User talk:Yunshui/Answers to Tamravidhir

Things you need to know when you are editing articles on television channels, television shows (telenovelas, soap operas, etc.) and films

Your first ports of call for useful information on these areas would be the relevant WikiProjects: WikiProject Television and WikiProject Film. Both of these incorporate style guidelines (TV, Film) which will give you Wikipedia's standard processes for formatting and arranging such articles. Have a good read of these Manual of STyle pages, since a thorough knowledge of them will help greatly in dealing with any disputes you encounter.

As well as being good sources of information, the WikiProjects are a good place to find other editors who are interested in your particular field, and who can help you to bring the articles you're working on up to standard. Use their talkpages to get help and advice from editors who know the requirements for TV and film articles.

Beyond that, the usual Wikipedia content policies apply. Make sure you're familiar with the general notability guidelines, particularly those for films and television. It's also a good idea to ensure that you understand what Wikipedia is not, which will help you avoid undue trivia sections and inappropriate links. You might also want to review the guidelines on reliable sources, to establish whether a given source is appropriate or not. Yunshui ^雲 _水 11:32, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I regularly hear terms such as "peacock terms", "WP Burden".

If you find someone using terms like this without linking to them, just run a search in the WP: namespace: searching for "WP:Peacock terms" takes you here, while searching for WP:BURDEN take you here. These are called shortcuts, and allow you to type in project page addresses quickly. Because they are used so ubiquitously here, they tend also to be a shorthand for the policies in question - so for example, rather than saying, "Wikipedia's policy is that the burden of proof is on the editor adding the material. Since you have added new, unsourced material to the article, it is incumbent on you to provide a source to prove it is correct, rather than expecting me to provide a source to prove that it is incorrect," you can just say, "Please see WP:BURDEN, and provide a source". This is both quicker and also serves to give Wikipedia's "official" policy on the issue.

Generally speaking, it's fine to use shortcuts like this in places like AFD and ANI, where most users will be familiar with them. If you're talking to a relatively new user, though, it's a good idea to explain what you mean as well as linking to the relevant policy. Yunshui ^雲 _水 11:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But Yunshui, what if I personally know that the information in correct but as of yet, there is no available reliable source? And can I add references to blogs and/or forums? --Tamravidhir (talk) 11:49, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you know the information is correct but there's no source, then don't add it. It constitutes original research. Everything in Wikipedia is supposed to be verifiable, which means that if it doesn't have a reliable source, it doesn't belong here - and you, smart as you may be, are not a reliable source.

To give a simple example, if I put a statement on the Dog article claiming that there is a breed of dog called a Foobar Mastiff, but give no source, how do you know it's true? Do you trust me, a random anonymous guy on the internet whom you don't know from Adam? What if I promise, on the talkpage, that I've got a Foobar Mastiff at home, called Fido? Do you believe me then?

What happens when another editor, who "knows" that the Foobar Mastiff is now extinct, joins the fray? Who do you believe?

That's why we need sources - we can't take anybody's word for it. Sure, the sources may be wrong (which is why we have rules about what sort of sources to use - blogs and forums are specifically excluded), but Wikipedia isn't really interested in what's right or wrong, only in what's verifiable. That's why, if there aren't any sources to confirm something you know to be true, then that something doesn't go in Wikiepdia. Yunshui ^雲 _水 11:58, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you! I won't believe that...but just see this section of the article Bade Achhe Lagte Hain. The last part which says "and one with Kehta Hai Dil...Jee Le Zara on 6 December 2013" was deleted by a user for the same reason. But later I added the given citation. This is the link...but I guess that it's a blog/a forum. Is is acceptable. As I had a doubt regarding it I added the "better source needed" tag. Similarly, just see this section. The opening credits say that the title track were sung and penned up by "so and so" people. It that a reliable source? --Tamravidhir (talk) 12:19, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, the Tellywood site is a Wordpress blog run by a single person - it's not a reliable source, as it's user-generated content. Best to remove that bit until a better source can be found. The show's credits, though, would constitute a reliable source for the cast and crew, so assuming that they name all the people mentioned (I haven't checked) then the Music section should be okay. Additional sources would be good, but the credits would suffice to verify the statement that Goshal, Dey and Sen provided the title track. Yunshui ^雲 _水 12:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is this site a blog? --Tamravidhir (talk) 13:53, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that's one ugly site... Looks like an acceptable source, though: it has an editorial staff and appears to be a professional outfit (though they might want to sack their web designer...). Wouldn't call it a blog based on what I can see. Yunshui ^雲 _水 14:18, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

