many of the links have no direct relation to the article, while others are simply not notable to the article. It is also constantly abused by advertisers or people trying to promote an idea or topic. It is too much to fix. Why do these sections even exist? Shouldn't it just be for synonyms? I haven't actually read the guideline or policy on this. Sorry if this is in the wrong section. 198.151.130.65 (talk) 11:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

There is also a similar problem with "External links". 198.151.130.65 (talk) 11:42, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Go forth and read. I would agree that these sections can become cluttered, so be bold and fix it! :) --Izno (talk) 14:52, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, of course much of the time these sections have issues, but that's true of ANYTHING on Wikipedia. They are both extremely valid and useful to have when done right. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 17:04, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

What I would like to see was some NPOV standards especially for "See also"-links, since in my experience some editors use the section solely in order to make a point. An example could be someone adding Police state to the "See also" section in Capitalism (a real example iirc) or something similar. --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

That particular example seems like a clear vio of NPOV and I would have no problem with someone removing it. A link to an article offering another perspective on a topic, say like Marxism, I'm ok with that, but when the connection is extremely tangential or just spam, treat it like any other chaff that needs to be cleaned up by editors. I guess a guideline might be helpful, for some parameters like length... For an example, I've seen "See also" sections that had dozens of links; all were perfectly relevant to the article(s), but it would have made more sense to work them into the body of the article(s) somehow so that there was some context for the reader, rather than a big mess o' links.OttawaAC (talk) 02:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I do a lot of editing of those sections. I don't think there's nearly the problem that you seem to think there is. If you think somebody is too tangential or spam, just remove it. Jason Quinn (talk) 23:58, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

professional wikipedia spammers

I received a spam email advertising the services of this company: https://www.wiki-pr.com/ Apparently what they do is they charge companies money to create and maintain wikipedia pages about their companies Is there anything that can be done about this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.188.129.99 (talk) 19:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

"Every page we’ve created for our clients remains on Wikipedia exactly how the client envisioned it." Obviously, they don't follow WP:OWN, even though they insist that they hold to our rules. Can we get an injunction against people like this for soiling our good name? --Orange Mike | Talk 20:12, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I can't see how they can live up to such a claim, unless the articles they create are extremely low in traffic and non-noticeable (and thus not very useful for their clients) they will at some point experience changes from other editors. It seems like empty advertisement rhetoric to me. --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:36, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Freelance writers and editors, or heck, even salaried writers and editors, don't make a lot of money at what they do. Kind of like all the aspiring singers, artists, athletes, and so on in the world. Making a good living at it is not easy. Lots of gifted writers get paid peanuts. Supply and demand. Even if this sort of attempt to game the WP editing process took off, it would wind up being undercut by massive competition in short order. (Visual editor is coming.) Proving that you could somehow draw extra eyeballs to a WP article would be more of a selling point than claiming that you can leave an article's original PR copy untouched (unedited generally = unviewed/unread). Just my two cents worth. OttawaAC (talk) 02:25, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

For myself, I have been approached by and have talked with several organizations about writing Wikipedia articles about their organizations. While I haven't been paid for such efforts, I do try to explain Wikipedia's mission and especially go into the role of the 5 pillars. Trying to explain NPOV policy seems to be the toughest part, although I have turned down some requests simply because I thought the organizations failed WP:NOTE. If there is a group which is trying to help out in a public relations situation in regards to writing up something that generally follows Wikipedia rules, I don't have a problem with it. I do know that there are some in the Wikipedia community which have a huge problem with paid edits (Jimmy Wales in particular), so I'll try to leave that can of worms alone.

One thing that does disturb me though is how the leadership page of their website has their "Vice President of Operations" claim to be somebody who has volunteers for years with the Wikimedia Foundation... as if he was a former employee. I think that is stretching the truth quite a bit, unless he actually did volunteer in the Wikimedia office more directly. I have volunteered to be an editor on Wikipedia, but I don't consider myself to be a "volunteer editor for the Wikimedia Foundation". Heck, I have been editing here since before there was a Wikimedia Foundation. --Robert Horning (talk) 07:58, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

The whole line of business is basically dishonest, so I would not be at all surprised if they were just lying or grossly exaggerating. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:32, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

One peculiar thing is their emphasis on keeping their clients' identities secret -- most PR/marketing firms try to publicize their client list. I can't figure out the reason for that, unless they don't want to draw vandals to the articles of their clients by publicizing their identities...they must not have the resources to deal with that. I'm just guessing, though. OttawaAC (talk) 20:20, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

If we knew which pages they wrote, the pages would end up at AFD and the authors' accounts would be blocked for spamming. We don't have a policy that supports that behavior, but that's what would actually happen. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

What is dishonest, lying, or grossly exaggerated with what they are claiming on the web site? I think it is in part a condemnation of the current caustic nature of the editorial process on Wikipedia that punishes amateurs and new contributors severely for minor mistakes and assumes bad faith on the part of their contributions. That you may need the services of a full-time professional writer to navigate through some of the arcane rules of Wikipedia in order to get an article about your business to stick may even be somewhat reasonable given what I've seen on Wikipedia lately. The process of creating a new article is increasingly bureaucratic. I've been in edit wars over redlinks where the assumption is that if the article doesn't exist, there shouldn't be a redlink at all due to a lack of notability... otherwise there would be an article written about that topic. Every single article I've tried to start in the past couple of years has gone through an AfD process and often been PROD'd within three minutes of its creation. Not one has ever been actually deleted either, but I had to scramble with finding more sources rather than simply making a stub.

Guaranteeing that the "page will stick" (aka it will survive an AfD review) seems like a prudent claim to make. People who are experienced editors here on Wikipedia could likely tell inside of about five minutes if there is enough material about a company to justify that it is notable or not. A brand new start-up with no PR efforts would likely be advised by this company to not even bother with their services yet. Working with a client to dig up facts about a company, to find details... especially press releases and news articles about a company or other organization that can correct inaccuracies, that sounds like a really good service to be performing. That is good not just for their client but also for Wikipedia.

