Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 

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

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

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

« Archives, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197

Sexual orientation of non-heterosexual celebrities

Apparently, Wikipedia has a policy of mentioning the sexual orientation of celebrities who are known to be non-heterosexual. But celebrities known to be heterosexual/straight do not appear to have this information included.

While I can understand that heterosexuality is of little interest to anyone — what makes the other sexualities more interesting and more worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia?

There are many personal details about celebrities that most people would surely consider irrelevant to their public status, and unnecessary of inclusion in Wikipedia, such as their shoe size, hair colour, left-handedness, weight, race, etc. I don't see why their sexual preferences are any more relevant.

It may be relevant if the celebrity's sex life, or sexuality itself, are of particular relevance to their celebrity status or somehow feature in their work. In which case, the disclosure of their sexuality should surely be mentioned in relation to that, rather than in isolation.

So, rather than saying:

"Sarah is openly gay."

The article should say:

"Sarah is openly gay, her homosexuality playing a large part of her humour and often being the subject of public attention."

If the celebrity's homosexuality (or bisexuality) isn't actually relevant to their fame at all, it surely need not be specifically mentioned:

"Sarah has had numerous girlfriends, some of whom have appeared on the show with her." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grand Dizzy (talk • contribs) 22:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I've always found this interesting, especially since there are no categories for straight people, but there are GLBTs. Perhaps its because heterosexuality is deemed "the norm", and not being "normal" is notable enough to discuss. SashaCall ^(Sign!)/_(Talk!) 22:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree with that. How one perceives the whole issue aside, "I'm gay" simply carries more notability than "I'm straight" in most cases (a gay man suddenly saying the latter might be an exception). It might be a different story when the media dismisses it as commonplace. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 22:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

We make mentions of people who were adopted (Category:Adoptees and its well-populated sub-categories) even when that fact has little signifiance to the subject's notability. We don't make mention of people who were not adopted, nor do we say that a politician won the majority of votes in their district, etc. In these cases, we are making a note when someone deviates from the norm. Most people are not adopted. Most politicans get a majority of votes. It's the case where there's an exception (e.g. Bush 2000) where it becomes of note. No value judgement is made. We aren't saying Adopted people are better or worse, and nor does the placement of someoe in a category imply much of anything. Yes, heterosexuality is considered the norm. But that's just the defintion of normal. 90-99% of the population (depending on where you take your figures. Demographics of sexual orientation notes that range, saying that there's a mean of about 95-96%) is heterosexual. That's the norm. Without having to make any value judgements at all, an attribute of someone who lies two standard deviations from the mean is generally worth mention. Heterosexuality is the norm. We can go for ages about why that is (i.e. biological or cognative), but at the end of the day, it is "normal" or "typical" to be heterosexual. --Ybbor^Talk 03:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

BLP's for heterosexuals often note that they are married, have children (and sometimes give ages and even names of issue) which rarely has any impact on the subjects notability. Obviously the phrase "heterosexual" itself doesn't appear, but the orientation is obvious - and as irrelevant. LessHeard vanU 12:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Dude, Oscar Wilde was married and had children... SamBC(talk) 16:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

We have no such policy that strictly forbids or allows it. Its just standard practice combined with a few other policies. If a celebrity comes out as being gay, that fact would probably make the cover of every celebrity magazine and would be widely circulated on the internet. If a celebrity issues a press release saying that they are straight, the media is going to say "Who cares?" There just really aren't any sources that specifically mention things about celebrities that are considered "normal" - people wouldn't pay to read it so People isn't going to report it. If there are almost no sources saying something about someone, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to mention it in their article. If there are a lot of sources, then apparently people consider that to be a significant fact and we should probably include it. Mr.Z-man 18:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

To Sambc, indeed - but it isn't relevant to Wildes notability other than an example of Victorian morality, whereas his homosexuality did effect both his work and his life. To Mr.Z-man, but the same celebrity lifestyle magazines are full of straight celebrities personal lives regarding girl/boyfriends, engagements and marriages; it is simply an assumption of heterosexuality rather than the publicising of it.LessHeard vanU 21:00, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

But we can't use info like X is married to Y to source statements like X and Y are heterosexual. That would be synthesis. Mr.Z-man 05:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

We don't synthesies, we often simply state that X is/was married to Y - and allow the reader to draw the conclusions. That said, X being married to Y is rarely of any consequence to the notability of the parties concerned. LessHeard vanU 12:25, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the determination to mention someone's sexual orientation should be made on a case-by-case basis. For celebrities, public figures, and historical figures, their sexual orientation could well be relevant, particularly if they are LGBT in an oppressive era or geographic location, or if they were closeted. If a public or historical figure was hiding something, that's usually interesting. It's also interesting if they are a role model because of their sexuality, or if they themselves have spoken about their sexuality. Like it or not, LGBT identity is more notable than straight identity, because we're in a historic period where LGBT issues are controversial and widely talked about. Plus, (1) LGBT people want LGBT role models, and (2) straight people are fascinated with LGBT identity.

For some people, however, it's just not really germane to the article. For example, who cares if an obscure Nobel Prize winner in physics or chemistry is gay? They are only notable because of the prize they won and for their scientific work. How is their sexual orientation relevant or even interesting? Another example might be authors who are not public figures. If someone is otherwise obscure and private, and is known only for their work or some notable event that has nothing to do with LGBT issues, I don't see how sexual orientation or identity is relevant or interesting.

On another point, I've always been bothered by statements that so-and-so are "openly gay", since we would never say someone is "openly straight". If the subject of an article is gay, and that fact is worth noting for some reason, then let's just say that they are "gay", "lesbian", "bisexual", or "asexual", etc. In the case of closeted living people, we can't comment on their sexuality, so for any mention of sexuality of living people, "openly" is a given, so why say it? For dead people, it may very well be relevant that a person was closeted, since that fact and their sexuality was likely very important to that person and those around him or her. But while we might comment that a dead person was in the closet, I don't see any need to ever use the term "openly gay", as if being open about your sexuality is something unusual. COGDEN 18:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

As has been said before - part of the opportunity is that in other areas we mention that someone is or is not something, and expect the reader to conclude if we don't mention that they are either the other way inclined or of no public position on the issue - we don't for instance have many white people categories, but we are pretty equal on male/female cats. I think part of the advantage of using the category is that in part it is driven by the GLBT editors and community itself to recognise how normal the whole issue is, and that its OK to be gay - lets be honest, there is still unfortunatly homophobia in the world. Part of the brief of Wikipedia is to educate, and for that reason in this case I don't think we need a tag which relates to some form of openly hetrosexual - the tags and volumes of diverse people within the GLBT cats highlight just how normal the whole issue is. On your second (implied) point of how we write the sexuality in to the article, I think its best left to an article by article conclusion/debate - but unless the subject has said "hey, I'm openly gay" then using such a term in their article would seem NPOV. Rgds, - Trident13 23:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

So we say that Dumbledore is simply "a closeted gay", rather than making a big, perverted fuss about it. Right?~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 23:54, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Dumbledore is a character in a series of books, not a real person, and Rowlings identification of him as gay is more to do with how she saw the development of the character to what he is when the story of Harry Potter involves him. It is to be considered that Rowling is not gay herself, so her interpretation of how a persons homosexuality might impinge on their character is both likely theoretical and open to artistic license. Lastly, he's a ruddy wizard - not really based in the human experience, I would suggest. LessHeard vanU 19:58, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

A long term solution will be tricky to find. A person's sexual preference should not, in my opinion, be any more notable than their eye colour. Unfortunately it seems that a homosexual soccer-player / politician / pop-star becomes more notable just because they've declared their sexuality. What do we do if they've been outed, but deny it? Also, sticking a label on someone seems a bit binary; maybe some people are a bit more complicated than "gay" and "not gay". (But I can't imagine saying that John Doe is 'a little bit gay'.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by DanBealeCocks (talk • contribs) 22:05, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

One solution/reality is that Wikipedia reflects the primary sources. If the articles we use as sources describe someone as gay or adopted, so should we. And we want to avoid weasel words so we don't need to say e.g the Times says Sarah is gay, we just say it neutrally and move on.Obina 20:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Being gay, lesbian, bisexual and in their own way transgender or intersex is of interest and much speculation although it has becoming less of a big deal over the past few decades. Closeted refers people who keep their sexuality (or other potentially embarrassing info) hidden even when asked ("who are you dating?"). Many people are LGBT and yet have children or traditional marriages, households etc or otherwise this is not a major component expressed so that it warrants undue weight (like the first paragraph of an article). This can even be evident in people who are well-known "non-heterosexuals". A person's sexuality should be given proper weight and well-sourced if considered controversial at all just like anything else. Also in some cultures it's certainly taboo to call someone gay even if they have have same-sex relations. In these cases it's best to use quotes and terminology of their culture. In the same way that some dykes do not consider themselves lesbian or gay and transgender people should be referred to in the gender they identify. We need to respect their right to self-determination and self-identity. Benjiboi 12:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Take, for example, color blindness. A phenomenon of comparable frequency. If some celebrity is known to be color blind, it makes sense to include that information in that person's Wikipedia article, if only for the reason that there are quite some (namely about 5 percent) people who struggle with their not being "normal" color-perception-wise and may be looking for someone who has success in life sharing that property. Or, putting it differently, ask yourself the question: Why don't we call 95 percent of the population "overly-color-sensitive"? --217.232.218.170 11:11, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

It is also the case that if nothing is mentioned, heterosexuality is presumed. It could be that leaving out the sexual orientation merely contributes to the marginalization of the LGBT community. It isn't the most elegant of solutions, but it may be preferable to simply ignoring the problem. HypatiasGirl 16:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Shock Sites

I agree with the fact that wikipedia must contain information about shock sites, to be classified as a true encyclopedia, but as it is a trusted website, shouldn't there be some protection on someone just editing a page to link to shock sites? I propose that a page can not contain any links to any shock sites UNLESS it is in the category shock sites. These pages would require users to agree that there is a link to a shock site on the page, and to be wary if they do not wish to go onto a shock site. A list of shock sites could be created (I agree with something lik shock sites the list will be ever changing and not definitive, but any protection is better than none at all) and these links banned. Thank you for reading my consideration. 78.150.127.87 09:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Vandals would just add the category in the same edit, or add the category then add the link. We'd need something like the bad image list for that to work. (Which might not be such a bad idea - as a general feature, have it be implemented as an article-specific spam-blacklist-whitelist) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Random832 (talk • contribs) 17:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

You have a good point, but couldn't it be a protected category (if such a thing exists)? Even if this wasn't the case it would an extra level of difficulty that would deterr minor vandals, and those without wiki-editing knowledge wouldn't invest the time in learning how to add the category.78.149.2.236 17:27, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Revisit WP:ROLE ??

Perhaps it might be time to reconsider the role of banning role accounts in the smooth operation of things round here? See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:OrbitzWWCorpComm for context (anyone can change that to a permalink if it gets archived as it will shortly)... but we have a case of a corp wanting their PR bunch to meticulously follow our policies but as a role account. We have one role account exception. Which appears to do little, or so it was said if you follow the links to WP:ROLE's talk page. Are there any pros to changing our policy? any cons? ++Lar: t/c 21:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think it needs to be changed. While that account mentioned was not necessarily disruptive, we need to look beyond "is this directly harmful?" and remember what this project is: an encyclopedia edited by the general public. I don't like the idea of having it "general public and corporate PR firms." I'd rather have advertising than explicitly allow such accounts. Some say ads would control content; at least advertisers would not actually edit the content themselves. If accounts like that can be kept away from the articles about the companies they work for, I'd be okay with it, but these accounts are made up of professionals paid to promote their company. They are not being paid to "create the sum of all human knowledge" nor are they being paid to write a balanced account of their company. Perhaps I've become a bit of a cynic about this from spending too much time at CAT:SPAM, but IMO - we don't need accounts like these. Mr.Z-man 13:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Isn't there also a legal issue? The individual editors own their copyright and have to label their edits separately. Maybe a corporate role account could be approved for edits only being done with the corporations' approval, but that's something WMF lawyers have to define. (SEWilco 14:19, 30 October 2007 (UTC))

Permalink http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=168000130#User:OrbitzWWCorpComm ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 01:29, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Why couldn't the edits just be copyrighted to the company, under work for hire? I mean, of all the objections to corporate role accounts, I never imagined that copyright/attribution was even an issue. —Random832 17:20, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Software

Why does it always seams that it is an important thing if software is open source, proprietary or something like that. It is often mention first in articles, in infoboxes, in comparison of different software... I think most people care more about the price than this. How many think about if you can read/edit the source, very few does that. I think it gets a to big role in the articles (it can be mentioned of course, but not the way most articles does). (This discussion will probably not change anything, guess there are too many open-source fanatics here, like GNU/Linux-geeks. Helpsloose 23:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Whether software is open source is important in terms of licensing and support (whether for better or worse); both of which are significant factors for businesses thinking about adopting new products. Some companies, for example, will only adopt software that has a strong support model, whereas for others the price is a key determinant. These can vary significantly between closed and open source models. — RJH (talk) 22:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

There might also be more information available about open software which can be examined, rather than the amount of information which a manufacturer releases. That depends upon the particular item. (SEWilco 03:35, 31 October 2007 (UTC))

But it plays a too important role in many articles. Helpsloose 17:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

It would help if you pointed out specific problems, instead of vague claims of the subject being "too important" in unnamed articles. -- 68.156.149.62 12:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I think he/she means that, besides other things, Open Source is generally considered a political issue, too. So he/she possibly tries to hint at the supposed fact that Wikipedia is too political here. The real issue behind this being, of course, the sad fact that most people are still not aware how much they can, and already do, benefit from the increasing amount of Open Source software. --217.232.218.170 11:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

It was actually not my point. I already said my point. It is put more weight on the issue than necessary. See for example here [[1]], almost first in the article, like it is one of the most important thing. Also one of the first in this page [[2]]. There is probably many others. Helpsloose —Preceding comment was added at 17:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Helpsloose on one point: the use of green and red in the chart in the second link to designate open source vs. non-open source definitely puts a political slant on the issue favoring open source. Maybe the community is fine with this, but it's certainly not a neutral view on the topic. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 20:35, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Administrative policies of banning and blocking editors