He he! Lol! Yaah, that site is not that god-looking but very important, as it is only this site and Times of India, which publish all the information regarding Indian television shows, other newspapers do but rarely, and even if they do (for me at least) they are hard to locate and cite. And what about this one? I just came across this today. This one's webpage design is better compared to previous one! :D And I would like you to know I would take a bit time to read these understand these and I am planning to make a handbook, with a summary of all these. Is that idea nice? Once I would finish with that I would want you to go through it and just see if my interpretation is correct. But that would not happen soon, may be after 2-3 weeks. I hope that it won't be a problem for you. :/ --Tamravidhir (talk) 15:26, 27 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm none to sure about TellyExpress - it's hosted through Wordpress, which strongly suggests a blog, and I can't see any evidence that it's written by more than one person, or that it has any professional editorial staff. Personally I wouldn't use it as a source, and if I had to do so, I'd ask about it at WP:RSN first.

WikiProject Indian television is currently inactive, but it might be worthwhile contacting some of the participants there to get their view as well. Yunshui ^雲 _水 07:14, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Then about the maintenance tags (when to add them, when to remove them and so on) such as cn tag, better source needed tag

We have a lot of maintenance tags. I mean a lot. Their use is a sometimes-controversial topic, but in a nutshell, it works like this: add a tag if you think it is appropriate, remove it if you think the issue has been dealt with, and try to minimise the overall number of tags on a page. For example, if I come across a page with no sources at all, I'd use {{unreferenced}}, but not {{refimprove}} as well, even though both are appropriate. Avoid tag-bombing; it doesn't help improve the encyclopedia.

An additional rule of thumb is: don't reinstate a tag if someone else removes it. This is one of the most common forms or edit-warring, and it sees lots of users blocked. Unless the tag has to be on the article (and off the top of my head, the only examples I can think of are AFD templates, BLPPROD notices and CSD templates (if removed by the article creator)), it's best to ask the other editor why they removed it, rather than just putting it back.

It's usually better to see whether you can just fix the problem yourself, but if you don't have the time, energy or inclination, cleanup tags are a way to inform other editors that there's something in need of attention. The most important thing to remember is that tags are for improvement - they aren't there to denigrate articles that you don't like, but to help editors make Wikipedia better. Yunshui ^雲 _水 11:58, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

About reliable sources

There's a lot of reading to be done on reliable sources, but to boil it down into a nutshell: A reliable source is one which:

has been published, and is therefore available (in theory, at least) for readers to check
has been subject to professional editorial oversight (this rules out personal webpages, forums, blog posts, self-published books and the like)
is reliable as a source regarding the subject (a children's book called Milly has Measles is not a suitable source for the article on Measles.

If you aren't sure whether a source meets the guidelines, ask. The Reliable sources noticeboard is a good place to find out whether your great-aunt's old love letters are a reliable source (they aren't, unless she got them published somewhere), or whether you can use a blog post to support your assertions (you can't, unless the blog is officially attached to and sanctioned by a major news outlet). Yunshui ^雲 _水 12:08, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You have a good sense of humour! ^_^ :D --Tamravidhir (talk) 17:11, 27 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How to make a list more reliable and encyclopaedic

Lists have variable guidelines depending on what they are listing and whether they appear as part of an article (embedded lists) or as articles in their own right (stand-alone lists). As a very general rule of thumb:

For embedded lists: check that a list is the best format for the imformation (prose is generally preferred), and that sources are available to confirm that all the items listed belong in the list.
For stand-alone lists: make sure that there are few or no redlinks (and if there are, that an article could feasibly be created to turn them blue). If one item in the list is linked, all the items should be.

As a very general rule, redlinks in lists are a warning sign. If in doubt, be bold and make the cut. Yunshui ^雲 _水 12:53, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

About general notability

General notability governs what articles go into the encyclopedia. We only include articles if their subjects are notable. Thankfully, general notabilty is actually really, really simple. It boils down to this: a subject, whatever it is, is notable if and only iff it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple, reliable, independent sources. An understanding of those four terms is all you need to establish instantly whether something is notable or not.