Seriously, it sounds like there are some people who are bent out of shape simply because somebody else is getting paid to do stuff for Wikipedia and they aren't. The service being provided here is to make sure the pages aren't perceived as spam, and that factual errors like the BS which John Seigenthaler had to go through (and prompted the creation of the BLP policy) doesn't happen to the clients of this particular service. If you don't like seeing services like this pop up, Wikipedia needs to become much more new user friendly. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:26, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

The AfD tags don't get applied consistently, and in practise, I've found that some of the ways that make articles sticky are to cite at least 3 sources, preferably with one of them from a large newspaper, an academic journal, and/or another encyclopedia (or similar pubication). Those types of sources aren't realistic for every notable topic, but in practise, that's what's needed to evade a speedy delete. What's contradictory about that is that it isn't necessary to have at least 3 reliable sources cited, not according to WP policy. In years past, many articles were written and kept with no sources cited whatsoever. Standards seem to have changed over the years, or at least editors' expectations have been raised.

Interestingly, I know I've written (or substantially expanded) an article in a good way not when it "sticks" or remains unchanged, but rather, when other editors jump in and make changes to improve it. It shows that I've written something in a way that invites editors to read it, take an interest in the topic, and contribute to the article. And the article ends up improving with the other contributions. It also means the article is updated and essentially monitored against vandalism by more editors. Volunteers, I might add. Collaboration still beats paid PR hacks, IMO.OttawaAC (talk) 01:46, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

By definition any article that hasn't been written yet is something that hasn't been considered in the past and doesn't have a "community of volunteers" who are editing that article. That would imply it is unlikely to get right away, if ever, a large group of people to jump in and start to edit the article. I have had larger articles I've written get some of the ancillary kinds of editors jumping in though, including people who perform spell checks, assign categories, and do other cleanup around Wikipedia. Stubs typically don't get that to happen but more substantial articles are much more likely to see stuff like that go on.

Emergent technologies and topics, for example a small start-up that has a huge fan base but hasn't really hit mainstream media yet, those kind of topics tend to be real problematic as editors strain to find reliable sources to justify the article. I have seen some of these kind of topics end up having the number of sources available explode over time when news media finally recognize the idea. Wikipedia itself is a good example of how that happened, where for awhile nobody noticed and then suddenly it seemed like it was on the news everywhere and even being referenced in popular culture like fiction in books, television, or in comic strips.

BTW, I would agree that some professional staff working with public relations officers of a company can cross the line and go overboard and be overly protective to the point of WP:OWN and other similar kinds of problems. It is a fine line between simply offering assistance to help improve the quality of an article and correct legitimate errors to going all out and simply pushing a particular POV by having a sanitized article free of any criticism. I have seen some Wikipedians who are long-time editors who have offered reasonable advise to would-be public relations people trying to fix Wikipedia articles. It is something where you need to tread lightly if the article is about you or the company you represent. Still, I'm suggesting that this particular company could still have a niche market and serve as a valuable kind of professional service that is needed for a company that wants to have a properly vetted article on Wikipedia. This shouldn't be feared by the Wikipedia community but rather be encouraged so far as people who are doing something like this professionally shouldn't be afraid to discuss that they do this kind of thing on their user page and that edits they perform, as long as they are cooperative with other editors and abide by general Wikipedia guidelines, should not have a knee jerk reaction to revert or even delete those edits. --Robert Horning (talk) 08:25, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Web citation are prone to link rot, but the current template/tools/guidelines do not support/suggest archiving or using permalinks

Dear editors,

Many of you are well aware of the convenience in using web citation as a source. And sometimes, official information are only available online as the only source. But the main problem of citing them is that they tend to disappear within a few years, sometimes even in months. Some articles rely heavily on citing official websites, so when the source links slowly go dead, we're facing a problem of not only link rot but an article rot as well. The current template/tools do not support/suggest archiving or using permalinks, so most editors neglect to archive them. Most of the editors are vigilant on an article only around the time of its creation, or around when it is still a hot topic, but by the time the link and the article rot, the source material will no longer be available, and most editors will no longer care.

I've come across this problem while I was working on an old film's article. It had been so well-sourced with official materials, which means it had been very reliable until the movie distributors decided to stop hosting the information, as it no longer affect their publicity or sales. First-party sources like official websites of products or movies only exist as long as they serve the distributors' sales or publicity. So now we are busy finding and relocating the information, but by now the film is 13 years old, and it was so hard to find any reliable substitute, if at all. And we only have two editors there.

The suggestion to this has already been proposed. Per Wikipedia:Link rot, we are suggested that we use a web archive like http://www.webcitation.org to provide us permalinks. But I find that this is not enough. Since the current templates do not ~~support or~~ suggest adding archive date nor archive URL (see below), most editors will take it as the only information required in the blank field is enough. As a result, most articles citing websites have only the URLs and the site themselves as sources, and when they go down, your citation and the reliability of the article with it.

source template
(required) common usage Example 1
article text Example 2
article text

website

{{cite web}}
title
url

{{cite web
 | last =
 | first =
 | authorlink =
 | coauthors =
 | title =
 | work =
 | publisher =
 | date =
 | url =
 | format =
 | doi =
 | accessdate = }}

{{cite web
 | last = Spiegel
 | first = Rachel
 | title = Research: Thalido...
 | url=http://science-educat...
 | accessdate = 30 April 2006 }}

Spiegel, Rachel. "Research in the News: Thalidomide". Retrieved 30 April 2006.

{{cite web
| title =
| url =
| date = 
| accessdate = }}

(Write date as one of the formats shown at MOS:DATE; e.g. |date=22 July 2009 or |date=July 22, 2009.)

{{cite web
 | last = Hansen
 | first = James E.
 | authorlink = James E. Hansen
 | last2 = Ruedy | first2 = R.
 | last3 = Sato | first3 = M.
 | last4 = Lo | first4 = K.
 | title = GISS Surface Temperature An...
 | work =
 | publisher = [[Goddard Institute for...
| date = December 15, 2005
 | url = http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis...
 | format =
 | doi =
 | accessdate = September 28, 2006 }}

Hansen, James E.; Ruedy, R.; Sato, M.; Lo, K. (December 15, 2005). "GISS Surface Temperature Analysis Global Temperature Trends: 2005 Summation". NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Retrieved September 28, 2006.