In my time at Wikipedia, I've noticed that most administrators will jump through hoops in order to avoid censuring an editor, even when that editor has been reprimanded multiple times and acted in a highly offensive way. Temporary blocks are not rare, however. My problem with this is that the administration is heavily weighing contributions while ignoring the extreme damage that can be caused by editors that have gotten out of control. I have seen threats against other users, dozens of puppets made, blatant personal attacks, and more, all from a single user. And yet this person continues to edit. I do not wish to speak their name because this has more to do with general policy that a single person. I think this hands-off policy is a sign of weakness among the admins and it will only lead to continuing problems on the site. We cannot ignore this kind of behavior — we are practically condoning it. I am a forgiving person and am willing to give second (and likely more) chances, but I would not let things get out of hand like this. No single editor's contribution to Wikipedia is invaluable in my opinion, not to the point where any type of offensive conduct from them would be overlooked. Editing Wikipedia is a privilege, not a right. - Cyborg Ninja 21:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I partially disagree, and partially agree. I believe a lot of user's get a way with alot. However a certain percentage of them are because they are unaware it's against policy. I believe there is a difference when it's blatant bad faith (replacing a page to say wikipedia is for f*ers for example. Or going to a user's talk page and cussing them out (apparently bad faith). Those are the one's I think need swift dealings,because it's obviously intentional, but for any other situation it's hard to tell, and the rule (assume good faith) should all ways be assumed. Admins I think however do a great job of discipline, but you have to remember there are millions if not billions of global user's, and only around 2,000 something administrators. That is enough to say in the least, and probably about 2-300 of those admins get recalled and/or disciplined themselves (not sure about this but I see a huge list of complaints on various admins in one of the requests pages). Either way, I think that the current policies do a good job of discipline, or did you have any advice on something specific you were presenting. I saw your view above, but no real "ideas" on how current policies, disciplinary dealings could be improved? --businessman332211 17:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there are many users who just aren't aware of the policies, but like you said, there are others who blatantly violate them or just don't care in order to flame someone. I give leeway in arguments between users, but I've seen those that have gotten out of hand to the point of threats of stalking and even violence — and the user doesn't get a banning. I think you're thinking about less-serious cases, but I mean really vile, hateful stuff here, and not from some little kid who thinks curse words are funny. I do have to give props to the overall system here, too. The general atmosphere here is one of congeniality and professionalism, and that is extremely rare on an Internet forum. My advice is for administrators to be stricter and to deal account bannings more often than they currently do, and not to feel ashamed about it. Users typically get many warnings (even from other editors) on their behavior before any serious action is taken. - If we get rid of contributors who are offensive and spiteful, then Wikipedia will be an even better place. Cyborg Ninja 20:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Unless you're willing to name names and get specific, it's very difficult to have this conversation. Yes, we need to do something when somebody is causing more problems than they're worth; no, it's not very easy to establish any precise distinction by which we can decide to act or not. Specific examples are pretty much a must, here. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:20, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

If he talking about the person I'm thinking of, I'd suggest he stay away from naming names. There are enough people who will overlook any offense due to doing "some" good edits. I have seen too many issues with people who simply are nasty or mean-spirited (or more often passive-aggressive which is the most difficult to work with) but nobody wants to punish because of the number of edits they've done. I think most admins (most people really) take a "let's weigh the good versus the bad" attitude as opposed to a "here is the general standard of conduct to follow; don't meet that and be gone" attitude. Unfortunately, that's just the way the world works; if you do some good, you have more leeway (why infinite blocks for vandalism-only accounts are allowed and not if there were some good edits) because people are willing to overlook all the negative and assume people will change for the better (like that a person will learn not to use curse words in their edit summaries, even if they aren't blocked). My biggest problem is allowing people who have used sockpuppets; for a system that is supposed to be built on consensus to allow users who use sockpuppets to get their way (or worse), it just goes against its fundamental core. Actually, I always find it funny how much times we see a block conducted and WP:AN or WP:ANI is filled with "I think the block was excessive, I think the block indicates the following; I think the block will have the following effect" all without the person being blocked doing anything like, I don't know, apologizing or promising not to do it again. THAT doesn't teach people anything. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:38, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Ricky. I think we're on the same page here about the person I have in mind, though it's not limited to that one person. However, I don't agree with the real world outside the Internet being like that. If you screw up in reality, any good you've done is likely to be ignored. Especially if you're a celebrity, or politician, or someone else in the public eye. This is a serious problem. We can't just ignore someone's bad conduct because of any good edits they've made. BTW, in the case of the person Ricky's thinking of, most of their edits are just mindless citation tags of articles. If you do want me to name names, we should probably discuss this privately. - Cyborg Ninja 20:18, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

License plate numbers in images?

Do we have any guidelines here for whether licence plate numbers can appear in images? This recently uploaded image [[3]] is of an unmarked (or personally-owned) police car in Slovakia. It's a beautiful shot but the plate number is clearly visible and I don't know if that's cool or not. Do we have any precedent about whether plate numbers need to be airbrushed out in this situation? Squidfryerchef 22:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Good question. I can't think of any specific policy on it, though one could argue that it should be airbrushed or otherwise obfuscated in compliance for privacy and in keeping with the living persons guideline (since the license plate is only slightly less personal info than posting someone's DL number, at least in the US), especially for a personally-owned car. The license plate could trace back to a living person. So my off the cuff 2 cents is that a readable plate shouldn't be seen in an image. Collectonian 02:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Collectonian. Unless this person is ok with their license plate being shown, and has said as much, a courtesy blurring or blotting of the number would probably by the best option. I can't imagine such a modification would cause any problems in regards to attribution or license used. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:33, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

In general, I disagree. A license plate on image of a car (absent any other context) is not significantly identifying information. I can walk down any street and get dozens of license plates without knowing anything significant about their owners. Now if the caption said, this is Bill Person's BMW and it had an identified license plate, that would be entirely different. But I don't see any need to remove isolated pieces of information taken out of context, any more than I feel the need to blur out all of the potentially identifiable faces in photographs of a crowd.

All of that said, in this specific case of a license plate on an undercover police car, it is the kind of specific context where removing the plate is probably a good idea. Dragons flight 02:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The police in this case could if they wanted have arrested the photographer if they didn't want the picture taken so why are we worrying about it .Garda40 19:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I would say that in this particular case the courtesy blurring of an in service undercover vehicles plate would be an option. I would hazard a guess that the blurring of all non-relevant plates to halt possible identity theft is not within Wikipedia's remit. If some governments are silly enough to sell their licence databases to anyone who wants them (such as the US DMV), and those buyers charge one-off fees on the internet to anyone who wants all the information related to that plate isn't our problem. 86.21.74.40 03:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm with Dragon's Flight. It's not exactly private when you slap it on your car and go for a drive (unlike your DL number or SSN, which presumably you keep to yourself). As for this image, it's not exactly undercover with that red light on the roof. Not sure I see a privacy problem with it. --Kbdank71 03:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to clarify. I don't think it's an unmarked in the sense that it's used for undercover detective work, i think it's for traffic enforcement. The notes with the pic said it was taken at such-and-such highway in Slovakia. Squidfryerchef 03:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

There may also be a law in that country that prohibits the disclosure and publication of police and other government vehicles for security purposes. Otherwise we could all produce a database on such vehicles which would pose a national security threat. Better to obscure the undercover vehicle's plate. --Andmark 15:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Beg pardon, but "While I don't have anything definite, there might well be a law against (blank) somewhere!" is not and has never been a justification for removing anything on Wikipedia, nor should it be; our standing orders are to report any legitimate legal concerns to WP:AN and the Foundation's full-time legal counsel) who will then bump it up the ladder to Jimbo as necessary. Any more than that is WikiLawyering and beyond our individual mandate to act.

For the record, and in keeping with the Project's status as a "neutral source of encyclopedic information", I oppose any material alteration of an image unless it's WP:OFFICE ordered or manifestly designed to improve the image in some inoffensive way. Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 21:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

How to write articles neither Copying from Sources or creating Original Research?

I don’t understand how to write an article neither copying from sources (paraphrasing is disallowed too) or creating Original Research. Please point me to Wikipedia guidelines on how to cope with both these issues simultaneously. Thanks. Dhammapal 08:17, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Um, where is paraphrasing disallowed? If by paraphrasing you mean that your source says "In the year XXXX a cataclysmic event hit the town of Springfield when the volcano erupted" and you paraphrase to say "In XXXX, Springfield was affected when the volcano erupted. <ref> Source </ref> ." You can't use word for word plagiarizing but you can take take the narrative of the source and rely it back in your own words and give due attribution to where you got the information from. Original Research would be more along the lines of saying "The single most important event in Springfield's history was in XXXX when the volcano erupted." Hope that helps. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 08:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

A more abstract way to think of it is that facts aren't copyrightable, but the manner of presentation of facts is. The best approach is to find good sources, whittle out the facts from those sources, and then present those facts following the Wikipedia Manual of Style. The only time you should be actually quoting is if you're actually discussing the source itself, rather than the subject of the source. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 13:02, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I run into this problem all of the time, due to the subject area I focus on: Ethiopian history. (Question to prove my point: how many books on Ethiopian history does your public library have? Residents of NYC need not answer.) Right now, Tekle Giyorgis I of Ethiopia is, AFAIK, the best account of his life available. This is not because I am a wonderful researcher/writer, but because most history books either dismiss him in a few sentences or ignore him entirely. (The exception is the massive history of Ethiopia written by E. A. Wallis Budge, who covers the Emperor's reign in a few pages -- & he did an embarassingly sloppy job on the subject.) The secret is to let the facts speak for themselves, much as Agne7 recommends above; avoid trying to express an opinion or on the subject, but if you must either find an authority to quote or use the conditional. -- llywrch 20:10, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the excellent advice Agne and Johnny.

I misunderstood CorenSearchBot’s direction:

Replace the copyright text with your own work. Note that simply modified or rephrased text is still an infringement — to remove the copyrighted contents you will need to completely remove them and then write totally new text to replace it.

Paraphrase is different to rephrase right? Dhammapal 10:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It depends on the extent of the rephrasing. As suggested above, simply distilling out the facts and presenting them in your own words is not an infringement, and doing so from multiple sources makes this even less likely. On the other hand, slight grammatical or syntax changes from the original make the "new" version considered, for all intents and purposes, the same as an exact copy. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:06, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Excessive literalism

This might be subtitled, "The misuse of policies like WP:V and WP:RS and guidelines like WP:REL to cover an attempt to push a POV, by claiming WP:OR, and interpreting guidelines as rules and rules so narrowly as to violate common sense. It seems to be a favorite tactic of some editors, and seems to need at least an essay that could evolve into a guideline, and then into a policy. It seems likely to have been discussed before, but so far I haven't found it.

It can take various forms. Here are are a few:

• 1. The article name is a phrase "word1 word2 word3" and an editor rejects any source that does not contain that exact phrase, even though it contains synonymous expressions or descriptions, or leaves out a word as a way of abbreviating, or separates or reorders the words in ways that are synonymous, that anyone who knows English would recognize as synonymous.
• 2. Insisting on treatment of the article as only about the usage of the name rather than the object or denotatum of it, and that the thing denoted didn't exist before it was named. Then rejecting under WP:REL anything about the thing known by other names.
• 3. Delecting an entire paragraph or section because a cite that supports the entire paragraph or section is not inserted after every sentence or phrase.
• 4. Insisting that two policy statements, expressed as independent sentences, must both be satisfied. An example would be to insist that the first two sentences of WP:NOR#Citing oneself must both be satisfied, rather than either of them.
• 5. Inserting material that is obviously incorrect, because it seems to come from a reliable source. E.g., a statement that an event occurred on "April 31" when that month doesn't have a 31st day, the correct date "April 13" can be easily seen from the rest of the source, and then, if another editor wants to just delete the date, or say "in April", he deletes the entire passage.
• 6. Rejecting even the most obvious summarizations as OR. E.g., having a source that says "A came in the room." Then says "B came in the room." And the editor summarizes as "A and B came in the room." But the obsessive editor insists on a source for "A and B".

I could go on, but others can probably think of others. It could become an essay or policy WP:NEL -- "No excessive literalism". Jon Roland 04:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

This is in regard to Constitutional militia movement‎, of which this editor is a prominent leader. As an involved expert he is asserting that the movement is whatever he says it is, regardless of what the few available reliable sources say. The editor does not seem to understand the need for verifiability, or respect the limits imposed by WP:NOR. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:57, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

It is partially inspired by my experience with that article, but I have also looked at what some of the same adverse editors, and others that seem to be allied with them in their methods, are doing on other articles to which I have not contributed. A couple of them have also been following me around to other articles I have edited, including this one, and on the basis of that I charge them with violation of WP:HAR. The above entry is not responsive to the problem posed by the article, and seems to have been made only to annoy and discredit me. I interpret policies like WP:NOR differently than they seem to, and I think more in line with the way they were intended to be understood, that is, reasonably and with common sense, not rigidly and literalistically. If no one can point me to where this question is already addressed, I will create an essay on it. Jon Roland 07:49, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

When you disagree with the interpretation of a policy, as you do with how other editors are interpreting WP:NOR#Citing oneself, the best solution is to propose a rewording of the policy that clarifies its meaning (that can be done in a number of ways, including just doing it, and seeing how people react, then taking the matter to the policy talk page), or to initiate an RfC regarding its meaning. I really don't think another essay is going to help. And Wikipedia has a dispute resolution process for content disputes (which this is); that's also a better alternative than bringing a list of arguments to this page. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, and of course I intend to pursue other alternative for any particular disputes. However, there seems to be a general problem for which an article is needed that editors can cite to as a way to make their points. It is really just a way to urge editors to use common sense, which every policy and guideline article also urges, but for a few editors who seem bent on excessive literalism, as some seem to be, including some with which I have never engaged and am never likely to, there seems to be a need for an additional general guideline that covers all policies and guidelines. We don't want excessive clarifications of existing policies and guidelines, either, trying to anticipate all the ways anyone might try to misunderstand them, because they have not been written to be nitpicked. That would make them too long, and most of them are okay in their present state if interpreted in a common-sense, plain-English way. Excessive literalism is a tendency that has appeared and been debated for centuries in many fields, especially theology and law. There should be a single article that focuses on the general problem and allows discussion there of what is and what is not excessive literalism on policies and guidelines. Jon Roland 16:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is already Wikipedia:Use common sense, and, more generally, Wikipedia:Consensus, which says, among other things, It is difficult to specify exactly what constitutes a reasonable or rational position. Good editors acknowledge that positions opposed to their own may be reasonable. However, stubborn insistence on an eccentric position, with refusal to consider other viewpoints in good faith, is not justified under Wikipedia's consensus practice.. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:33, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the internal links. I added them and some others to the article at WP:NEL. Jon Roland 03:42, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think John Broughton has it about right, but I could add the most helpful policy to this difficulty may be WP:IAR anyway. I certainly don't think we need a new guideline or policy.Obina 14:31, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

An essay can supplement or explain an interpretation of policies and guidelines, so that people who feel other editors "just don't get it" can link to an article that sums up what they are trying to say. The trouble with WP:IAR is that, for people who have trouble with common sense, it seems to be contradicted by rules they can invoke while ignoring it, with its admonition that it is more important to write good articles (for the people who will read them) than to adhere fastidiously and narrowly to rules and guidelines that are intended only to be used with discretion. But who knows. If enough people start citing to WP:NEL it might become upgraded to a guideline or policy. It is intended to expand on what has gone before, and make more clear what has been intended, by referencing to the long history of "excessive literalism" and what can be learned from that. Jon Roland 17:55, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

May I suggest that you approach Wikipedia with the perspective that we are writing an encyclopedia. You may want to see the general advice of where to start. It appears that instead you are approaching Wikipedia from the premise that you may use it to advance your political manifesto, and that you are finding frustrations while using Wikipedia for this purpose. Also, I recommend reading the Wikibreak and the Wikistress essays. SaltyBoatr 18:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Whatever the motivations and background of the original author of this essay are, I think most of us who have been here for any length of time probably can agree that excessive literalism as described does occur, and can contribute to a difficult editing environment. And yes, the most typical targets of literal interpretation do seem to be WP:RS and WP:OR. (For me, the most memorable experience of this was probably the first three sections of Talk:Hipcrime (Usenet), though I've certainly seen it happen elsewhere too.)