(Incidentally, a good place to point people who ask about this is WP:42.)

So here's what the terms mean:

Significant coverage At least a few hundred words, ideally more, which are directly about the subject. A paragraph which mentions the subject in passing doesn't count. A mention in a list doesn't count. An article about someone or something related to the subject doesn't count.
Multiple Obviously, "more than one". Ideally, "a lot more than one".
Reliable See above: published, editorially oversighted and relevant.
Independent Not produced by or for the subject - so press releases, official websites and so forth are out.

If an article has sources which meet the above criteria, then the subject is notable, period. If such sources do not appear to exist, then it's not, and we shouldn't have an article on it.

(There's one caveat to this - because of the difficulty of finding such sources for academics, such people need only meet the requirements of WP:PROF, rather than the general notability requirements (reliable sources to prove that they meet WP:PROF are still required. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only notability guideline that trumps the general one). Yunshui ^雲 _水 12:20, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think this article - Bichpari - fails this criteria? It only has one sentence with one reference and nothing else... --Tamravidhir (talk) 17:19, 27 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The main pillars of Wikipedia

Are here: WP:5. I'm not sure what I can add to them taht isn't explained there, but if you've got any specific questions about the pillars, just ask. Yunshui ^雲 _水 12:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What to add and what not to in disambiguation pages (Should they have names/topics which don't have a Wiki article?)

The guideline on disambiguation pages is WP:DAB. The basic rule is that we should have a disambiguation page in any instance where there's a possibilty that readers might be searching for one of several possible meanings. Generally, if there's a primary topic (such as Tom Cruise) then the search term "Tom Cruise" should go there, with other possible meanings defined in a separate disambiguation page: Tom Cruise (disambiguation) (which as it happens, redirects to Tom Kruse anyway). If there's a primary topic, but only one alternative, then a disambiguation page isn't needed - searching for "Brad Pitt" will take you to Brad Pitt, which has a hatnote in case you meant to look up Brad Pitt (boxer). Finally, if there's no primary topic but a number of possible meanings, the primary topic page becomes the disambiguation page, as in John Smith.

Generally speaking, disambiguation pages should only list subjects which have an article in Wikipedia - the exception is if an article could feasibly be written, but just hasn't been created yet (a valid redlink, in other words). Yunshui ^雲 _水 07:22, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What to do with unreferenced infos/such infos with a cn tag - Should they be removed? What if I know they are correct and yet there's no reference available

As a rule, the process to follow when you see a {{cn}} tag is as follows:

Run a search to see if you can find a suitable source.
If you can find a suitable source, put it in and remove the tag.
If you can find a source that suggests the information is true, but either doesn't state it explicitly or doesn't meet the reliable sources guidelines, then add it and replace the {{cn}} tag with {{Better source}}.
If you can't find anything to verify th information, consider rephrasing the content to match what you can find.
If that's not possible, consider removing it altogether.

As above, if there are genuinely no references available, then as far as Wikipedia is concerned it isn't verifiable - and therefore shouldn't be included. Personal knowledge just doesn't cut any mustard here... Yunshui ^雲 _水 07:29, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And especially about all the copyright issues.

The short version of copyright - and the one I'd encourage you to follow - is very, very simple. If you didn't write it, photograph it, draw it or otherwise produce it entirely on your own, don't put it in Wikipedia.

The longer version is more complicated... Wikipedia is licenced under a CC-BY-SA licence. That means all of Wikipedia's content is, in theory, free to reuse and alter in whatever way a user sees fit. When you add content to Wikipedia, you automatically release it under this licence (have a read of the text just above the "Save page" button next time you make an edit). If someone has produced some material - a paragraph of text, say - under a different licence, then they have a claim of intellectual ownership - a copyright claim - to that text. Suppose they've released it under a licence that says, "You can reuse this text as long as you pay me for it", and you then copy the text and add it to Wikipedia - you can even give them some money for the privilege, in an attempt to comply with their licence. You have now basically said, "Anyone can reuse this text for free," thus negating their original licence. That's a violation of their copyright, and is illegal.