{{Citation}}
title
url

{{Citation
 | last =
 | first =
 | author-link =
 | last2 =
 | first2 =
 | author2-link =
 | title =
 | date =
 | year =
 | url =
 | accessdate = }}

{{Citation
 | last = Spiegel
 | first = Rachel
 | title = Research: Thalido...
 | url=http://science-educat...
 | accessdate = 30 April 2006 }}

Spiegel, Rachel, Research in the News: Thalidomide, retrieved 30 April 2006

{{Citation
 | last1 = Hansen | first1 = James E.
 | author1-link = James Hansen
 | last2 = Ruedy | first2 = R.
 | last3 = Sato | first3 = M.
 | last4 = Lo | first4 = K.
 | title = GISS Surface Temperature An...
 | publisher = [[Goddard Institute for ...
| date = December 15, 2005
 | year = 2005
 | url = http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gis...
 | accessdate = September 28, 2006 }}

Hansen, James E.; Ruedy, R.; Sato, M.; Lo, K. (December 15, 2005), GISS Surface Temperature Analysis Global Temperature Trends: 2005 Summation, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, retrieved September 28, 2006CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Not only that, old editors usually use a gadget like Provelt to make citing sources easier. And of course, Provelt follows the citation template and do not provide a box or put archive URLs or archive date.

So to encourage the use of lasting sources and to give an article highest longevity, I suggest we add

|archiveurl= |archivedate= |deadurl=

to the template, and program Provelt to follow the template accordingly. I must emphasis that Provelt needs to be changed as well, as most editors tend to use the easier method. And the Policy and Guidelines should probably suggest archiving first-party sources too. This should fix the problem of link rot and article rot in the long run.

I would like to hear some opinions and suggestions. Anything is appreciated. Anthonydraco (talk) 10:10, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

You took those examples from Wikipedia:Citation templates, which needs an extreme makeover. If you look at the documentation pages for {{citation}}, {{cite web}} or any of the other Citation Style 1 templates, you will find that the archive parameters are supported and well documented.

Archive.org and the others are not a panacea. They honor the robots meta tag on sites like The New York Times and will not archive them if they go dead or paywalled. --— Gadget850 (Ed)^talk 10:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

OIC. Thank you for the information. I didn't dig deep enough. Still, including those into the citation template page would've been nice, IMO, since a lot of new editors will look there first. And a change in Provelt would be nice too. Regarding some non-archivable sources, yes, you're right, but encouraging the archiving wouldn't hurt. Although this won't eliminate the problem, it will surely save some trouble in the long run. Anthonydraco (talk) 11:00, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

There is an (ironically) archive discussion at Wikipedia:Citation templates that I need to dig up. It only gives short list of commonly used parameters which can be misleading. And it mixes up a bunch of different citation styles. I have done a lot of work cleaning up the Citation Style 1 template documentation. --— Gadget850 (Ed)^talk 12:53, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I can't say I understand very well what you're talking about. Does the first 'it' in your paragraph refers to 'the archive discussion' or WP:Citation templates? Sorry, can you clarify? I'm not a native-speaker, and I'm decent in English, but I'm not that good. Anthonydraco (talk) 13:16, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

A side note, I want to tell you that if Provelt doesn't include boxes for archive URLs and archive links when you cite web, people will over look those and it becomes a tedious job to editors who come later. Especially when they have to do it without Provelt. Not to mention that it will be harder to find the sources when the links are dead. Anthonydraco (talk) 14:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Please discuss at the User:ProveIt GT talk page. --— Gadget850 (Ed)^talk 15:49, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I will go there. In the mean time, would anyone like to give an opinion on adding a suggestion to the WP:Citing sources guideline page to suggest users to archive first-party sources that are prone to disappear? Anthonydraco (talk) 16:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Alerts for categorization?

Not sure if this is the place to ask but... Is there any way for editors to be alerted when a page is added to a given category (something like a watchlist... but pegged to the category and not the page)? Blueboar (talk) 14:08, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

You can go to the category and select "related changes" in the toolbox at the left of the page. You can also copy the raw direction of that link and paste it somewhere in your userpage, so you can easily access it anytime without going first to the category Cambalachero (talk) 16:14, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

But that still requires periodically doing a manual check of the category (which can be all but impossible if the category is large). What I am asking about is whether there is any way to get an automatic alert, that would tell the members of a wikiproject "someone has added category X to a page (any page)" ... an alert that is tied to the category the way watchlist change notifications are tied to individual pages. I am looking for something that would notify editors who are interested in monitoring a specific category... something that would tell them that it has been added to a page (which they might not have on their article watchlist). So that they could know to go to the page and check that the categorization is appropriate. Blueboar (talk) 17:03, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

There was a script that had that functionality, and would cause new pages added to a category to appear in your watchlist. Unfortunately, the script, User:Ais523/catwatch.js no longer seems to work, and I haven't had any luck getting anyone to fix it. Monty ₈₄₅ 16:42, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Can a CSD template be removed by an author contesting it?

The article under question was this. It was first proposed for PROD by me, when the prod was removed, stating that an AfD must be followed. Then I posted it for AfD, during which time a CSD template was added and then removed because the article was under AfD. Finally the AfD closed as no consensus with no prejudice towards speedy deletion because of no quorum.

After the AfD remained inconclusive, I posted the article for CSD when it was removed stating contest speedy deletion as indicating importance/significance ("prominent Islamic scholar") - please start another AfD discussion in a few months if you think this should be deleted.

My question is - 1) Is removing the CSD template allowed under 'contesting' it? [If so, then it looks surreptitiously like PROD] 2) In your opinion, does the article look notable enough to stand? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 15:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

That an article is at AfD is actually not an appropriate rationale for removing a CSD, and authors cannot remove CSD templates from their articles. No comment on the article itself. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:59, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'll only reply to your question under 1), because I have not yet reviewed the article in question: yes. Anyone but the article creator can remove a speedy deletion tag, because the idea is that speedy deletion is only appropriate when the deletion of the article would be entirely uncontroversial, if it was sent to AfD. SD is a way to ease the burden on AfD, nothing more. The only difference between PROD and CSD is that the article creator can remove a PROD nomination, but not a SD tag.

Salvio

^{Let's talk about it!} 16:03, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I have now reviewed the article and can confirm that speedy deletion per A7 would have been wrong, in my opinion: the article clearly indicates why this person is significant. I'm not sure Abdul Ghaffar Naqshbandi is notable — mainly because I'm unfamiliar with the topic area —, but I believe the only way to get this article deleted is through AFD. The last one could have been closed as soft delete, but the other editor would probably have objected to that. So, in short, if you want the article deleted, renominate it, hoping that, this time, someone will comment...

Salvio

^{Let's talk about it!} 16:25, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

While instructions make it clear that the creator of an article may not remove an CSD tag, that is mainly because article creators almost never remove them properly. That said, if in your judgement the creator is right about the reason for removing it, don't replace it. Monty ₈₄₅ 16:37, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I was previously under the opinion that only admins could reove CSD templates, and regular editors could just oppose it, following which the admin would decide.