The ideal response, in such a situation, is simply to accommodate and work around the excessive demands — find a source that says "the sky is blue", in those exact words if necessary, or settle for a wording that you can source to the hilt ("diffuse sky radiation consists mainly of the shorter wavelengths of light"). Eventually, if you can keep producing every reference and shrubbery demanded, the person (there's usually just one; if there are more, consider the possibility that you might be the unreasonable one) insisting on a literal interpretation will either get tired or be satisfied.

Of course, the problem is that doing all this can be immensely exhausting and exasperating, and it might be you who tires first. If you don't feel you can meet the demands on your own, and feel the issue nonetheless affects the quality of the encyclopedia too much to just let be, the solution is the same as for any editing dispute: ask for outside opinions. This will probably not convince the literalist editor that they are wrong, however strongly the consensus might be on your side — they'll be too convinced that they are right, that they're defending the encyclopedia against misinformation and that "consensus does not override policy" — but it can provide useful insight as well as additional editors willing to discuss and work on the issue when you get tired. Ultimately, here as in other cases, the real strength of reasonable editors versus unreasonable ones is that reasonable people can form a consensus and work together to achieve it, while the unreasonable ones stand alone against the world.

Of course, the corollary is that if you find yourself standing alone as the "sole defender of the encyclopedia" against the unwashed hordes, and nobody seems willing to share the burder with you, you ought to seriously reconsider whether you might be in the wrong — or, even if you are right, whether continuing the struggle is really worth it. This is known as a reality check, and it's something any sane person ought to take from time to time. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 05:30, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

"WP:V doesn't allow for reasonable doubt." I don't know what to say to someone who argues that. -- llywrch 23:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

How to deal with users of questionable mental stability

This issue is an important question for Wikipedia policy. How should administrators and the average user deal with other users who are mentally ill? What qualifies as mental illness? Where should the line be drawn? In terms of this matter, my view may be seen as rather strict. I believe that the contributions of an editor do not factor in their judgment if they have shown to be irrational and abusive towards other users. This is similar to how I think abusive editors (even if they are not mentally ill) should be treated. Currently, the administration seems to take a very laissez-faire approach. This is causing a great deal of harm here at Wikipedia as a whole and to individual users. - Cyborg Ninja 06:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

It is difficult to address this problem with any kind of guideline or policy, because it is a difficult problem even for mental health professionals in face-to-face situations. It will probably have to be dealt with on a case-to-case basis. Wikipedia assumes rationality and good faith, but as an activity it is vulnerable to intrusion by the corrupt, the malicious, and the deranged. The barbarians are always at the gates, and it only takes a few to destroy a civilization or a Wikipedia. We also have to recognize that Wikipedia has become an arena for contests for power. The high ranking :of its articles in the search engines is also an incentive for invasion, at first by subtle and skilled efforts that can seem to be "civilized" in this context but which if not repelled will eventually destroy the project. Jon Roland 07:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia, in general, takes a very laissez-faire approach -- it's one of the fundamental precepts of our philosophy, in general, both a great strength and a source of many problems. For my part, I'd rather we avoided throwing around a bunch of unqualified, amateur guesses as to whether so-and-so has such-and-such illness, and just focused on the issue of a person's participation in the project. Are they contributing? Is their behavior disruptive or productive? Is there anything we as a community might do to help them become a better editor? What chance of improvement is there? Again, as I mentioned in your other thread, it's very difficult to have these sorts of conversations in a general sense, and I'm not sure how productive it might be. Problematic users can be reported to the appropriate admin noticeboards for discussion and possible administrative response, if need be; I'd also encourage you to make use of the dispute resolution process, whenever possible. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Cyborg; While I can understand your concern at dealing with users who, as you say, are of "questionable mental stability", may I ask one small thing? If they don't give you any indication (by userbox, etc...) - what puts you in a position to be able to judge who is mentally stable or unstable? That's not meant as an argumentative statement, simply an idea for me to understand, say, do you have some experience of dealing with mentally unstable people by reason of work or something? No one on here has ever questioned my mental stability, but I suffer from Paranoia. If I hadn't said anything about that, would you have had some way of knowing that that was the case? Thor Malmjursson 13:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

There's a "This Wikipedian is off their meds" userbox? In all seriousness, having a bipolar userbox on a user page hardly qualifies as a legitimate means of diagnosis. Personally, I don't think we can make any special exceptions for disruptive editors because they're mentally ill, otherwise every malicious editor will try to use that as an excuse. Caknuck 15:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment - Caknuck, I quite agree. We don't make any exceptions for anyone based on their state of mind, that is true. But as I have said, How do you know they are mentally ill in the first place??? Thor Malmjursson 15:34, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with Thor and Luna. There's just no way to tell for sure if someone does or does not have a mental illness, even if we had qualified professionals who were editors here. Also, even if there was a way to tell if an editor has a mental illness, they shouldn't be treated any differently unless their behavior is somehow disruptive to the community. GlassCobra 16:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm only referring to users who are disruptive. Paranoia doesn't count as something that would be very disruptive, IMO. In no way am I suggesting I be the person to decide who is mentally ill or not; neither is there an easy way to do this. There are some users on this site who do show their true colors, even after much productivity. I suggest dealing with it privately and to be very gentle, and only in cases that are obvious. At the same time, I don't think it would work for administrators to do that. It seems like a line is being crossed if they do. I've seen mental illness in online friends of mine who have later come clean about it to me (one was extremely paranoid). I tried to help him on a personal basis, but as you probably expect, it didn't work. So what we should focus on is to not ignore any obvious policy violations. We cannot use "Oh he was just angry and got over it" or "He's ill, let him be" as an excuse. I know a lot of you just take the "report it to AN/I" approach, but I've seen administrators turn the other way even in the most extreme of cases because they don't want to hurt someone's feelings, or deal with it any further. The problem is, with many of these people, they'll get upset again and the same thing will happen again. We need to be stronger than this. Thank you all for the replies. Sorry that came off as a bit of a rambling — I don't have all the answers. - Cyborg Ninja 20:36, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

There are some editors who are clearly disturbed, and it's sometimes helpful to conceive of their bizarre or abusive editing as the product of some personal issues. But mental illness isn't a yes or no thing. We're all a little sick in the head at times. And schizophrenics, obsessive compulsives, neurotics, bipolars, and even sociopaths are human beings too and may have something to contribute here. It would be sad and unfair to say that you're disqualified from Wikipedia for having an organic brain disorder. Judge the edits, not the editor, and don't punish people for being honest about their mental state. We shouldn't deny the obvious - our bipolar colleagues can be a total pain at times. But they can also be wickedly smart and productive, and deserve a seat at the table like everyone else provided they can get along.Wikidemo 21:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Some users do 'lose it' a bit very easily and appear unstable. We all know of those that when one of their articles is tagged even by a bot, say it's ruined their experience on Wikipedia. Or they go on massive WP:POINT campaigns, tagging numerous articles, solely because they feel one of theirs was tagged unfairly. It's not disparaging to those with mental health problems, most of whom can still contribute sanely to Wikipedia. But some people even if they haven't been diagnosed with any illness easily flip out, and go on a rampage. They may even say 'now I'm going to turn evil- ruhaha' or some such. Thhen go back to normal briefly and apologise slightly so they get away with it. Then a few days later something sets them off again. Hopefully they get blocked if they continue in such a pattern. As an individual editor, the best way to deal with them is probably to avoid much contact with them. As a community, to notice their history when they invite their latest block, and if the pattern has occurred several times, long-term block. 91.110.169.154 16:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

This is exactly what I'm talking about, and I'm glad that you noticed it too. "Unstable" is the keyword here. There are multiple editors who have this problem, and I think it's a part of their lifestyle, but I believe the laissez-faire approach at this site and others on the Web allows them to keep being disruptive. To add to your characterization, these editors take minor setbacks (tags, warnings, bots, etc) very personally and threaten other users for something that is quite minor. This, to me, shows that they are not trying to make Wikipedia a better place and that they are acting in poor faith. I'm sorry, but assuming good faith in evidence of obvious bad faith is absurd, and some administrators and many regular editors need to realize that and stop using that as an excuse. This is a serious problem on Wikipedia. I realize that some of these editors contribute plenty to Wikipedia, and therefore many people don't want to ban them, but if this is a pattern and if they are harming other users: it needs to stop. I try to be sensitive to unstable people like this both online and in real life. I have a grandmother who behaves like this, and the best my family can do is try to alleviate her stress to avoid setting her off. However, I recognize that she does have some ability to control herself and we do not accept every emotional outburst. We do love and forgive her, of course. But please realize, administrators, that if an unstable user has a pattern of this behavior and is harming other users, you absolutely should not accept it. I imagine that a lot of you are thinking "We don't," but I've seen this from other admins and users. The twisting of the WP:AGF policy is partly to blame. - Cyborg Ninja 19:55, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I should add that I have one person in mind right now (though he is not the only one to act like this). A quick glance of his Contributions page shows me that he makes 300+ edits a day and frequently spends over half of the day, every minute, editing Wikipedia. Every day. Now, I think I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia, but that's mostly to read articles to expand my knowledge. But that person's amount of time here... can we really call that normal, or healthy? He does everything the user above cited as conduct that an unstable editor does here. I'm not suggesting that we warn someone just because they spend vast amounts of time here obviously, but I think it's something to think about. - Cyborg Ninja 20:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we can be overly suspicious just due to 'spends too much time here.' What we are basically talking about is conduct that would lead to an RfC, but because the user spreads the conduct over different areas and his/her WP:POINT sprees target many different articles and people, it's hard to have an RfC that truly covers what they get upto, because RfCs have to be about 'the same dispute', so it's harder to raise the two people needed that have the boldness to stand up. If RfCs were allowed to address the user's behavior in general when they're having one of their 'episodes', then they would be a more accurate representation of the user. Because while it runs the risk of being seen as ganging up on someone, sometimes that kind of RfC would be useful/necessary.91.110.230.131 21:31, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Two RFCs have been done of one person I have considered as unstable. Even if a tagging spree spans over dozens of articles that are unrelated, a question comes into one's head: is it acceptable to do mass-tagging of articles that one has not spent more than 5 seconds with? I know we have bots that handle other operations, but most of what they do makes sense to me and is useful. Marking every article with a big citations tag at the top isn't really going to encourage people to improve the article. I mean, come on people, get real. Still, some admins think it's helpful. But on this issue; it's nowhere near the worst example and even I wouldn't consider anything more than an informal warning for it if I were an admin, unless they ignore the warning. As you hinted at, RfCs are dedicated to one episode or event. If a user's behavior over several months needed to be reviewed, where should it be done? - Cyborg Ninja 08:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

As an editor with a mental illness (although I don't think you would be able to guess that based on my contributions) I appreciate your concern, but I don't think that any special consideration should apply except for the application of the WP:CIVIL policy. If we just remember that this applies to comments made to all editors, even abusive ones, then there should be no problem. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:20, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

New mental illness in established admins and editors

• I'm starting this as a new section because I believe it is worthy of its own category. - Cyborg Ninja 09:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The question seems loaded. Most abusive editors do not have any recognised mental illness. The interesting borderline case to consider here is: if there's a person who makes useful contributions, or even achieves adminship, while in a good mental state, and then their mental integrity degrades as a result of a illness-induced mood change, acquiring a new illness, or a change of medication, should they be de-adminned or banned, or should we wait for them to seek assistance and recover? If they do recover, do they have a means of requesting re-evaluation on this basis? Dcoetzee 14:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Depending on their behavior, if they are an admin and they behave poorly, then they should have their privileges taken away. You can't put power into the hands of someone who isn't mentally healthy. Of course, the admin would have to come out as having mental illness or it would have to be clearly discernible from normal behavior. Most cases won't be so easy. As for editors, it's a bit more difficult. I would not want to upset the user and taking away their ability to edit could have a drastic effect on them. But, as I've stated above, if there is a pattern of this behavior, it cannot be tolerated. If they decide to come back and state that they are now healthy and be open about their past, then I would welcome them. - Cyborg Ninja 09:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello

First time I've posted here, i think, so just interested in some general reaction to this essay: WP:TROLL? No more bongos 08:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Tut, tut, tut, far too concise and comprehensible! I read it six times before realising there were no sub-clauses or qualifying comments at all! Small wonder you haven't shown yourself around here before... ;~) LessHeard vanU 16:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The current practice is that personal essays belong in userspace, not projectspace, per Category:Wikipedia essays. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh! How do I move my essay, and get it categorised? I confess I got a little confused when attempting to find out originally. LessHeard vanU 22:56, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

My honest view is it seems a bit unneccessary. We already have WP:AGF which means we shouldn't call editors anything. But is describing people as something different to calling them something? Depends on the context. I suspect that if there were a reason to describe behaviour as the behavior of a troll, we'd get pounced on for calling someone a troll. Next we can't use the word vandal, nor sock puppet, nor vanity, nor anything. We move to the land of weasel words. Most editors strive for kindness. I certainly don't plan to call anyone troll or anything else. I just think the general guidelines are more helpful than lists of specifics. Too many specifics are ammunition for the trolls! BTW WP:TROLL already has a redirect.Obina 14:21, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Persistent vandal - where to go from here?