However, suppose they release the text under the same licence as Wikipedia, basically saying, "As long as you say where you got it, you can reuse this for free." In this case, we can reuse it on Wikipedia, because doing so isn't an infringement of their copyright - they've said we can use it. On the other hand, if they say, "You can reuse this, but only on Wikipedia," then it's useless to us - it's not possible to licence material only for Wikipedia, because as we've already seen, if it's on Wikipedia then it can be reused by anyone.

Images are even more complicated - some images can, for example, be used even if they are copyrighted, under a claim of fair use. There are also a lot more possible licences for images than for text. To be safe - at least until you've got a good understanding of copyright - stick to the short version I outlined earlier: if you didn't make it, don't upload it. Yunshui ^雲 _水 07:39, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

When to add non-free images? How can they be acceptable?

Fair use is complicated, but for most practical purposes there are only two sorts of image that commonly fall under this policy:

Corporate logos If we have an article about a company or organisation and their logo is under copyright, we can generally still use it provided that:

It's only used in the article about that company (and nowhere else on Wikipedia)
The image is suitably low resolution (so that it couldn't easily be copied and replicated)

Dead people For living people, it's always theoretically possible that someone could go and take a free picture of them, so fair use will almost never apply. It is, of course, hard to take pictures of dead people, so copyrighted photos of the deceased can usually be used as long as:

There genuinely isn't a free alternative, no matter how rubbish, available
The picture is only used in an article about that person (not an article about a film they were in or a theory they created)

In both cases the image and its use must satisfy all of the ten critera at WP:NFCCP in order to be usable. Yunshui ^雲 _水 07:46, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What to do if some rule stops me to do something which may be correct/required?

Aha, a tricky question. I reckon you've probably already encountered the rule that tells you to ignore all rules... My reply is another question: what is correct/required? The question you really need to ask is, "Does what I'm about to do actually make Wikipedia better?" For example:

You know the policy on reliable sources. You also know, with absolute certainty, that a particular fact is true, even though no sources exist to conform that. Should you ignore the policy on reliable sources and add the information to the appropriate article? Does this make Wikipedia better?

Well, the article will have more information in it, true. But at the same time, you're setting a precedent - that sourcing can be ignored if the contributor knows that what they're adding is true. What happens if everybody follows that path? Whose version of truth do we use? An Israeli editor "knows" that Hummus is an Israeli dish, but a Turkish editor "knows" it originated in Turkey - whose knowledge is correct? (This example isn't a joke, by the way.) Is Wikipedia better with this new paradigm, or worse?

Now another editor has reverted your edit. You can't supply any sources (obviously), so what happens next? An edit war (since you'll never convince him without sources)? Better ignore the rules on edit-warring, too... Oh look, you've been blocked. Is Wikipedia better now?

In most - in almost all - cases, ignoring the rules doesn't make Wikipedia better. Generally speaking, the policies have been crafted by the community to express the community's way of working. Sometimes exceptions apply - an administrator protects a page even though it's not currently being vandalised, because a 4chan meme tells people to go and vandalise that page. A hideously unencyclopedic page gets speedy-deleted despite the fact that none of the criteria apply, to avoid a pointless week-long debate at AFD. A sentence gets removed from a BLP even though it's sourced, because of child-protection issues. Mostly, though, Ignore All Rules is a good rule to ignore. Yunshui ^雲 _水 08:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How to fight with vandalism? How to be more civil and polite with vandals and too stubborn editors? How to notify them?

For this, I'd recommend the Counter Vandalism Unit Academy, and practice. To avoid being uncivil, use templates wherever appropriate (activating Twinkle makes this much easier). If you want to work through the CVUA, I'd be happy to train you. Yunshui ^雲 _水 08:05, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And whatever else I should know...

Well, now there's a question... I guess this is a good place to start... Yunshui ^雲 _水 08:07, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding templates

Suppose there's a template of show broadcast by a TV channel/films directed by a director. Can forthcoming shows/movies be added to that list? --Tamravidhir (talk) 07:34, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do reliable sources attest to their forthcoming existence? (or, as an easier question, have they got articles yet? If not, write the article first.) Yunshui ^雲 _水 08:06, 29 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]