Question 2 - What then is the main difference between a CSD and a PROD. Both are the same, only the former has an admin deleting it, while it autodeletes for the latter. Right?TheOriginalSoni (talk) 16:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion is designed for cases where there is no need for discussion nad has restrictive criteria that must be met for an article to be deleted. An article that meets any of the criteria may be immediately deleted with no discussion. As a result, the scope of speedy deletion is limited to only the most obvious cases, a CSD tag may be removed by anyone but the article creator; if removed improperly, it can theoretically be re-added, but in most cases subsequent reviewers would just refer the matter to AfD. A WP:PROD may be used to delete an article for any reason that could get it deleted at WP:AFD, but is meant for uncontroversial cases, and thus may be removed by anyone. After the prod expires, the article is added to a deletion category and an admin will review the article and either delete it, or dispute the PROD. Monty ₈₄₅ 17:04, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Question- Can I file an AfD right now, seeing how the previous one closed?

I am still of the opinion of taking the article to AfD under the notablity criteria, but not being familiar with the exact policies and examples, its prudent to ask here if I should. So if you can please vote Keep or Delete, it would make it easier for me to understand if an AfD would be futile here. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 16:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Any article can be taken to AFD multiple times, but in general it is expected that some time passes between nominations; if you instantly start a new AFD as soon as the old one closes, it will be declined rapidly as well. Give it 2-3 months and try again then. --Jayron32 00:32, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, scratch that. I just actually looked at the AFD, and it received zero comments despite being relisted three times. I think it would not be unreasonable to start a new AFD given that literally no one commented at the old one. However, not everyone may agree with me. I am but one person with one opinion. --Jayron32 00:35, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Relisted. 1 vote already, and so it shant be closing as no consensus now [Atleast for lack of quorum that is]. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:26, 2 December 2012 (UTC) Admins may add the resolved tag here if it is an appropriate tag to add

Bias?

Everything related to global warming takes it as fact. Isn't this bias? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.98.244 (talk) 20:37, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

No. It's the scientific opinion on global warming. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:59, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No. WP:Making necessary assumptions reads:

"When writing articles, there may be cases where making some assumptions is necessary to get through a topic. For example, in writing about evolution, it is not helpful to hash out the creation-evolution controversy on every page. There are virtually no topics that could proceed without making some assumptions that someone would find controversial. This is true not only in evolutionary biology, but also in philosophy, history, physics, etc. It is difficult to draw up a rule, but the following principle may help: there is probably not a good reason to discuss some assumption on a given page, if that assumption is best discussed in depth on some other page. A brief, unobtrusive pointer might be appropriate, however."

Hope that helps. — Francophonie&Androphilie (Je vous invite à me parler) 21:01, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Just as an example, we treat the Apollo 11 moon landing as fact. That doesn't mean there aren't dissenters, but the scientific evidence is that we did, in fact, land on the moon. It is not biased for the Wikipedia article to state that we did land on the moon. Addendum: To clarify: the rise in global temperature has been established as fact. The remaining controversy revolves around the exact cause, and what (if anything) we can do about it. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:17, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

New policy based on TOOSOON and CRYSTAL

Executive summary:

A new policy is needed to allow for speedy or more efficient deletion of articles on events that have not happened yet, because the current policies and guidelines that apply to those situations do not directly address that circumstance.

Full rationale:

I am seeing a trend of article creation for things that simply have not occurred yet, such as musician's tours, annual events, etc. These eventually go to AfD, but that invariably becomes a mess. I'm hoping that this is something that has been seen enough in the community to preclude the need to cite examples, but please let me know if I need to start linking AfDs as supporting evidence, and I will.

Now, there is a reasonable expectation of these events happening, but the policies that should preclude article creation have holes in them that need to be plugged in relation to this issue:

WP:CRYSTAL does not cover this adequately (it allows inclusion based on future occurrence alone)
WP:NOTNEWS also skirts this situation (a tour isn't really "breaking news")
WP:NCONCERT only gives notability guidelines without addressing timing (and has a "financial impact" loophole to make an argument that how fast the tour sells out in a given area can indicate notability, which is absolutely foolish with the advent of ever-larger arenas and electronic ticket purchasing)
WP:BIO1E and WP:BLP1E address non-notable people in otherwise notable events.
WP:UNDUE applies to sources within articles, not weight of an individual event in a larger ongoing context.
WP:TOOSOON is an essay without force of policy.

There are other policies and guidelines that can be cited in some individual cases (generally CRIME, related to ongoing cases), but invariably, when these things go to AfD, there are a slew of ILIKEIT keep votes with no policy support for said votes (who also tend to abuse the noms and the delete voters). The result is a lot of wasted time on what should be open and shut cases, because the ILIKEIT votes (not policy based) also preclude NAC based on deletes (which are policy-based) because the AfD then becomes "controversial." I'd also note that Wikinews has been eroded by this type of editing, and that has been noticed higher up, to the point of potential closure of that project.

Therefore, there appears to be an issue that is not only wasting editors' time, but is adversely affecting a sister project. Very succinctly, I'd like to see a policy that thoroughly precludes writing about events prior to their occurrence. A third-party source cannot reliably report on an event unless it has happened, and we already disallow speculation in articles as-is. In reality, what is happening is OR based on cobbling information together. I think it is one of those things where fans build their "fan-ness" by doing things like this ("Well, I was the one who created the tour/event article on Wikipedia, so can i have a backstage pass to your next show?")

I'm not sure what to call this new policy, but we pretty much need something with teeth to allow these types of articles to be speedied if possible, and at least to have something better at AfD to back up NAC policy-based closures in the face of ILIKEIT votes (I have an issue with "controversy" in voting being based in "X is notable just because") just so these types of articles aren't diverting admin attention.

From a policy perspective, I would indicate the following items as a starting point:

For one-off events, there's no reason not to write about the event objectively afterwards, if only to find out if it really makes a difference.
For long-term events, like US presidential elections, the campaign trail is part of the process, so while the event starts before the date of elections, the event has begun and has been reported on by sources, so it would be fair to write about it prior to Election Day of whatever year it is.
For concert tours, when a show happens, there should be reports available, and it avoids any issues around cancellations.