The Television Stations Project has been dealing with a persistent vandal, Dingbat2007 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), for over three months. The vandal was indef blocked, but began creating numerous sockpuppets, both as anonymous IP addresses (until reported to his ISP for abuse) and as registered users. See list of nearly 30 sockpuppets. This user has now been effectively community banned - when a sockpuppet is discovered, edits are reverted on sight without regard to merit and the username is reported to the admins with the result universally being an indef block. No admin has been willing to undo the blocks, for which we are grateful. However, the constant reverting is getting tiresome; does anyone know of any other recourse that we have, or have we pretty much exhausted our options? Although the user has effectively been banned, there is no formal ban in place on this user, nor am I sure what benefit there would be with a formal ban. Ideas? dhett ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Not sure how it is done, or who might do it, but how about seeing if the underlying ip address is static? If so, indef block that addy - problem solved. (or am I just stating the obvious that you have already considered?) Sprotecting the article will limit the ip's and new users - but you will have to judge the effect on other contributors. LessHeard vanU 23:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll have to look into the underlying IP address. I doubt I have access to that and I can't remember if I'd asked help from the admins on identifying that or not. RE: sprotecting - this guy sometimes touches 50-100 articles in a single session, so any steps to protect articles have a potential negative impact to a lot of good-faith editors. The last couple of times, I've caught him red-handed, limiting the damage to 10 articles or less. The only good thing is the guy is predictable, making him fairly easy to watch. dhett ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

If you want someone to identify and block the underlying IP, go to Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser#Requests for IP check and file a request there. Hut 8.5 12:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Done. Thanks to both of you for the tips. dhett ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Just want another point of view, please

I wrote an article Hyde Amendment (1997) today and another article Barry Cohen (attorney) that is linked to the first one. Another person cleaned up the Barry Cohen article. I have submitted them as a two-for DYK. Someone has put a {{limited}} tag on the Barry Cohen article. I am not sure what I can do to make it less limited. Would you take a look at it and advise me what to do to fix it? Thanks! Mattisse 02:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I visited it, fixed some formatting, and removed some of the most inappropriate references (forum postings and blogs are not a valid source; the op ed pieces are also questionable). If Mr. Cohen is notable, perhaps search for better sources? Almost all of the sources come from the same online site, which would validate the limited point of view, while some of the others are not news articles but opinion pieces, rants, etc. The over all tone does not quite fit with an encyclopedic article and could use some copy editing. A quick web search doesn't seem to bring up a lot of information about Barry Cohen, beyond mostly bloggy or otherwise unreliable sources, making me wonder if he meets notability requirements? Collectonian 03:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. He is extremely well known but a behind the scenes type of guy. Not the Ellis Rubin type, coining media-grabbing defenses but wins many more high-profile cases, and in contrast to Rubin, Cohen never loses a case. The person who put the tag on the article removed it, I noticed. I'm basically using Cohen for the Hyde Amendment (1997) article as Cohen is one of the very few attorneys (actually I have not found another) who managed to win any money under that amendment, and Cohen won $2.9 million compensation, somewhat more than the goverment's offer of $250,000. I have asked the legal people to find another lawyer who has won a case under it. --Mattisse 14:59, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

I am really at odds with the NNOTABILITY/Trivia policy right now.

Sirs:

I am really at odds with the NOTABILITY/Trivia policy.

This policy has alienated a large number of WebComic advocates, and certainally cost WP some creadibility and good will, and some donation money too.

As I stated on my former user page, ( I will provbibly not log in again ):

"This is upsetting me, a lot. Articles are set for speedy deletion based upon the concept of Notability, i.e. popularization which to me has a connotation of sensationalizm. Since the most of the web is sensationalism and esoteric, and polarized in that way. ( Some eMusic sites I have been to only have 25~30 page views.)

Why would you want a encyclopedia, that only has popular topics? I really wound't want that. Id read 'People' Magazine if I wanted that. Encyclopedias should EMBRACE THE ESOTERIC. There is an article here on wikipedia for every pokemon character, and I %*&3 hate pokemon, but I respect its reverence amoung five year olds, and especially five year olds who use wikipedia as their reference. Can you imagine the effect of children growing up as knowing wikipedia as something that was usefull to them, and they would enjoy comtributing to?

By this criteria alone ( Notability ), we should delete ALL HISTORY before WWII for its irelevence. Is Joan D'Arc relevent? Practically no. But she has extrodinary significance to the history of religion, spirituality and philosophy." You can easily rewrite history, by only looking at the "popular" aspects of it.

I have an eye for detail and consistancy, and am about to actually work on my first complete rewrite, ( although, no one has stepped forward to guide me, or adopt me). Is it actually become sport to destory what others are passionate about? ( Feel free, of course, to delete this message if you feel that is not notable enough. )

What is being done policy wise about this?

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Comments:Wikimedia_fundraiser_highlights_webcomic_community%27s_frustration_with_Wikipedia_guidelines#The_tip_of_an_iceberg.

end of soapbox

You're clearly upset about the notability requirement, but I'm sorry to say that I don't understand much more than that. I'll take just a couple of your points: Why would you want a encyclopedia, that only has popular topics? Why indeed? But en:WP isn't that. (Brutalist architecture isn't a popular topic or a popular kind of architecture.) Again: By this criteria alone ( Notability ), we should delete ALL HISTORY before WWII for its irelevence. Is Joan D'Arc relevent? Practically no. But she has extrodinary significance to the history of religion, spirituality and philosophy. If she indeed has extraordinary significance to these three histories, then surely she's notable. Where's the (potential) problem with here? Perhaps you could rephrase your complaint. -- Hoary 09:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It is no longer essentially nessessary. Wikipedia will be the only product of 'Group thought' and 'Mass popularizm' If its "interesting" to the admins It stays, I am taking Jim Bo's suggestion that I find something else significant to do with my life other than swim upstream. I have created other accounts on other wiki's and am developing my SPAM bot to help a few others using wiki-software that do not have the benefit of a few million dollars in resources. See ya. (i.e. dont waste your time ) Stupidly I didnt sign my very last, and final post. G'day mate! Artoftransformation 12:51, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

• The notability guideline sets some easy to follow and fairly objective standards, with a relatively low bar to inclusion. However, I do see uneven application of the standards at AfD, mostly by uninformed nominators and less informed evaluators. This is more of a problem than the guidelines. --Kevin Murray 13:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
• A lot of people tried to abuse the rules by including webcomics that were just starting hadn't gotten any outside coverage (reliable or otherwise). I'm sure there are multiple webcomics that satisfy the current criteria. We just can't include ALL of them. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Leaked tv episode

I have a question about leaked episodes. If an episode of a TV show was gotten by hacking the stations Website and posted online, can people cite that in an article or not? What policies concern a situation like this? The Placebo Effect 18:51, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Wherever you're getting the episode from has to satisfy WP:V and WP:RS. If a third party source that satisfies the aforementioned policy and guideline comments on the hack, then that certainly can be included, but if you're citing a Youtube video, then no. As such, it varies. Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 19:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Help create a manual of style for maps and diagrams

Right now it seems that Wikipedia provides no guidance on the best practices for creating maps and diagrams. These types of images are rapidly proliferating on Wikipedia. In fact, the Wikimedia Foundation has just started a grant program to pay illustrators to add new diagrams to articles in need. It would be nice if most of these additions followed similar styles and conventions instead of continually reinventing the wheel (with various degrees of success). Although I don't believe Wikipedia needs to enforce one particular style on all maps and diagram, there are some helpful conventions that I think we should put into writing somewhere. Wikipedia:Image use policy doesn't seem like the appropriate place for this, so I've decided to be bold and create a proposed Manual of Style page for maps and diagrams. Right now it is mostly blank as I would like to know what suggestions the Wikipedia community has to offer. Feel free to hop over there and edit it to your heart's content or add ideas to the talk page. Thanks! Kaldari 01:13, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

While I know it can be a difficult place for English Wikipedians to navigate (at least in part because of the multilingual aspect), this is probably a much better discussion for Commons. One problem with developing a localized MoS for this is that you'd need to redraw any map originating from another project in order to achieve uniformity, and I'm fairly sure that there are a lot more maps available on commons than on any other wm project. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 23:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Regarding maps, see m:Maps, m:Wikimaps, Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps, and Commons:Commons:Project Mapmaking Wiki Standards. For diagrams, see Wikipedia:How to create graphs for Wikipedia articles and Wikipedia:Graphic Lab. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Unlikned Photo/picture eating too much HDD storage

Unlikned Photo/picture eating too much HDD or mass storage in Wikipedia.org central facility. While ask of donation appears on top of every page recently, Wikipedia allows some numbers user's up load Photo/Picture and keep that too much number of picture as if his/her own Photo album. Many photo is not linked to article and kept as personal photo album. Photo eat too much storage space of server site of Wikipedia than text. Sysop should warm to Photo Author to be deleted.

The photo Up load should have some rule. ( also User self introduction also should have size limit, for example up to 10,000 characters)

My suggestive idea is:

1. Up loaded Photo is not linked to article within 30 days, it will be deleted automatically.
2. Article which is small space or less description allowed to have up to three photos.
3. Article with large space or much description may have up to Five photos.
4. Photo gallery allows up to 10 photos, and more than that it should be discussed which one to be deleted, or Delete vote system stub to be implemented by order of each photo.
5. User page photo should be up to three.

Unless some rule like above is not set, Wikipedia need more and more donation more than to keep healthy quality of information source. Waste of storage space under donation system should be reviewed ! --Namazu-tron 03:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Unless you have access to the servers and know this for a fact, your suggestion seems quite unnecessary. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 03:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Without looking inside of HDD or a fact, it is true to say, relatively that the un-linked photo(s) are wasting storage space and this is a suggestion based on Japanese Philosophy Mottainai--Namazu-tron 03:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

It's still unnecessary. Photos are very small, and some aren't even hosted on Wikipedia. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 03:27, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Really, space is not an issue. A single 1TB drive (retailing for about $300) is enough to fit all of Wikipedia's image files with plenty of room to spare. There are a large variety of technical needs and limitations that Wikipedia has, but raw storage space is something the foundation has an abundance of. Having enough file servers, processing power, and network redundancy to handle 30 thousand requests per second is a much more complicated issue, and largely independent from how much hard disk space one has. Dragons flight 03:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Deleting the image wouldn't free up that space for use by something else; everything still exists, just not somewhere that is visible to the average user. Every page and image I've deleted are accessible to any admin that peruses through my logs. EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:47, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Yup, deleting files saves no space, even if it were an issue. You can preserve a byte here and there by uploading on commons rather than on wikipedia (assuming it's not fair use), since images tend to get moved there eventually anyway, which means that we then have 2 copies of the file on the server (one deleted, one in use). --SB_Johnny | ^talk 13:05, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Infobox screenshots

I've thought for a while now that we should have a standard fair use rationale for intertitle screenshots used in TV show infoboxes. See here for a rough draft I made of one. However, I've often wondered how these types of screenshots are justified under the "critical commentary" stipulation of WP:NFC. It always seemed to me that these screenshots are just used for simple visual identification of the show, which is what I put in the draft. So, my questions are:

1. How, if at all, are infobox intertitle screenshots justified under WP:NFC?
2. Do you like the idea/wording of the standardized rationale, and do you have any suggestions for improving it?

--CrazyLegsKC 06:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

You might want to ask at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Listing of multiple translations after title of articles, headings, etc.

I work on many of the food and drink articles on Wikipedia and especially take interest in editing cuisine articles. Although this hasn't been a huge issue with me in the past, it has been something I would like some assistance with for policy as it has become hinder some on some articles I have noted. My earlier notes come from articles such as Korean cuisine, Chinese cuisine, Japanese cuisine and other Asian cuisines that have both the english and foreign language translations on their pages. As mentioned, if it sticks to one language it doesn't seem to be an issue, but I would like to know if there is a policy that regulates this because I seem to recall someone telling me there was when I wrote the French cuisine article and was told I should use all English terms when possible. The current dilemma builds though when an article such as Chili oil comes under multiple languages and we end up with numerous translations in the heading for the lead. This does not seem correct to me and would like to have a discussion about it here with those who may know this realm of policy better than I.--Chef Christopher Allen Tanner, CCC 07:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Seeing no response to date, may I suggest you might want to discuss this at Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink? Also, for lead sections, the talk page at WP:LEAD may be a good place to ask a question. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:24, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

This is the English Language Wikipedia: therefore foreign names of entities should only be included if they are relevant - i.e. likely to be used by an English speaker, recently Anglicised from a foreign term, or of course in illustrating articles about a concept such as liaison. Translations into multiple languages of course are useful on wiktionary. Rich Farmbrough, 11:50 18 November 2007 (GMT).

Notability

I need help determining notability. It states on the Wikipedia Notability page that short term news bursts don't count as notability. But what if that news burst was short term, but major in how far it reached? Like a person who got on the news in America and also got on the news in Korea?... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heero Kirashami (talk • contribs) 04:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

As our world becomes more connected, through global TV networks, the internet, and general mass media, it becomes more and more likely that the reach of a news item will grow. Where someone once became famous for five minutes only locally, they can now become famous for five minutes on a global scale. That does not change the fact that they were only famous for five minutes. A short term news burst is still a short term news burst, no matter it's reach. Blueboar 19:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

My personal opinion? Ask yourself, if it disappears from the headlines and nothing else happens, will people still want to read about this a year from now? Sometimes you can predict. If a volcano explodes or someone wins the Nobel Prize you can be pretty sure people will be interested a year from now, even a hundred years from now. If a person gets arrested for a bizarre crime, nobody will care next week. In between you have to guess. Sometimes, an event is just news for now but there is a lot of context, connection with other important events, importance in illustrating the subject, etc., so you can take a chance and infer that it is notable. But you're risking the possibility that after all your work, six months from now people are going to decide the article is pointless and delete it. It's nice when Wikipedia can be current and relevant, and useful to understand the latest headlines. But we don't have to be completely up to date with the news - that's what newspapers are for. There's usually no harm in taking a breather and waiting a week or a month to see how the story plays out before writing the article.Wikidemo 00:55, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

So in the case that a person continues to make news, at least amongst academia, that person may be article-worthy?... --Heero Kirashami 02:00, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• There is no hard and fast standard, only guidelines which are subject to reasonable interpretation. Read WP:BIO and use good judgment. For an academic or musician consult WP:PROF or WP:MUSIC respectively. If someone doesn't like your article you will hear about it or it will be nominated for deletion. Without very clear information on you subject we just can't tell much more. If you write an article and feel it is being unfairly criticized, please contact me and I will help. --Kevin Murray 03:05, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
• Notability for an encyclopedia article differs from notability in the news cycle. If a topic is notable enough for a stand alone encyclopedia article at one time, it remains notable even after the news fades. Take for example Theodore Kaczynski, who hasn't been in the news much lately. Conversely it is prudent not to place excessive merit on skiing squirrels simply because they made the evening news report. - Michael J Swassing (talk) 22:30, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Five pillars

There has been a lot of rewriting going on at Wikipedia:Five pillars recently, with very little broad based oversight. It might be a good idea for more of us to be involved, at least in observing the process. --Kevin Murray 16:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I took a look, & didn't see anything. But your concern leads me to wonder: if some troublemaker managed to significantly rewrite some fundamental policy but almost no one supported the change, would that rewrite matter? Beyond a few literalists who might believe we must "follow the policy -- right or wrong!" -- llywrch 00:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

It appears to me that there is the very real possibility that a very small number can change policies, and then cite them to support what they, in good faith, believe is best for the many. The fact that most editors are interested in article topics and content rather then policies or consensus discussions provides the obscurity to allow what would not pass muster among the many. Watch the deletion discussions, and the policy changes. The same names appear from fewer than 25 wikipedians, making decisions for all who do not enter into those specific discussions. And even when a lone editor confronts them they dispose of the arguments one by one, one after another, day in and day out, month after month. As if representing the objectives of some larger, external agency, as a full time job. - Michael J Swassing 02:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that would be WP:CABAL. WP:ROGUE may or may not also be relevant. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Golly, now I feel silly. Surely various government agencies, and political partisans take no interest whatever in how policies are presented. Corporate public relations departments can be similarly trusted. - Michael J Swassing (talk) 23:04, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Policy thrash

Yes, an otherwise unimportant change to policy does matter, because tools and processes are built on policy. Example:- including or excluding high schools is not really that critical - but a move to exclude them would result in many thousands of hours of work being nullified. Moreover, an undocumented later move to allow them again would absorb a load more effort. This has been happening on MoS to some extent. Rich Farmbrough, 11:55 18 November 2007 (GMT).