In the end, I think a new policy could address several outstanding issues across Wikipedia and contribute to a higher quality of content. MSJapan (talk) 01:28, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you can speedy these, unless they are 1) obvious hoaxes, or 2) so far out to be impossible to write an article. The latter is going to vary for what the event is: we would likley have articles for Olympics 8-12 years out due to the city vetting process, but I would not expect articles on next years pro sports seasons. Because of the variance in time, there's no way a clear CSD criteria could be made. These arguments are completely fair at AFD, of course, and a PROD can be tried first, but I just don't think CSD is right for these. --MASEM (t) 01:41, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, OK, but I still think there's got to be a limit of reason somewhere short of having to spend a potential two weeks on the deletion process. Case in point: Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2013, which was created within 24 hours (possibly much less, I'm not sure of the time zone diffs) of the ending of the 2012 contest, because absolutely nothing has been announced about it yet, not even the city. The article even noted this. So the article was prodded, and then the prod was contested, then requiring an AfD. I see no rational reason for that to be allowable in good faith, and thus there are still policy holes here that need addressing, even if it is just to create a more solid foundation for allowable content on Wikipedia. MSJapan (talk) 02:33, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

In this case, are we likely going to have an article on the 2013 contest? Sure, certainly in another year, possibly sooner. IT's a good faith creation of an article which for right now should be a merge and redirect to a different page but not deleted. It would be different if it were , say, the 2020 contest which there's no way it can be talked about in a reasonable manner. --MASEM (t) 02:37, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

The very premise of this proposal is fatally flawed. Why? Because even the proposal itself makes it clear that there is no consensus that such articles should always be deleted, thereby making it entirely inappropriate as a criterion for speedy deletion. See Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Header and the list of non-criteria for the basic rules of what is and is not an appropriate criterion. The list of non-criteria specifcally mentions proposals based on WP:NOT, which CRYSTAL is part of. FYI I will be posting a link to this discussion at WT:CSD so that users interested in speedy deletion are aware of it. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:52, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

See, the problem with categorical rules, is there are often many exceptions. What about 2016 Summer Olympics or 2020 Summer Olympics? Ok, maybe we can identify what about them makes them different, maybe the bidding process, but now we are into intricacies that need to be discussed, aka a deletion discussion -> AFD. Monty ₈₄₅ 03:08, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure why "the event has to have documentably begun" does not cover the above, but there seems to be a serious objection to purpose, regardless of content. Is there any objection, then, to taking this stuff back and reworking it as a content inclusion policy/guideline that is not going to be used for purposes of CSD? The policy holes I mentioned are there whether or not there's a CSD involved. Assuming there's no objection to that, would it make more sense to address the hole in each policy separately to avoid creating a new policy to deal with, or create a new policy to cover the gaps because it's easier than running multiple policy discussions? MSJapan (talk) 04:52, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

See, I would argue that those Olympics articles are useful. An article on the upcoming Olympics is going to be of interest to readers for a long time before the event begins, at least as we normally use begin. We could call the bidding and selection process enough to count as having begun, but how is that really that different from a concert being booked, or an upcoming TV show being under contract (but maybe not even having started filming)? Monty ₈₄₅ 05:04, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, because the rationale of creating tour articles six months in advance is mainly that they inherit notability from the artist, when policy indicates otherwise. Additionally, most of the links are ticket sales sites and fan blogs. The content of said articles is no different and no more extensive than if one went to the artist's site, and there's no way to address the content of the tour before it happens. That is very different from the pre-coverage on the Olympics, where even the bidding process is a big deal. MSJapan (talk) 00:02, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem with trying to create a CSD for even articles that are created several months prior to a band touring is that even there, there's a difference between, say, the Rolling Stones or Lady Gaga announcing a tour (which will nearly assuredly be notable) that's 6 months out, and My Local Just-Barely-Notable Garage Band announcing their tour 6 months out. You can't create a CSD criteria that really cuts out the latter, while leaving the former. Obviously, there is other content problems (you are pointing to the problem with these early tour articles being to serve a commercial purpose (how and where to buy tickets, instead of just discussing the tour) but that can be corrected and merged, or as a last resort deleted after discussion at AFD.

The point is that while many (including myself) agree that people should not be created articles far too soon before an event's realistic frame of occurrance, we can't simply use CSD to remove these. PROD works, AFD works. Of course, if they meet other CSD like being a hoax, sure. But if it is otherwise meeting the minimum need of being verifiable, we're pretty much going to have to go the long way to remove it if it needs removing. --MASEM (t) 00:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I think notability standards work plenty well in terms of dealing with the fringe cases of what you are talking about here, and no additional policy is really needed. If the Rolling Stones can say they are going to do a concert tour in 2020 and there are sufficient reliable sources of information that have plenty of details about that concert tour, there should be an article on Wikipedia about that tour. Reliable sources mean something other than just the band's web page, but rather something of substance like a major article in the New York Times or in Billboard Magazine (take your pick). The article should be about that topic, not a casual reference like they plan on taking their last tour in 2020. In other words, standard notability issues. The local "just barely notable by themesleves" garage band is not likely to have such reliable sources except in the case of something truly exceptional that would be noteworthy in and of itself.

The Olympics are particularly noteworthy because they do have this kind of press coverage decades in advance. There is all kinds of political maneuvering in terms of who gets to become the host city along with issues about what new sports are going to be introduced and other substantive details that can certainly flesh out such an article well over a decade in advance. Logos, pictures of venues (under construction, planned but announced, or even already built) and other very reasonable things can be added to such articles. You can say the same thing about the Super Bowl or the FIFA World Cup in terms of some advanced knowledge of the event that may be mentioned in popular media and other reliable sources. Outside of sports, you can even have articles about upcoming space probes like New Horizons, which has been extensively written about even in academic papers... sort of the holy grail of reliable sources. In that case it isn't just six months out but won't be doing its main mission until 2015.... is that a reason to force an AfD onto that article since it is about a future event more than six months from now? There is Timeline of Solar System exploration#Planned or scheduled which has a whole list of such future missions, including vehicles that haven't even been launched yet.

If the argument is that it is too hard to determine if something is noteworthy as a future event, I would say you are straining too hard at fine details. There really is no need for any sort of new policy. Sometimes it isn't easy to make a quick assessment, but that is why you need to find a specialist in the particular topic... of which Wikipedia has plenty. That is also sort of the point of AfD nominations, so such things can also be sorted out. Just don't be so quick to PROD something or make that AfD if you simply can't make the assessment quickly. --04:20, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

A speedy delete is a terrible idea. A not-so-terrible idea is to create some sub-policy pages for crystal ball. So, have a crystal ball page for music tours, a crystal ball page for elections, sports events, etc. That would give something more relevant and specific to cite in these deletion discussion when they happen. Ego White Tray (talk) 13:32, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I have always disliked the creation of stub articles for recurring events that have not happened yet. However, I agree that a speedy delete is not the right way to go on this... I would propose merger instead. An article like: Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2013 should start off as a short paragraph contained in the broader Junior Eurovision Song Contest article... as more information about the upcoming event becomes available, it can be expanded into a section ... and eventually get hived off into its own article. The same would be true for articles on annual sporting events. So... I think a stronger sub-policy for Crystal would be a great idea... we should have some guidance on where draw the line... After all, there is a reasonable expectation that there will still be a Winter Olympics in 12 years time... but it would be ridiculous for Wikipedia to have a "place-holder" stub article for the 2024 Winter Olympics at this time. Blueboar (talk) 14:38, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

inclusion of prehistoric terms in history of country templates and vice versa

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History#inclusion of prehistoric terms in history of country templates and vice versa. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 10:33, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Hyphens and endashs

Please see the essay WP:Hyphens and dashes. It is forward looking as currently Wikipedia extends the use of endashes to places that hyphens are normally used - in proper nouns.

There are three proposals:

1) Hyphens in article titles

Use only hyphens in article titles. For example, the article titled War in Afghanistan (2001–present) would be titled War in Afghanistan (2001-present), but correct punctuation, using an endash, would be done within the article.

Support hyphens in titles

Apteva (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose hyphens in titles

It's illogical that we should use the correct punctuation in articles' bodies but not in their titles. Yes, it is hard to type dashes, but redirects from titles with hyphens fixes that. David1217 ^{What I've done} 02:07, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
As pointed out in the discussion the redirect issue is not the biggest problem. Apteva (talk) 02:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Then what is the problem? David1217 ^{What I've done} 04:01, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
There are several. One is because it is impossible to have a URL that includes the endash - it is not a valid URL character and needs to be escaped. Another is that it is not on the keyboard, and so if I type in a hyphen there is nothing there. Apteva (talk) 06:50, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
The same as what David1217 wrote. No-one ever needs to type the en dash. Victor Yus (talk) 07:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Per David1217 and Victor Yus. Typographical convention dictates en-dash, even in titles. —Wasell^(T) 09:06, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Unneeded restriction that would keep some titles from being written correctly. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:17, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion of hyphens in titles

As can be seen there is already always a redirect from one to the other. Using the title at a hyphen improves usability as it allows typing in the actual title. This is less important in getting to the article than it is in other uses for the article. Obviously wikilinks to articles so named can either use an endash or a hyphen, for example, within another article, the link can be [[War in Afghanistan (2001-present)|War in Afghanistan (2001–present)]], or simply go through the redirect, at War in Afghanistan (2001–present). Apteva (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

All of this works either way. It just looks better to have the correctly punctuated title shown at the top of the page. Victor Yus (talk) 07:46, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

2) Using hyphens in proper nouns

Hyphens are correctly used in hyphenated names, such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the comet Hale-Bopp. Endashes should not be extended to use in proper nouns. Instead common use is the standard to use, as stipulated in WP:TITLE.

Support hyphens in proper nouns

Apteva (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose hyphens in proper nouns

Incorrect claim. Some proper nouns use endashes. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:17, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion of hyphens in proper nouns

An extensive check has been performed on common use of hyphens and endashes in proper nouns. There are a several types of proper nouns that are commonly hyphenated.

Names, such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus. These exclusively use hyphens.
Bird names, such as Red-winged Blackbird exclusively use hyphens.
Comets and
Airports exclusively use hyphens, by their naming authorities, the IAU, and the airport owner, as well as the FAA and other bodies.
Wars, such as the Mexican-American War use a hyphen by a 50:1 margin in books and other publications.
Bridges, such as the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge by a wide margin, are spelled with a hyphen.

The biggest problem is the conflict that extending endashes to proper nouns creates between WP:TITLE and WP:MOS, which is not addressed by adding a sentence to the MOS to not use WP:TITLE for titles. Following common usage does address that conflict, and removes the conflict. Apteva (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

3) Using hyphens as a substitute for dashes

Hyphens are conveniently entered from the keyboard, and are a suitable substitute, other than for FA's and FAC's.

Support hyphens for endashes

Apteva (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose hyphens for endashes

Hyphens are not the same as dashes, and they should not be treated as such. Using the correct punctuation is vital in a proper encyclopedia. David1217 ^{What I've done} 02:07, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. This proposal is borderline disruptive. —Wasell^(T) 09:09, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Any hyphen substitutions that can be improved by replacement with endashes, emdashes, or minus signs should be, even outside of FA's and FAC's. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:17, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion of hyphens for endashes

As is pointed out, consistency within articles and subject groups is more important than consistency across Wikipedia. If there is one hyphen that should be an endash, it is proposed that it simply be left until the article reaches FA or FAC status, as edits are expensive, and there are far more important things to fix in GA articles than adding three pixels to the length of a hyphen. If a page has 19 hyphens that should be endashes and one that is an endash, or one that is a hyphen that should be an endash and 19 that should endashes and are endashes, it is better to make them all the same than which choice is made - either all twenty hyphens and all twenty endashes are acceptable, whichever the editor fixing the page chooses. Apteva (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

More forum shopping? You still aren't hearing it, are you? Powers ^T 02:28, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeesh. I was asked to post this here. Apteva (talk) 03:22, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I believe that there's a deceased equine and a bloody cudgel that need to both be put to rest here. --Jayron32 04:16, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

The context of this proposal is being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Apteva and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Apteva. I don't think the topic has anything to do with policy, and opening it here in the face of these proceedings is pointy and disruptive. I'm not sure where the "I was asked to post this here" comes from – possibly hallucinated? Dicklyon (talk) 05:28, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Seriously. I asked, this was the answer. So here it is. I would like to see the opinions on at least 50-60 editors on this issue. Not just the half dozen who I know are going to oppose it and try to stifle any discussion on the issue too. Apteva (talk) 06:54, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, JHunterJ pointed Apteva here to get broader discussion; however there is beating a dead horse issue going on here as well (give what appears to be a number of times the editor has been told that consensus favors the house style instead of what Apteva proposes here). --MASEM (t) 06:59, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

But you won't tell us who asked you to post here, with a link maybe, to dispel the impression that you hallucinated it? Dicklyon (talk) 07:13, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

See above. AGF, though, applies. Here is what I would like to see - out of 50 to 60 editors, how many agree or disagree with the above. Is that an unreasonable request? Apteva (talk) 07:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

You've just about exhausted any reasonable assumption of good faith. JHunterJ, in addition to pointing you here, also explicitly said "Let the RFC/U and AN/I finish." You did neither, instead rushing to yet another forum to shop your wares. Powers ^T 13:19, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I think I can speak for the majority of editors who neither know nor care about the distinction between hyphens and dashes... the only "rule" should be:

"If you are not sure whether to use a hyphen or a dash when writing an article, don't worry about it; Another editor will come along later and fix any punctuation mistakes you make."