Could you link to that discussion? Relata refero (talk) 18:21, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

AfD Close on Sub Article / Main Article

Some content was split off from Manchester Airport to List of destinations served by Manchester Airport Terminal 1 etc. These are now subject to an AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of destinations served by Manchester Airport Terminal 1 (2nd nomination). If this AfD closes as delete does that mean the information can be reintroduced into the main article? Most of the deletes are pure WP:Trivia/WP:NOT calls. One editor thinks the AfD applies to the articles, not the content. I disagree and think it applies to the content not the article. Could I ask for other's opinions? Thanks, Regan123 17:21, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

If it is deleted in AfD, reintroducing the information in the article would not be appropriate. That's just trying to get around the result. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It depends on the particulars of the article in question. In some cases, material that is not notable to stand on its own is valid to be a subsection of an article with larger context (for example, biographical information on the non-notable relatives of a notable person, where such information does come from reliable sources). In other cases, some information has no place at Wikipedia in any form, whether as a stand alone article or as a subsection of another article. I want you to know that I am taking NO stand here over where this specific article fits, however, I do want to empasize that each article and set of facts needs to be adjudged of its own accord, and not based on some grand set of principles that may or may not be applicable to each individual case. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:27, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I agree that you can't just have a golden rule. Thanks for your thoughts. Regan123 21:26, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Why can archival material be edited?

NOTE: THis discussion moved here from Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)

I am puzzled as to why Archival material can be edited. Surely archived material should, by definition, be packed away and not be changed or deleted? This would include archived talk pages, archives of the reference desks and so on. If you wish to reactivate some of this material, you should copy it over to a current active page, link it to the archive it came from and take it from there. And similarly, why does the system allow the history pages of articles to be amended? It is after all an auditable record of what was actually written. I know you can get the history of the history pages, but wouldn’t it be simpler and cut down on data storage to cut out as much of this stuff as possible? Myles325a 23:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The main reasons I've seen are new "archive" navigation templates being invented, users who have changed their usernames updating their signature, and new spelling bots. As for why these pages aren't protected, it would appear to be a waste of admin time to have our sysops protect every archived discussion and then have to respond to requests to people asking for edits to the protected archives, especially when archive edits are so rare and so transparently traceable through the history. I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "why does the system allow the history pages of articles to be amended". Do you mean, "Why can page revisions be deleted by admins?" - BanyanTree 20:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Now I'm the one who doesn't understand. As someone with auditing experience, my understanding of archives are they are historical records, which have had a line ruled under them, and are packed away for future reference, not something which can be amended or "fixed up" later. And I don't get why we would need "sysops [to] protect every archived discussion", seeing as there are already umpteen articles which have been locked, either temporarily or indefinitely. And you don't say anything about my idea of posters copy/pasing material from archives into current pages. Of course, someone researching archived material could look for changes in the history pages, but that is a tiresome task which should not have to slow them down. And really, if the only reason you can give me is that some users change their usernames, then I must confess I consider that to be a trifling matter. In contrast, I would estimate that about 5% of Wikipedia is encyclopedia articles. The rest is all this stuff, and it gets hard to sift thru it all. Letting archives be archives would be a step in the right direction in slowing down and rationalising some of this stuff. BT, you're a great sysop, but I think you should have a chat with an auditor. Editing historical records is what people like Stalin did. Myles325a 03:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. I thought you were looking for an explanation, rather than an excuse to start an argument. Please ignore my response above as I wouldn't have bothered if I had realized your intention. - BanyanTree 04:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Myles325a, are you sure that you are addressing a real problem rather than a theoretical one? Do you have evidence that (1) there are archives being modified in a way that is truly problematic, (2) these problematic changes are not being caught and (3) these problematic changes are happening often enough to warrant the cost of preventing them?

If you are an auditor or have worked with one, surely you know that there is a cost/benefit analysis to preventing or even detecting problems. The edit history on archive files is enough to prove that an archive file has been tampered with and how. Even if an editor goes into an archive file and makes a substantive but illegitimate change, we would be able to detect that if it were important enough to make the effort. Usually, however, archive files are not of any great value except in providing evidence for ARBCOM cases. I would drop this line of inquiry as not likely to be very productive.

--Richard 17:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Archives may be edited, but histories are not. While the currently visible version of any page may or may not be the full story, the history tab shows every single version of every single page including talk pages. You can't make stuff change or disappear by altering an "archive". Even deleted pages aren't really "deleted". Admins and buerocrats have access to them and their histories. This seems a non-issue to me. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:23, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Myles325 replies to BanyanTree, above. Ho hang about a sec, bro, and swap that high horse for a pony. You sound like some high priest giving “explanations” to a young dynamic researcher as to why the status quo is the best of all possible worlds, and getting snippy when he doesn’t just say “Oh, of course, how silly of me, O Divine One, thank you for setting me straight.” Wikipedia is not some medieval conclave of metaphysicians pulling rank on their novitiates, but a dynamic, evolving structure. And, frankly, I don’t mind an argument; you seem to think it an impertinence. I am a novice here, sure, and I was genuinely in search of explanations, but there is an element of the Socratic Question in my approach. I think that there is something irregular in allowing archives to be amended. Are you so sure that that there is nothing in anything that I said? I was, until medical retirement, a Senior Management Consultant in a large organisation, in charge of about $1 billion in capital investment. That involved a lot of careful and intricate analysis of structures. What’s your line of work? You have not substantially answered any of my points, and I would appreciate it if you did not bother to reply to this with more of your snotty “humour”. There are plenty of sysops out there, and the chances are that nearly all of them would have heads made of something of more benefit than the wood of a Banyan Tree.

To Richard. I am a management consultant, and they work with everyone in an organisation, including auditors. But making the most of cost-benefit analysis is not an auditor’s job. In fact, it’s quite the reverse. It is their job to make the system as fraud and fool proof as possible, at whatever expense. Trying to make it profitable is mine. Auditors demand audit trails on every transaction made in any business. The lack of strong transparent audit trails is behind most frauds. I fully realise that your history pages act as a kind of audit trail. I do not see why there needs to be a byte consuming tier on top of the archives, when it serves no real purpose. This might be cruel of me but the problems of a user “Stuffymuffy” who now wants to be known as “Fluffymuffy” would not be top of my priorities. As to whether these archives have much use, I point you to Karl Popper’s notion of World 3, as the cultural world which holds information in libraries etc, which can be retrieved IF and WHEN needed. There are books in such libraries that have not been opened in hundreds of years, some will never be opened. Why not turf them out? Because no one knows when the data held there might be needed for some future purpose not now known. A good example is the daily flight data of the Viking space craft, held on floppy discs in “archives” and thought useless. Until someone noticed that the craft had travelled further than theory predicted. The daily data, which could have been turfed out, formed the basis of one of the most important cosmological theories of the last 30 years. Archives are there as a historical record, like Magna Carta, and the Domesday Book. They are not there to be edited and amended with a footnote to the “original version” elsewhere. No auditor, historian, or indeed any scholar would countenance such an outrage. Apart from opening the door to fraud, it makes it harder for some SERIOUS researcher down the track who is sifting thru an already Byzantine maze of info for what they need. Such researchers would not be best served by having to study copies of newspapers from 1879, which have been emended in 2007 by some wit who has replaced text with “I have a big donger” and a pointer to what the original was. And my overriding concern is with the intelligentsia and the researchers of the future. The Stuffymuffies of the present are not my top priority, and neither should they be yours. Myles325a 05:24, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

This isn't like a newspaper or some historical document. It's not something people can irreparably damage. They can be irritants, sure, but that is a non-issue. Regular users archive pages all the time, and not all archives use the same formatting. To expect admins to track down and semi/full protect every one is unfeasable, as well as completely unnecessary. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:54, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• I never understood this either. Surely it takes more time to keep a constant eye on such pages than perform a one time protection of such pages? The number of people who want to perform truly essential and non-destructive edits on such pages can be counted on a single hand. It might be largely a theoretical issue now, but I'd rather not see it become reality. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

In many companies the backup system works as follows: A complete incremental backup of every harddisk on a central server is made every night, or every weekend. But most people don't know who to ask if they want to restore deleted data, or they know and it's a complicated process. Therefore, and to be on the safe side, they make their own backups.

It's a bit like that on Wikipedia. The history system is like the automatical centralized backup system. Everybody can use it, but it's not very convenient. If a talk page gets too long, one could just delete it, but then nobody would read the old data. That's why we have the manual archiving system. It's like a secretary saving her documents on a floppy disk.

I believe the answer to BanyanTree's question is: Contrary to appearances, archival material can not be deleted by ordinary users. On first sight it looks as if you could change history. But if you use the "Edit this page" button on a history page and save, the result seems to be exactly the same as if you copy the content of the old version, click "Edit this page" on the current version of the page, paste the content in, and save. The audit trail is not affected. Even though the wording on the history editing page suggests otherwise: "You are editing an old revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since then will be removed." In the context of just having browsed history in order to get there this seems to suggest that you can remove everything after a certain date from history. BanyanTree: Is that what you meant? This would really be unreasonable, and it doesn't happen, as I just checked.

But it would be equally unreasonable for a company to put a system in place to make sure that everybody make their personal backups only on CD-ROMs, and that they have to be archived, rather than safely disposed of. Similarly, it wouldn't make much sense to turn the current archiving practices into a second history system. --Hans Adler (talk) 18:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:3RR and WP:EW

Ten days ago, and after a major rewrite, Wikipedia:Edit warring (WP:EW) was upgraded to official policy. A few days ago, a debate about the merits of merging WP:3RR with WP:EW started at Wikipedia_talk:Three-revert_rule#Merge. See also Wikipedia_talk:Edit_war#Demote_to_proposed_until_it_gains_wider_consensus.

Editors' comments are welcome at these discussions. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:56, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:FICT

Recently WP:FICT has been changed and the following section has been added:

"To a limited extent, sub-articles are sometimes born for technical reasons of length or style. Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability, but must rely on the parent article to provide some of this background material (due to said technical reasons).[3] In these situations, the sub-article should be viewed as an extension of the parent article, and judged as if it were still a section of that article. Such sub-articles should clearly identify themselves as fictional elements of the parent work within the lead section, and editors should still strive to provide real-world content."

I see a problem with this as it seems to potentially go against several other established guidelines and policies such as:

WP:NN

"A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject."

WP:WAF

"Articles about fiction, like all Wikipedia articles, should adhere to the real world as their primary frame of reference. The approach is to describe the subject matter from the perspective of the real world, in which the work of fiction and its publication are embedded. It necessitates the use of both primary and secondary information."

WP:V

"If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."

WP:NOT

"Wikipedia articles on published works (such as fictional stories) should cover their real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's development, impact or historical significance, not solely a detailed summary of that work's plot"

Personally I do not feel that the change in WP:FICT was correct - although it may well reflect the current state of Wikipedia - but if there is a consensus for this change it should be consistent accross Wikipedia. Having guidelines and policies that contradict each other will not help people to build and contribute to a high quality encyclopaedia and will hinder the processes that rely on these polcies and guidelines (WP:AFD, WP:FA, etc.)). [[Guest9999 11:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]]

Um, WP:WAF is an manual of style, not a content or notability guideline. WP:WAF doesn't dictate who gets an article, but how you write about that article once you have created it. As for FICT, you pulled a single section, which is meant to incorporate the times when articles become too long and need to be split off. Secondly, the real world content still needs sourcing, which is the only thing the FICT section neglects to mention.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Firstly I acceptt that WP:WAF is a style guideline, however by creating articles on a purely fictional topics with no real world notability it will be impossible to write the article (about fiction) in the way that the guidline on writing about fiction recommends. The fact that such articles exist - and are accepetd - should require a rewrite of WP:WAF to take them into account (if there is an actual consensus for these articles to exist). Secondly, this type of sub article is not mentioned in any of the above guidelines or policies - if these exceptions are allowed then they should be. [[Guest9999 13:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]]

Just to reiterate - may main point was not that the change to WP:FICT was a bad one (although I think it was) but that several other policies and guidelines (both content and style related) must be updated in order to take it into account due to the current contradictions. [[Guest9999 13:24, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]]

• The disputed section complies with all of the above to my eye, since it states Even these articles need real-world information.... How exactly does it not comply with the policies and guidance? I can't see any reason to change long-standing policies at this time. Steve block Talk 13:27, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Guest9999, it says in the section--"editors should still strive to provide real-world content"--it isn't saying you can split off a plot section that is too large, it's talking about sections that require real world information to begin with, just becoming too large for their parent article. Secondly, if every policy and guideline said the exact same thing, we wouldn't have a need for the plural, we'd have just one page that said everything that needed saying.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:29, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

The whole problem of sub-articles is a bit vexed, since for a long time we, on a software level, pushed for 32kb articles. We don't do that anymore, but as a result sub-articles and breaking off articles took root in the culture. For the most part, I tend to think that the aforementioned change to WP:FICT is a poor decision because it spins off bad permastubs of articles, and that most of these minor characters would break off better to list articles. But I tend to think that this is often a good idea - sub-articles based not on topics but used more as figures and illustrations - split off large tables, large lists, etc. Ideally these would go into a separate project called something like WikiData that would exist to hold (sourced) data that is not quite appropriate for WikiSource. In practice, though, this is all a very big change, where as the change to WP:FICT seems to be an acknowledgement of reality and current practice. Phil Sandifer 13:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought we still enforced a 32k limit, for both technical, style and readability issues. Steve block Talk 13:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