That really says it all. Blueboar (talk) 13:22, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Bureaucrat rights discussion

I have started a RFC regarding allowing bureaucrats to remove the bureaucrat bit, and regarding the regranting of the bureaucrat bit (to bring it into line with the recently-passed policies for administrators). Please see Wikipedia talk:Bureaucrats#2012 bureaucrats RFC. --Rs chen 7754 01:48, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is now enriching itself by contributing to the destruction of small businesses

Why are we encouraging people to donate to the Wikimedia Foundation by means of the predatory Amazon.com, the most effective destroyer of small booksellers on the planet? This makes me sick to my stomach, to see us helping them profit in order to garner some more donations. We might as well prostitute ourselves to Wal-Mart! I am not sure I can continue to participate in this project if we are to abandon all trace of ethics this way. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:17, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Some context as to how and where this is going on would help. MBisanz ^talk 16:19, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Concur with MBisanz. What you talking about Orange Mike? Link please. NickCT (talk) 16:25, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, now I see. He means the box at the donation page that says Donate via Amazon. As long as they're giving the WMF a competitive rate, I think the WMF needs to look out for its own best interests. Unless the WMF intends to incorporate a bank, it has to pay someone as a financial intermediary, and all financial intermediaries engage in some form of for-profit activity that could be objectionable. MBisanz ^talk 16:30, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd also like to note the "real" options are to pay via services that will eventually benefit EBay, Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, American Express or Discover. I suspect I could find people who disagree with the business practices of all of those entities. MBisanz ^talk 16:32, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

This is the way of the internet matey. It only accepts one of every thing One ring for the Tat Bazzar, one ring for mindless chitchat, one ring for announcing crap, one ring for hymns to capitalism, one ring to keep them dumb, one ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. John lilburne (talk) 20:10, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't understand what ethics has do to with small booksellers. Make no mistake, I love small booksellers, but what's unethical in having online book sellers? I find them highly ethical -I can buy stuff on Amazon I could never find here around in Italy. --Cyclopia ^talk 16:33, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

What's the alternative? Are you one of those types who are anti-capitalist but drink Starbucks whilst checking Facebook on your iPad by any chance? doktorb _words^deeds 16:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't do coffee; but if I did, I certainly wouldn't go to a Starbucks, any more than I would shop at Wal-Mart, buy Microsoft products or buy a car that wasn't built by union labor. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:52, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, checking his userpage, OrangeMike (talk · contribs) is a bookseller himself. Talk about COI. --Cyclopia ^talk 16:35, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

So if I were black I'd have a COI in complaining if we hooked up with the KKK? --Orange Mike | Talk 16:52, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

No, but I seriously doubt Amazon has burned a cross on your lawn, and I'm also pretty sure they haven't lynched you. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Even if we wanted to do something about it, its not an EN issue. Suggest moving to Jimbo's talk page with the rest of the lost causes. Monty ₈₄₅ 16:40, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)As left-wing as I am, I have to point out that Amazon doing well is pretty much natural selection and allows newer small business to get started (helping the economy more than dynastic "family" businesses hogging customers). Yes, Mom & Pop stores, as nice as they may be, are usually presumptuous of their supposed right to deserve business and are inevitably replaced by newer small businesses by entrepreneurs who know how to earn a customer's business. Small businesses catering to niche markets also tend to survive. At any rate, the main booksellers I've seen dying off are chain stores. Indeed, the small booksellers in my area may have had to combine branches or move to a cheaper lot (allowing a local game store to become a used book store in the process), but they're still around.

And as everyone else has pointed out, Wikipedia getting the most donations for the fewest costs possible matters more. Even if your suggestion that Amazon kills small businesses was totally correct on its face and we ignore my above statement, the books at those stores don't just disappear. They either get sold as cheaply as possible and be donated to local libraries (either action giving local editors more resources).

As for "enriching," that's almost slanderous in its inaccuracy. Donations to make ends meet is not "enriching." It's surviving on charity. If you have such empathy for small businesses trying to make a profit (not simply sell those books at-cost, but make it worthwhile to continue to do so), then you should have so much more for this site. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:51, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll have to admit it, I don't care. Small bookstores are nice and all, but the world changes and some industries get altered as a result. Traditional media is losing relevance in many areas - books, music CDs, DVDs, newsprint. Blaming Amazon for having a business model that successfully takes advantage of modern technology is rather silly in my view. Hell, Wikipedia has played a pretty big role in the demise of print encyclopedias. There is nothing unethical here. The world changes. Some adapt. Sorry you got left behind. Reso lute 16:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

OrangeMike, have you no shame? Using electrical lighting because it's reliable and inexpensive; with no ethical consideration to all the makers of tallow candles and oil lamps you have contributed to putting out of business? Worse yet, you admit to driving a car from the automotive industry, the most effective destroyer of small farriers on the planet? — Coren ^(talk) 17:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Strangely enough, most of the business I do with Amazon is to buy things from small booksellers who advertise their wares via Amazon; and most of the business I do with small booksellers is to buy things from them that they have advertised on Amazon. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. (I'm also a very very very small bookseller myself, in that I sell about half a dozen books a year... via Amazon.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:29, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, I remember that the game-shop-turned-bookstore I mentioned earlier does that, too. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:32, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Amazon makes enough money using us, by selling printed versions of our articles as if they were proper books. Isn't it time that we (or, if you like, our overlords, at least) made some money using Amazon? Formerip (talk) 17:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
- Don't be afraid to post feedback on the Amazon pages for those ripoff books. Or offer to sell one for free (or for one cent), then fulfill the order with a URL. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:48, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't want to jump on the bandwagon here (nothing to add that hasn't been said above already), but I can't resist noting: I'm not sure you were wise (for a given value of wisdom) in asking Jimbo's opinion on this, Orangemike. If he really is a "self-avowed Objectivist", he's probably one of the last people who would care. :) Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:03, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I recently posted a link on my Facebook page about "take your child to a bookstore day", and got a three paragraph screed from an opinionated friend who didn't like the promotion of bookstores to the exclusion of libraries, particularly given what she saw as the prohibitive cost of new books for many struggling families. I'm sure someone in turn could find something to criticize about promoting libraries. You should never be surprised when your pet issue isn't someone else's. postdlf (talk) 18:52, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I actually used to go to church with someone who believed that libraries are a drain on government budgets and take away business from small bookstore owners. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:54, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Libraries promote piracy! Reso lute 19:03, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I guess I was stupid to bring this up