But 32 kb isn't the recommended split line any longer, it's like closer to 50kb.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• I think there's also a misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works as well. You write that "The fact that such articles (discussing fiction from an in-universe perspective) exist - and are accepetd". They aren't accepted as finished articles. They aren't approved, their status isn't affirmed, the way they are written is not locked in stone. Such articles do indeed exist, simply because people have created them. However, the goal of Wikipedia is to collaboratively create an encyclopedia, so the goal of Wikipedia is to write in an encyclopedic style. Therefore, part of the Wikipedia process is that we collaboratively edit such articles to better comply. Articles which do not currently comply with those standards should not be taken as evidence that the standards do not apply. They should be taken as evidence of the collaborative nature of Wikipedia. Hope that clarifies. Steve block Talk 13:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• By that standard I do not think that any article is truely "finished" - I don't think that even the best featured articles can be considered perfect and may be improved by contributions from the community. My point is that articles which are to be "treated as a section of another article" - and rely on that article for their claim of notability - do not neccessarily have to show - in themsleves outwith of the "parent article" - any evidence that they will meet the current guidelines for article inclusion. If this is the case should the other policies and guidelines not be updated in order to take this into account? [[Guest9999 13:53, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]]

• • But, the way you are wording it sounds like the guideline is saying it's ok for anything to be split. This isn't the case. The section may need clarification, but it wasn't meant to advocate for those minor characters to be split off on their own. It was meant to advocate for entire sections to be split off on their own. Like, if for some reason a special effects sections becomes overly long, but contains all valid, encyclopedic information, then to save space in the parent article you would split off that section. The new sub-article still needs real world content--I think the guideline says "strive" and that makes it sound like it's ok if you don't have it at all.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
• The wording in the article states that in these articles editors should "should still strive to provide real-world content." - this clearly indicates that said sources whilst clearly highly prefrable are not a neccessity for this type of article. This contradicts with the polcies and guidelines listed and with the general principle that any article should be built around reliable sources. [[Guest9999 14:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]]
  • That's what I just said, and I said "strive" gives a false impression and it should not do that. It shouldn't be there, and I will go remove it.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:31, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
  • You seem to have a different reading of the line Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability to me. That line makes it clear that all articles are expected to "meet the current guidelines for article inclusion." Hope that clarifies. Steve block Talk 14:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• What the sentence actually says is ""Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability, but must rely on the parent article to provide some of this background material" - this basicly says that either the real world content doesn't have to be contained within the (sub)article or it does not have to be directly about the contents of the (sub)article. Both of these go possibilities would go against other polcies and guidelines - [WP:NN]] in particular. [[Guest9999 14:49, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]]

• I don't agree with your reading at all. It reads to me that it has to show notability, although some evidence of its notability may be found in the parent article. Steve block Talk 15:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
• I'm also not sure how it conflicts with WP:NN, which in some part defers to the subject notability guidance pages, and states that articles which do not meet the guidance outlined should perhaps be nominated for the articles for deletion process, where the merits will be debated and deliberated for 5 days. I would suggest there and then you have your answer as to what to do with any articles you feel are affected by the contradiction you seem to be reading into the policies and guidance. I would suggest you not worry about it and trust the wiki process to sort it out. Steve block Talk 15:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

"To a limited extent, sub-articles are sometimes born for technical reasons of length or style. Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability, but must rely on the parent article to provide some of this background material (due to said technical reasons).[3] In these situations, the sub-article should be viewed as an extension of the parent article, and judged as if it were still a section of that article. Such sub-articles should clearly identify themselves as fictional elements of the parent work within the lead section, and editors should still strive to provide real-world content."

• The concept in mind when we discussed that section was that presently, most in-universe fictional articles lacking sources are basically written from a WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS fancruft standpoint (the "other stuff" being most of sub-pages from The Simpsons which actually contain real-world notability information within the sub-articles). The goal is to try to instead of taking a few fictional media and immediately writing a new article for every character, setting, episode, object, and the like, is to try to help editor write articles from the outside-in: start with what is notable about the fictional work, including the reception, criticism, release information, and the like, that can be backed with sources, and then only delve into the plot as much as necessary to gain an appreciation of the work as to be able to understand those prior notable statement. As a result, it may be necessary to go into character details or other fictional elements which can only be provided by the primary source (in-universe), and even rarer still it may be appropriate, per summary style and WP:SIZE to consider making that section, with the acknowledgment that it is primarily in-universe, as standalone, though that editors should continue to strive to obtain notability that can be made for such sub-articles (such as what Characters of Final Fantasy VIII provides). This doesn't mean that by the guidelines people are free to write individual character articles for any old reason, and it puts onus on editors to take this as an absolutely last resort (to the point I suggest that we include a rationale template as one does with non-free images to explain why such an article should exist without out-of-world information). Mind you, there's still more we'd like to add, but between discussions at WP:N on notability guideline merges and WP:WAF on working in tandem with them on additional details. --MASEM 14:39, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
• In this discussion so far a lot has been made of real world information, I think it is importnat to remember that real world information is not the same as "significant coverage by reliable, independant secondary sources" - which is required by WP:NN. The fact there might be a lot of real world information about a topic - say from fansites or the author - does not therefore confer notability (per the primary notability criteria). I think the current section is badly worded in that it is in some ways contradictory and doesn't really explain how these (sub)articles are diffferent from a typical article. [[Guest9999 15:05, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]]
  • Fansites are not typically a reliable source. Anything sourced from them should generally be removed per WP:V. Steve block Talk 15:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
  • True, I know I that when I say "real world information" or "out-of-universe" I'm implying significant coverage by secondary sources. A list of characters supported only by citing who the actors/voice actors with the rest in-universe are is not significant coverage. --MASEM 15:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• I'm sorry to keep bringing up the point but I'm still slightly confused; the crux of my arguement can be summed up in WP:V, which states - "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.". To me it seems that going by the new wording of WP:FICT this will no longer be the case. Am I correct in interpreting the change this way? If so then I think either the changes to WP:FICT should be reverted or altered or changes could be made to other policy and guideline pages. This would be neccessary so that there are potentailly confusing contradictions between polciy pages. If this is not the case then I am sorry to have wasted your time by misunderstanding the rewrite. [[Guest9999 15:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]]

• You're dealing with "ifs buts and maybes". What the guidance and policies are stating is that on occasion sub-articles will be broken out of larger articles per Wikipedia:Summary style. These sub-articles should be built in such a way as to discuss an aspect of the larger article in keeping with WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV, and where applicable the WP:MOS and should be about WP:N|notable aspects. However, in certain circumstances the notability of the aspect may be ascertained more easily by referring back to the main article. I'd be encouraged to hear how you can summarise real world information without finding a third party source, by the way. Steve block Talk 16:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• Maybe you can't summarise real world information without a third party source but you can definately do it without a reliable, independant third party source. I think with fictional aspects it can sometimes be quite difficult to assertain what is a first, second, third party source but it is often easy to see what is an indepenedant source. There are many, many articles on fictional topics entirely sourced by fansites - which are not considered reliable sources and information and interviews with the auther or publisher - which cannot be considered independant. [[Guest9999 17:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]]

• Gald you agree that WP:V isn't invalidated. See below for more on how it all fits. Steve block Talk 11:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

The real problem here is that WP:Notability and Wikipedia:Summary style (and WP:SIZE) are unaware of each others' existence. As a practical matter, we keep articles under 50K or so, and spin out large sections into their own articles. This is good. Then those articles get arbitrarily purged at AfD. This is bad. You are right that there's an unresolved conflict here, but it's in a different area from where you're focusing.--Father Goose 18:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

No, the real problem is that articles have an excessive length due to sections full of non notable info (either in-universe or trivia), and people then decide to split this off into its own article instead of reducing the non notable stuff. It is only logical that such articles get deleted at AfD, and there is nothing arbitrary about it, it is the basic application of WP:NOTE and the fact that we are a tertiary source and need independent reliable secondary sources for all our articles, and that articles should not exist of plot summaries or other in-universe info only (or mainly). Fram 19:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

• Couldnt disagree more, its the overall subject which is notable, there is no such requirement for specific content. If the article needs to be split for convenience, then it should still be judged. The various conflicting WP policies are combined on the basis of reason and common sense. the very point of specific policies is to supplement the main policy, and when they exist, they are the authority for the subject. If wpedians in general think they are out of line, they should get interested in the specific discussion and try to change it. Why else would we have any policies more than a one line listing of each, for free interpretation. DGG (talk) 01:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I originally proposed the wording a little bit ago when WP:FICT was under some heavy fire from a lot of users (and not just your fly-by-night users, but even users like Radiant! had come to the talk page to question if the guideline had actual consensus.

The idea goes back to the whole concept of articles and sub-articles, and if it really matters if it's a separate document or not. We're talking about data here, and it's often an arbitrary definition about what is its own article or not. This is why the additional text specifically asks editors to treat a sub-article without real-world information as if it were a section in the main article (literally). If it is too much, or if that summary is simply not needed, then remove it and redirect the article.

(Sometimes we have a single "list of characters" for more than one book or show, presenting a situation where it would be practical to have a centralized list as a part of "basic info". But that's probably a lesser example. It's also, to a lesser extent, meant to look out for those weird articles like a list of episodes, which provide borderline "real-world" content, but seem to be considered basic information. These two examples are just my own thoughts, so I'm not sure if others would agree to that same thinking, but it is a small part of what I had in mind.)

So what we really have here is the debate about long articles vs short articles vs multi-articles, etc. I do fear the wording being mistaken, and that part of WP:FICT becoming a weak point, which is why I want to create a form of example table like the ones found on WP:CANVAS#Types of canvassing or WP:BADLINKS#Link assessment table, or something to that extent. -- Ned Scott 03:54, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• Look, I think what we're dickering over here is a small subset of articles, for which the ultimate answer is to build a consensus case by case. Otherwise it is all "ifs buts and maybes". Here's how it is all supposed to work. A new editor wants to create an article, so they checks up on our guidance or they don't. If they do, they find out that the best thing to do is to be bold, or they don't and at any rate the article gets created or it doesn't.

• Are you still with me?

• So we have an article. Now, let's assume it doesn't need wikifying or anything else, let's assume it falls into the narrow band of articles we've got to worry about here. Here's the checklist:

• Is it all plot? If so, can it be rescued, merged or should it be prodded or deleted, or shall I do nothing? All based on editors judgement, but all will involve consensus through collaborative nature of Wikipedia. That's WP:NOT out of the way.

• Does it cite sources? If not, tag for clean up or prod or afd or do nothing. All based on editors judgement, but all will involve consensus through collaborative nature of Wikipedia. That's WP:V almost out of the way.

• Are the sources from a third party? If not, should the article exist? Either list for deletion, prod or check notability guidance or do nothing. All based on editors judgement, but all will involve consensus through collaborative nature of Wikipedia. That's WP:V completely out of the way.

• Are the sources from a reliable third party source independent of the topic itself? If not, either prod, afd or check through the specialist notability guidelines, to which WP:N bows or do nothing. All based on editors judgement, but all will involve consensus through collaborative nature of Wikipedia. That's WP:N out of the way.

• Is the article part of a chain of information which describes a smaller aspect of a larger work, and the smaller aspect, whilst discussed in very few sources, yet is still critical to the understanding of the larger work, and of such depth that it can't be merged elsewhere, and it's parent article demonstrates that this article is sufficiently sourced to delineate the crucial aspects of this article? If not, either prod or afd or do nothing. All based on editors judgement, but all will involve consensus through collaborative nature of Wikipedia. That's WP:N(WHATEVER) out of the way.

• How does doing nothing involve consensus? Well, someone else will do something eventually, and then consensus will emerge. So, to answer the question, does the new section invalidate WP:V. Nope, nothing in the new section states that third party sources are not required. Does the new section state that WP:NOT is invalidated. Nope, nowhere does this section state that an article can exist solely of plot. Does the new section invalidate WP:N. Nope, it can't since WP:N openly concedes more specific guidance in specialist areas can apply. Does it invalidate WP:WAF? It doesn't even come into conflict with it; they cover separate ground. Is there a specific article you have in mind here, or is this just a general point? If the latter, I'd advise you once again not to worry. The collaborative nature of Wikipedia will work it out. Steve block Talk 11:09, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
• Ultimately, the question is which policy or guidance is it which determines an article's right to exist. The answer is, funnily enough, usually WP:CONSENSUS, noting that consensus can change. Steve block Talk 11:17, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out that we are not talking about a small sub-set of article, We are talking about tens of thousands if not more. Warcraft all on it's own has had over 50 articles deleted. If the logical progression of what been happening continues eventually all 140 entries in list of warcraft characters would probably have been given there own article. This affects groups of articles about every game, tv show, book. Ridernyc (talk) 05:55, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• Even if sub-article are viewed as an extension of the parent article, the references in the parent article only apply to the sub-article if the references also are in the sub-article. And you know what happens to a sub-article for which there are no reliable source references. -- Jreferee t/c 17:01, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• It's not a matter of sourcing the article, but where we place the real-world information. Lets say we have a section that talks about how different characters of a book came about from a production standpoint, but that information is organized in a way that doesn't blend stylistically with a list of characters (for example, if it's information that's pretty mixed about production, perhaps organized chronologically, rather than by element of the fiction). The article starts to get long, splitting a list of characters off into it's own article could make sense, and it would have real-world information to justify the content. -- Ned Scott (talk) 03:58, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
• I disagree to a certain extent, but not enough to argue over here. I can think of certain articles to which this might not apply, but I don't think it is worth worrying about, just as I do not think there are a large number of articles for which this issue will become problematic; most of the articles which fall into this grey area violate so many other policies and guidance that notability isn't the best stick to beat them with. If we applied WP:V with only a minimum of rigidity, say allowing a month to source information, we could clear a remarkable amount of articles from falling into this grey area. But I have faith that eventually the collaborative nature of Wikipedia will work out how to solve this mess. Most of the issues come from structural flaws; instead of splitting off a list of characters, it would be more encyclopaedic to split off an article discussing characters and concepts introduced within the work. So instead of list of New Bloods split from Bloodlines we have Characters and concepts introduced during the Bloodlines crossover. It may be a clunky title, but WP:SS makes allowances for that, and it demonstrates its claim to notability, its purpose and its parentage within the title. Anyway, that's my tuppence, Steve block Talk 15:31, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

is an anonymous user allowed to have a user page?

At the Dutch wikipedia we had one of our typical discussions about the question whether an anonymous user could have his own user page. It concerns users with a seemingly fixed address. Has the English wikipedia a policy on this subject? Ellywa 15:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It certainly happens, for example User:199.71.174.100 so I suppose it is allowed. This example shows how it can be helpful (on a shared but static IP address) but most people find it mysterious why folks like this don't register. Thincat 15:22, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

That is clear. Some people apparently have their reasons, we cannot understand, as we are so used to our nicknames and additional nice things such as a watchlist. Anyway. Thank you for your quick response. Ellywa 17:33, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

IP editors cannot create new pages on English wikipedia, including user pages. This is one reason that very few IP editors have user pages. We expect long term contributors to register a user name, in any case; editors who don't want to do so have little room to argue about being deprived of benefits because of it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:47, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe that the policy was recently reversed and IP users can once again create pages. Sadly. --Kevin Murray 18:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It was discussed, but in the end it was not put into effect, because the developers didn't see consensus to do it See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Anonymous page creation. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:30, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Great news. I'm so glad to be wrong on this one. --Kevin Murray 18:46, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

FYI, the better term is "unregistered", rather than "anonymous". Registering and then editing only when logged in actually preserves one's anonymity (since only a CU or Steward can see their IP address), unless you choose to provide personal info. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 23:47, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

user pages for IP editors

(undent) Returning to the question at hand - unregistered users could create pages until the policy was changed in December 2005; since then, they've not been able to. Regarding the page User:199.71.174.100, that was created by a registered editor on September 21, 2007; the edit summary says "Create per request from 199.71.174.100". -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:18, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a silly idea to create user pages for IP editors. There's no reason not to get a username, and as a community we need to encourage it. Having a userpage is one of the benefits of having a username. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't remember the IP off-hand, but there's definitely at least one that refuses to get an account for whatever reason, and we should respect that. If the IP is static and can be consistently traced back to the same person or source, I see no reason why they shouldn't get a user page. GlassCobra 14:28, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

User:68.39.174.238. -- Corvus cornix (talk) 17:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

A couple of examples User talk:68.39.174.238 and User talk:218.101.117.208 [[-- Guest9999 (talk) 18:00, 16 November 2007 (UTC)]]

At NL wikipedia we have at least three users who do not want to register. I respect their stanpoint. Ellywa (talk) 09:08, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I regularly edited as an IP for years and have had several successive accounts now only because of peer pressure, as it were. I totally respect anyone who doesn't wish to create an identity here for themselves outside their contrib histories. Relata refero (talk) 18:19, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

No open proxies

I've been doing some research as of late into the status of Tor nodes on Wikipedia. I'll spare you the boring details, but as of right now, there are 1,378 Tor exit nodes in the Tor network. Out of those nodes, we have only blocked 16. That means, essentially, that there are 1,362 ways to anonymously edit Wikipedia.

So, how do we deal with this? I've written a prototype bot that can take all unblocked Tor nodes and block them, but the current no open proxies policy doesn't detail how Tor nodes are to be blocked, only that they should be blocked. I've heard ideas on both sides of the fence. One group of users believes that the nodes should be softblocked, in order to allow legitimate users to edit, but another group points out that softblocking disables the autoblocker, allowing malicious accounts to edit until a CheckUser can be found to get the underlying IP and block them. In this regard, they believe that hardblocking is the best approach.

Any thoughts? If we ever want to see an adminbot created for this purpose (and that's my next project in the future), then we need to clarify how open proxies should be blocked. Shadow1 (talk) 02:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

To paraphrase the famous quote... "block them all, Jimbo will know his own!" Blueboar 04:16, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

That sound like "Cædite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" - Kill them all. Let God sort them out.[4] -- Jreferee t/c 17:05, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

There is no such thing as an underlying IP for a vandal or sockpuppet using proxies - every node is equally available to every vandal and take seconds to change. If there is a need for CheckUser to hardblock one of them then there is a need to hardblock them all. An open proxy CheckUser hardblock is absolutely useless if any others are being softblocked. Incidentally, the current policy does not say that they should be blocked, but that they may be blocked. Due to the abuse we get from Tor nodes in general however, they usually are. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:04, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Title Possible Offense (Five pillars)

(note: I copied this discussion from the FP talk page, as I think it is important and not receiving notice there.) ---- Kevin Murray (talk) 18:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

To Whom it May Concern:

I represent the Islamic Information Center (IIC) on a volunteer basis, and they asked me to contact you (whoever that may be) as to a possible violation upon our principle religion regarding both the Quran and relation to the modern world today. Unfortunately, I didn't see any phone number to contact, so I wrote in discussion - as Jim Wales suggested on C-SPAN for independent organizations to contact Wikipedia. The problem is this articles (or policies) title as a basis of the five pillars of Islam. We don't consider such actions hostile towards the Muslim community, however we do ask it be changed to prevent any possible confusion in Muslims relations with Wikipedia - to something more neutral.

To discuss this further, please contact me at

jarmin@yahoo.com

Thanks,

Josh Armin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.105.111.65 (talk) 00:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

If we went around changing every article that would/might offend Muslims then we would be in direct breach of the second pillar " Wikipedia has a neutral point of view," by submitting to one groups claim to offence not to mention we would lose all sense of accuracy and credibility to wikipedia. Its been argued over and over, especially on articles such as Aisha that wikipedia does not bend or change to Islam. Its about facts and knowledge and I highly doubt and unsigned comment by someone claiming to be from the IIC (even though you list a yahoo email address NOT an IIC one) is going to do anything constructive. Thats my two cents --Curuxz 10:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• In away I agree with Curuxc and we must be cautious about pandering to social pressures and special interest groups. However, I see legitimate concern in this case. Was it random chance that we named this policy the Five Pillars, or were we emulating Islam? I see no offense intended, rather I see a potential compliment. But if offense is being taken, why not modify our title. We are a young enough project that we can easily adapt. ---- Kevin Murray (talk) 18:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• Islam lays no unique claim to the number five, or the idea of pillars supporting something. Their combination is rather natural, and the similarity a coincidence. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:55, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• I can't agree. There is no special meaning to "ten", nor to "commandments" but the combination has a very specific meaning. ---- Kevin Murray (talk) 21:32, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• "Commandment" doesn't have a strong definition outside of "The Ten Commandments" or general orders; "pillar" has a more literal definition, which is what the symbolic meaning is derived from. See Five Pillars, Four Pillars, and Three Pillars. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:46, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• Good examples! Thanks. I'd like to find out more about the depth of concern. Perhaps someone should write to IIC, to see whether there is broad based concern. ---- Kevin Murray (talk) 21:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• I think a more interesting question is whether this page is needed at all. All our policies are important. SashaCall 21:38, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree. It's usually more usable and scalable to decide things based on general principles, rather than expecting people to memorize 27 different policy pages whose content may or may not be accurate at any given time. The principles and some intelligence are all you need; the details can be worked out as needed. Friday (talk) 21:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• The relevant question is whether we would change if it was the Ten Commandments of Wikipedia, and someone objected. I leave people to contemplate that. I'd also say that if it is the case that some people are being offended, we could perhaps leave it out of the welcome template, because that at least should be as anodyne as possible. Relata refero (talk) 18:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Internet pharmacy may be copying user pages and representing them as members

I’m fully aware that posts on Wikipedia go into the public domain. Nevertheless, I’ve just discovered that http://www.prescriptiondrug-info.com, a site I have never visited before finding my information there in a Google search for another purpose, has taken my user page, in its entirety, and represents me as a member of their site. If it’s happened to me, it has probably happened to others, especially people that have posted on pharmacology. Is there any policy on the large-scale use of Wiki userpages?

http://www.prescriptiondrug-info.com/drug_information_online.asp?title=User:Hcberkowitz

Thanks

Howard (user hcberkowitz)

• Userpages are necessarily licensed under the GFDL. So they can be reprinted. Best is to add to the page if it bugs you. WilyD 19:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Just FYI they have rather indiscriminately ported all articles and userpages from wikipedia. Here I am. —Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 19:46, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

At the bottom of every page on the pharmacy's website it states "This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License)". So they are abiding by all terms.
It annoys me because it messes up wiki mark up, but it is perfectly legal. However, enabling copying is one of the most prominent features of GFDL, and while it has some disadvantages, the free nature of Wikipedia is one of my primary motives for contributing. Puchiko (Talk-email) 20:11, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh I know GFDL, and I noticed the disclaimer; it's just rather strange, that's all. I wonder what their motivation is. —Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 20:37, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Laziness. It's easier to copy everything than parse the database dump. WilyD 20:44, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, I hope they like my list of insults.[5] :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:51, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm on there, weird. Maybe I should make a subpage on why their website sucks. SashaCall 21:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• Let's be clear about one thing. The GFDL is NOT Public domain. There are similarities, but the two are quite different. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:47, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• The site is a known live mirror, i.e. it mirrors anything and everything on Wikipedia, fetching the current version of each page when it is requested. It even "mirrors" special pages, such as Recent Changes. -- AJR | Talk 22:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Science fiction groups I can sense might be immune to WP:RS

I get the sense that becaouse there are a lot of scifi fans amongst wikipedia admin/editors, even if they have no WP:RS they will be let off if it comes to a deletion debate and lack of notability to those who are not into it. I sense this because of the number of these groups who have an article, even with no WP:RS. If so, this should change, it's hardly NPOV of wikipedia as a whole to make special lack-of-rules for these groups. Merkinsmum 19:32, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

If you see an article that doesn't appear to meet notability standards, feel free to nominate it for deletion. You can also tag articles with no reliable sources for cleanup. There is no all-seeing guru on Wikipedia to review every article, so it's up to the user community to enforce the standards. -- Karanacs (talk) 20:09, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes I know but I suspect there is a different rule for these type of articles, as so many of them have been here long-term and been allowed to stay.:) I may ask your opinion about one on your talk page.-- Merkinsmum (talk) 20:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I've seen groups of article before that I wondered why they were still here, and I've usually concluded that they were of such narrow focus that no one had really noticed them before. I don't know if that's the case here, but it's a possibility. No one such be immune to the RS policy though. -- Karanacs (talk) 21:29, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Is there a policy issue here? Because I'm not seeing it. Maybe if you provided some specific examples, this would be a more productive discussion. --- Chunky Rice (talk) 21:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Spoo. Surviving two AfDs. --MASEM 22:02, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Offhand, that article seems fine to me. I'm not seeing the problem. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 22:07, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Look through the sources - the bulk of the sources that attempt to cite the notability of Spoo are Usenet or other forum posts or from other primary sources (B5's Lurker Guide). There are no reliable secondary sources for that article (particularly of it's primary description as a term in the B5 mythos) --MASEM 22:23, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I think that the reason the article may have survived however is not so much because it is science fiction related but that it is related to a fairly active project. If one really wanted to help remove such articles, the best way might be to try to encourage the growth of broader projects which could eventually surplant these smaller scope projects. But I myself have seen the "History of As the World Turns" articles, currently in six articles, beginning with History of As the World Turns (1956-1959), which are soap-opera, not science-fiction, related, and I personally wonder whether they have even as much notability. -- John Carter (talk) 22:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, but this doesn't really strike me as a policy issue. It sounds more like a content dispute. And I think that Spoo has gotten by on its status as a Featured Article more than because it's science fiction based. -Chunky Rice (talk) 22:58, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

It's not so much a content dispute because I meant is this what's happening in general, rather than on one particular article. There is a big which seems a bit lengthy for them all to be notable for an encyclopedia. I'm not arguing for the category's deletion or anything, I came here to ask if having so many articles about these orgs is a matter of precedent/unwritten license, I can't think offhand but I know some types of articles are always kept at AfD.Merkinsmum (talk) 01:58, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, they've discovered the Wikipedia Science Fiction Cabal! Anomie⚔ 02:26, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

ROFL! Maybe I just need to prod some of these- but not too many at once because I'm already being threatened with being reported for harrassment, for questioning the notability of one of the groups.:)Merkinsmum (talk) 13:36, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• People simply have different interpretations on what constitutes a reliable source, some or too permitting, some are too stringent. Regardless, an issue with just a few sources, is hardly a reason to delete an entire article. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:44, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

• I agree absolutely with Merkinsmum that Wikipedia has a problem with admin-sanctioned fancruft. Spoo, whilst being especially egregious, may only be the tip of the iceberg. It's been said that someday, when all the *other* fancruft has been terminated, they will relent, but frankly I don't see it happening. In the meantime, our coverage of fiction becomes ever more slanted.--Nydas^(Talk) 11:18, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I think many people with some history in SFF believe that usenet posts attributable to significant individuals count as reliable sources for articles strictly deealing with that subculture. I personally, as someone who remembers that moderated usenet groups did have considerable status at one point, believe that this is a reasonable expectation. Relata refero (talk) 18:13, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

What about WP:N? I don't think that Usenet posts by the creator of an object can be considered independent sources as evidence of notability. Out of all the references, the only one which seems to possibly make the cut is the Dining on Babylon 5 book. But as the Amazon review by the author makes clear [6] the book idea and topic came from WB licensing, so it's not really an independent source either. (and the references to other uses of the word "spoo" in Beetle Bailey, etc., don't concern the main topic of the article). It does really look like Sci-Fi articles get a pass by WP. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 20:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• An article doesn't have to meet WP:N to be notable. An article has to be thought of as notable by a consensus of Wikipedians using WP:N as a guide. Spoo gets by because the current consensus of Wikipedians is that including the article improves the encyclopedia. If you don't think it does, this is the wrong arena for debate. Steve block Talk 21:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Patrolled new pages

As you may or may not have noticed, a change has been made to Special:Newpages to enable patrolled edits there. This allows users to mark a newpage as reviewed. See full details here. However, for unknown reasons, it has been set so that only admins can patrol pages. I would request input on the poll on the talk page as to who should be given the ability to patrol, so that the developers can be assured they are implementing community consensus. Mr.Z-man 01:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Overuse of "retrieved on" in citations?

Hi all. Is it just me or is anyone else annoyed by the "retrieved on" dates some editors keep adding to their citations. More specifically, I know there's a reason we have that option in the cite templates, because something on the web can change at any time. But I see that more for use with, say, an organization's web page as a primary source. On the other hand, if the article being cited is a newspaper or journal that's published in a serialized format, and it's available on paper, who cares what day the editor read it on? Squidfryerchef (talk) 05:15, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

An organization might change its web site so the old information has moved or is no longer there. The date can help find the original info, and sometimes helps find the new location. (SEWilco (talk) 05:37, 17 November 2007 (UTC))

Even newspapers that have a print edition have been known to edit their web version of articles post publication. Dsmdgold (talk) 11:36, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Many news org websites such as BBC News and CNN update their pages regularly to fix errors or review an already covered story for instance original page with headline - current page with headline. Also there are hundreds of thousands of broken links in article references, the cite date helps up replace these with copies from the wayback machine and other archive stores.