Apparently I am alone in thinking that Wikipedians would be literate enough to understand that there is a difference between booksellers as vital sources of diverse information and opinions to the world, and the makers of tallow candles or laundromats. Apparently you all think it's okay that Amazon is the sole surviving source of books for enormous swaths of this planet, and you see no value in actual physical bookshops whose owners serve as sources of suggestions, dissent, criticism and spontaneity to would-be readers. I seem to be alone (outside of most of the publishing industry across the world) in understanding the danger of allowing a single gigantic company to monopolize the flow of books to a majority of the human race. Heil Bezos! I will shut up. (I also apologize for having been stupidly honest enough to mention that I work [for sub-fastfood wages, I might add, after 34 years in the trade] for what's left of an independent bookshop that refuses to be a slave or tributary of Amazon's paying extortionary tolls: I thought it was a good thing to disclose potential COI, but it has brought me nothing but slander and attacks for my folly.} --Orange Mike | Talk 19:00, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Mile, I love small, locally owned bookstores. We have a really great one here in my town, the kind of place that has run out of room on the shelves and is stacking books in the windowsills rather than turn away an old book. They also have a cafe and a bed and breakfast on site to pay the bills. I don't buy new books anymore at all. I buy used books and I buy eBooks. I know you booksellers hate those too but forests don't have to be cut down to make them and no matter how many of them I have I won't need to build a new room on my house to hold them all. The world has changed, a lot, in the last fifteen years or so. I hope you sell used books, because I believe there will always be a market for them but new books, not so much. Remember not so long ago there was a Blockbuster video every few blocks in any large city? Now they have all been replaced by a Starbucks on every corner. Such is the way of the world. I share your view that we are losing something important by not having small independent business anymore (I own one myself, it's a pain in the ass but I actually know my customers) but that is the world we live in and WP is part of that world, not the old one. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:17, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

@@ Line 637: / Line 637: @@
 :I'd also like to note the "real" options are to pay via services that will eventually benefit EBay, Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, American Express or Discover. I suspect I could find people who disagree with the business practices of all of those entities. '''[[User:MBisanz|<span style='color: #FFFF00;background-color: #0000FF;'>MBisanz</span>]]''' <sup>[[User talk:MBisanz|<span style='color: #FFA500;'>talk</span>]]</sup> 16:32, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
+:This is the way of the internet matey. It only accepts one of every thing One ring for the [http://www.ebay.com/ Tat Bazzar], one ring for [http://www.facebook.com/ mindless chitchat], one ring for [https://twitter.com/ announcing crap], one ring for [http://www.apple.com/itunes/what-is/#store hymns to capitalism], one ring to [http://en.wikipedia.org keep them dumb], one ring to [http://www.google.com/ rule them all] and [http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2006/12/04/daily16.html?jst=b_ln_hl in the darkness bind them]. [[User:John lilburne|John lilburne]] ([[User talk:John lilburne|talk]]) 20:10, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 {{ec}} I don't understand what ethics has do to with small booksellers. Make no mistake, I ''love'' small booksellers, but what's unethical in having online book sellers? I find them highly ethical -I can buy stuff on Amazon I could never find here around in Italy. --[[User:Cyclopia|<font color="green">Cycl</font><big>o</big><font color="green">pia</font>]][[User talk:Cyclopia|<font color="red"><sup>talk</sup></font>]] 16:33, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:10, 3 December 2012

Contents

Actresses categorization

Suppressed redirect right

Non-Latin signatures

Heternormative "sexuality-related" symbol

Copyright/COI, etc

Linking to essays on Policy and Guideline pages

Category:Public domain images ineligible for copyright in the United States but not in its source country

Request for links to past discussions

two questions regarding Wikipedia advertisements

Wikipedia:Reviewing has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Commons categories has been marked as a guideline

"See also"

professional wikipedia spammers

Web citation are prone to link rot, but the current template/tools/guidelines do not support/suggest archiving or using permalinks

Alerts for categorization?

Can a CSD template be removed by an author contesting it?

Bias?

New policy based on TOOSOON and CRYSTAL

inclusion of prehistoric terms in history of country templates and vice versa

Hyphens and endashs

1) Hyphens in article titles

Support hyphens in titles

Oppose hyphens in titles

Discussion of hyphens in titles

2) Using hyphens in proper nouns

Support hyphens in proper nouns

Oppose hyphens in proper nouns

Discussion of hyphens in proper nouns

3) Using hyphens as a substitute for dashes

Support hyphens for endashes

Oppose hyphens for endashes

Discussion of hyphens for endashes

Discussion

Bureaucrat rights discussion

Wikipedia is now enriching itself by contributing to the destruction of small businesses

I guess I was stupid to bring this up

Navigation menu

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:10, 3 December 2012

Actresses categorization

Suppressed redirect right

Non-Latin signatures

Heternormative "sexuality-related" symbol

Copyright/COI, etc

Linking to essays on Policy and Guideline pages

Category:Public domain images ineligible for copyright in the United States but not in its source country

Request for links to past discussions

two questions regarding Wikipedia advertisements

Wikipedia:Reviewing has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Commons categories has been marked as a guideline

"See also"

professional wikipedia spammers

Web citation are prone to link rot, but the current template/tools/guidelines do not support/suggest archiving or using permalinks

Alerts for categorization?

Can a CSD template be removed by an author contesting it?

Bias?

New policy based on TOOSOON and CRYSTAL

inclusion of prehistoric terms in history of country templates and vice versa

Hyphens and endashs

1) Hyphens in article titles

Support hyphens in titles

Oppose hyphens in titles

Discussion of hyphens in titles

2) Using hyphens in proper nouns

Support hyphens in proper nouns

Oppose hyphens in proper nouns

Discussion of hyphens in proper nouns

3) Using hyphens as a substitute for dashes

Support hyphens for endashes

Oppose hyphens for endashes

Discussion of hyphens for endashes

Discussion

Bureaucrat rights discussion

Wikipedia is now enriching itself by contributing to the destruction of small businesses

I guess I was stupid to bring this up

Navigation menu

Search