I agree that the usage of 'retrieved on' is not relevant for journals and print media, as the issue number or publishing date is more important, but if the citation includes a link to a web edition of the source then we would still like to know which web version you were looking at to get the info. 86.21.74.40 (talk) 14:01, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

However, I'm pretty sure news sites with articles that expire also prevent sites like archive.org from archiving... I've tried to find archive.org copies of stories purged from news sites and archive.org says archiving wasn't allowed. --W.marsh 14:08, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The retrieve date is still useful - assuming good faith and all, I can reconcile that the original article may be gone forever, or may be behind a pay window, but that the difference between the article publication date and the retrieve date is certainly within that window and thus likely a good source.--MASEM 14:23, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I am slightly annoyed by the wikilinking of the retrieved date though. Seems weird to wikilink that, as the date retrieved hold little relevance for the article. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 14:35, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

It allows for the date to be rendered per user preferences (see here). --MASEM 14:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I have to admit, I'm a little dim in setting my preferences, but I changed nothing so this is default behaviour for the template. It seems to go against the MOS, that says: Wikipedia has articles on days of the year, years, decades, centuries and millennia. Link to one of these pages only if it is likely to deepen readers' understanding of a topic. I don't think it will deepen the readers understanding of how I retrieved a link, or the articles subject. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 14:50, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The wikilinking is done automatically via the various citation templates - you enter the raw date into the template and the template does the rest. Wikilinking it seems to be the only way to achieve the date conversion even if it goes against MOS. --MASEM 14:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The very section you are quoting from MOS:DATE starts with the preference issue and supports it: "Full dates, and days and months, are normally autoformatted...This instructs the MediaWiki software to format the item according to the date preferences...". The language concerning "days of the year, years, decades, centuries and millennia", in the same section of that page, does not concern full dates: "days of the year"= [[January 1]]; "years"= [[1968]], [[1974]] etc.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:17, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Some more points: For wire services that update stories continuously, wouldn't it be more appropriate to cite the time of their update rather than the time we looked at it? For the case where a media organization moves its WWW archives, wouldn't it be more useful to have the date and page number so we can look it up in their archive search? Also, if we do need to look up a dead URL with no date in the Internet Archive, is it that much of a bother to look through the few times it might have been updated? ( And if the "retrieved on" date is for our benefit, isn't the edit history enough? ) Finally, I've only seen "retrieved on" used with things that are on the WWW for free. I never see people put "retrieved from paid-journal-subscription-service" in their articles; is there any reason why we only datestamp free URLs? Squidfryerchef (talk) 17:12, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

According to the rules of academic citation, it's needed for everything. I agree that this can look a little excessive. Unfortunately, i think we're stuck with it. If there's a source where time of day matters, yes the time should go in also as well as the date. And yes, for any media organization, the actual internal page number and other citation information for the formal edition is necessary.

In most cases it adds clutter to the reference list, and I'm often tempted to delete it. When we read a journal article, we're supposed to cite the journal article with ISSN, issue date or volume, and page number. The link is just there for convenience. For wire service stories we'd use their timestamp as part of the date. The only time this "downloaded on" business is necessary is for a web site that's only a web site and doesn't publish in a serialized format. Squidfryerchef (talk) 22:07, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (U.S. schools)

We are currently having a discussion on this proposed naming conventions guideline for United States schools at WT:NC(USS) to see where consensus and problems are, please feel free to participate. Camaron1 | Chris 18:13, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

How obvious is OBVIOUS?

WP:OBVIOUS: "State facts which may be obvious to you, but are not necessarily obvious to the reader."

Based on this I started doing a bit of wikignoming by adding USA after Virginia to articles in Category:Registered Historic Places in Virginia (for instance this edit). I've done some 30 articles and have had a query about whether it is necessary. Now doing this seems to me to perfectly fit the example in WP:OBVIOUS and I do wonder if the average reader in, say India, knows where Virginia is. But I don't want to cause conflict, so before continuing I'm asking here for some more opinions. Thanks, Smalljim (talk) 11:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

On a tangent don't use [[USA]] use either [[United States|US]] or [[United States|U.S.]] depending on the result of the "dotting" discussion at WP:MoS or use United States. Rich Farmbrough, 13:03 18 November 2007 (GMT).

Noted, but I don't understand your objection to [[USA]]. It's short, commonly understood, and redirects to exactly the right place. --Smalljim (talk) 22:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

That seems like a very sensible bit of wikignoming. Context and clarity are important. Adrian M. H. 21:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Please don't do that. If someone is looking up "Berry Hill Plantation" they're going to know which country it's in. I'd ask the same for people editing articles local to India. The state name should be enough. Squidfryerchef (talk) 22:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that argument stands up. Many readers will not be looking up an article directly. What if our reader was researching agriculture, and came across the article from Category:Plantations? --Smalljim (talk) 22:51, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use illustrations of living people

While I am fairly sure there was some guideline on this specific point, I currently can't find it. However I also think it is over broad to de-illustrate articles on living people on the basis that, in theory, a wikipaparazzi could be out there photographing them. I would request two things:

1. More eyes on Wikipedia:Non-free content to review what if anything we should say about living people
2. Some thought to whether there should be a place where User:R. Baley/Acquire a free image could move which would also link to Wikipedia:Requested pictures/People.

Rich Farmbrough, 13:15 18 November 2007 (GMT).

I don't think you will get anywhere with that as I have seen articles on dead people de-illustrated on the basis that, in theory, a wiki user could be out there who would offer up a photograph. Garda40 (talk) 14:50, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

You seem not to be aware of the March 2007 Licensing policy resolution of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia foundation. Quote:

...may not allow material where we can reasonably expect someone to upload a freely licensed file for the same purpose, such as is the case for almost all portraits of living notable individuals.

Regards, High on a tree (talk) 23:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Merging RS and V

Plans are afoot to merge Wikipedia:Reliable sources back into Wikipedia:Verifiability. Relevant discussion here and in surrounding threads. Also see WT:V. About seven people have commented and it's 7-0 in favour. The basics:

• The content of RS generally sucks and has since it began; it's unstable and hasn't ever produced canonical, lasting language. Even the people who edit it heavily agree on that. At present, the page has little useful content that isn't redundant with V. What is of use is being shuffled out.
• Why on V? Because you can't define verifiability without defining reliable sources. What is verifiability but the state of being confirmed by reliable sources? as one editor put it. So why not have it in both places? The descriptions will be either a) redundant, which is pointless, or b) divergent, which is dangerous as it can create differing policy interpretations. There was divergence as of this morning: compare "If all the sources for a given statement or topic are of low reliability, the material may not be suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia" (RS) to the much more emphatic and memorable "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it" (V).
• RS was not started because of prompting from Jimbo or OFFICE but dumped in place as a kind of rambling essay. It's never been official policy.
• Is this Wikipedia:Attribution redux? Are we next going to merge in NOR? No. This is a separate issue. We've arrived organically at the point where there is no use to the page. The concept of reliable sources is, of course, here to stay; a rich description of it will remain on V. Marskell (talk) 14:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

This seems well-thought out, and I see WP:RS has already been somewhat depopulated. As a suggestion to ease the transition, may I say that it would be convenient if someone set up a subpage which took what RS looked like a few months ago and indicated to which policy/guideline everything has been shifted and what has been deleted, to assist people in updating their mental bookmarks. Relata refero (talk) 18:09, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I gather the intent is to leave the detailed content of RS nowhere. If there are problems about getting agreed language on a guideline page, it will be even worse on a policy page. As mentioned, ATT was rejected. 19:47, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

DGG, I think you may be mistaken here: it seems to be claimed on the talkpage that most of the content has been moved elsewhere. In any case, it would be nice to have things absolutely clear as to what is moved, and what is no longer valid. Relata refero (talk) 21:18, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Image fair use policy

How can I tell if an image I find online qualifies as "fair use" or not?--Miss Pussy Galore (talk) 18:37, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Does it meet all ten points of the non-free content criteria? Pay particular attention to #1: if it is possible to find or create a free-licensed replacement, then the non-free image does not meet Wikipedia's requirements. --Carnildo (talk) 21:45, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Radio and TV station notability

It recently came to my attention that TV and radio stations are exempt from the notability guideline that most other companies must satisfy. That is:

is notable if it has been the subject of coverage in secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, and independent of the subject. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability.

Radio and TV stations however apparantly only need to be licensed by the FCC or equivalent in other countries. However, the FCC requires TV and radio stations to have a license. "Fines and/or criminal prosecution may result from illegal operation of an unlicensed station." The content of many of these articles fails the main verifiability policy as the only sources they have are the FCC database and other such listings, which do little more than prove the existence and address of the station, a far cry from the substantial coverage required of every other company and the reliable sources guideline. What I saw from my attempt to nominate 2 stations for deletion (WRNY (AM) and WRRC (FM)) was completely shocking. First, someone removed the AFD tag from the article, saying that the radio project must be consulted before such nominations. Reasons for keeping the articles were absolutely ludicrous, saying that if we delete minor radio stations such as those, that we would have to delete every radio and TV station, including the BBC World Service. Since when are radio stations so special that they are exempt from the notability guideline and the verifiability policy? Mr.Z-man 18:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

• ON the face of it, this looks wrong and an end-run round notability and verifiability policies. It also raises a systemic bias question; do non-American radio stations, without the free pass of the FCC, have to pass policy? This does need to be looked at. ELIMINATORJR 19:04, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Beeing licensed by FCC is for me not a sign of notabillity. otherwise someone need to go through http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?state=&call=&arn=&city=&freq=530&fre2=1700&type=0&facid=&class=&list=1&dist=&dlat2=&mlat2=&slat2=&NS=N&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&EW=W&size=9 and add all missing stations :) _→AzaToth 19:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I must say I'm puzzled by the AFD results. I find the argument that a radio station is notable simply because it is licensed utterly unconvincing. A license is simply an instrument all stations must have to operate, and doesn't imply any kind of notability. I have to join Mr.Z-man in asking why WP:N and WP:V shouldn't apply to radio stations? henrik•talk 19:08, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

This [7] is also somewhat illuminating. ELIMINATORJR 19:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I took the keeps into account, but I hadn't though that having a FCC license wasn't a valid reference. I had trusted user opinion, especially some admins which had taken part, and some other pointers like "it's notable" and "Wikipedia should cover all radio stations". However, I would take concern with the latter, as it is not the right to have an article on a radio station that isn't verifiable through independent and reliable sourcing. In retrospect, would it be right of me to conclude that users may have just "piled on"? Rudget.talk 21:20, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

And just saying "its notable" doesn't make it so. Mr.Z-man 21:28, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I would say the articles deserve a full discussion, either at deletion review or by reopening the AFDs, especially since the posting at the WP:WPRS was such a flagrant case of WP:CANVASS. henrik•talk 22:34, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Broadcast stations are inherently notable, and are part or a region's infrastructure just like highways, railroads, dams, etc. The language about being licensed is so we don't have people adding articles for every public access, closed-circuit cable station. I don't think that guideline was ever meant to be US-specific; broadcast stations in almost every country need to hold a license. It's just that most of the editors are in the US, and our FCC makes the license data accessible online. Squidfryerchef (talk) 21:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

And fictional characters are inherently notable, and are part of a culture's infrastructure just like songs, plays, television shows, etc. That's phenomenally bad reasoning, and I thought we'd been through this before with schools. Nothing is "inherently" notable, from the stars that shine upon us to the dust between our toes. Steve block Talk 22:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Fictional characters aren't inherently notable and certainly aren't part of any infrastructure. Some things are inherently notable here on Wikipedia, cities being one example. Squidfryerchef (talk) 22:11, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

And inherently notable, even if it were true (is there a consensus somewhere for this, where is this all written down?), does not override WP:V. Every named, official street is a part of regional infrastructure too, but we only have articles about significant ones, not all of them. How is an article about a public access cable station any less notable than a college radio station with a coverage area of about 10 square miles? How is a radio station a public good like highways and dams? Why should they not should be treated like companies? A newspaper can serve about the same purpose, are they inherently notable? The argument: license = notable is completely contrary to the idea of notability on Wikipedia. Mr.Z-man 22:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The "inherently notable" idea came from some policy about place names. I think the standard was, if something was a Census-designated place name, it was deemed notable. Thousands of articles were robot-created from Census data, and there's remnants of this in many articles about small towns. There's also an element of practicality needed here, versus deducing from first principles: In a metro area, there can only be a dozen or so broadcast TV stations and maybe a couple dozen radio stations (including college stations). The same can not be said for every public-access feed. And while stations change hands from time to time, they tend to stay in operation for decades. This means a limited number of articles about stations. They are treated as part of the public good, for instance they are required to carry certain hours of news and educatonal programming, and they participate in emergency broadcast drills. I'd also like to point out that radio and TV stations are mentioned every week in a reliable secondary source; the newspaper listings and TV Guide. Squidfryerchef (talk) 22:42, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I endore EliminatorJRs comments. I complied with all guidelines regarding non-admin closures. Rudget.talk 22:59, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

According to Nielsen, the average Full Power or Class-A TV station in the U.S. broadcasts to a potential audience of more than a half a million homes (not viewers, households).[8] With the exception of one TV station in Glendive, Montana, FP and CA TV stations in the U.S. enjoy wide coverage (larger circulations than comparable newspapers). I can't speak for stations in other countries, but stations with audiences estimated at, on average, more than half a million homes are kinda inherently notable. I don't see why this fact needs to be included in each article, though: the policy is there to discourage non-notable subjects from being added to Wikipedia, not cause good-faith editors to spend extra time trying to "prove" the notability of something that is already very obvious to them, and something they think other editors should already be aware of, given the predominance of television in U.S. media. Firsfron of Ronchester 23:21, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is saying that a TV station with an audience of 500,000 is non- notable. However, radio stations with much, much, smaller audiences may well be. ELIMINATORJR 23:27, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

If we are to even consider changing the notability for radio and TV stations then one could find that WABC, KDKA (the US's first broadcast station) or even BBC Radio fails notability. By the same token, it could be said that WRGB (the first broadcast television station) or even NBC fails notability.

If the "small" and "non-notable" stations were removed, where would it stop? Would we find reasons to eliminate all TV and Radio stations articles? Even all TV and Radio network articles? If one is removed, that would open up a can of worms that would make WP:WPRS, WP:TVS, and several other WikiProjects completely irrelavant, we would lose thousands of hours of tireless work by many, many editors, and set a precedent that if it is small and even remotely "non-notable" then it shouldn't be here, which would put the entire project, Wikipedia itself, in jeopardy.

Changing a notability standard isn't something that should be done on a whim and without thinking...or at all. These are rules that were set up long ago, have been here long before we showed up, and continue to be enforced. If the Wikipedians who started this project thought that radio and TV stations were not notable, they would never have allowed WP:WPRS and WP:TVS to be.

Mr.Z-man, this and this should be clear enough that even thinking about changing the notability standard is a really, really bad idea. - NeutralHomer ^T:C 23:33, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

That is a very silly argument. Just because one or two minor radio stations would be deleted, why exactly do you think someone would go "zOMG! we must now delete BBC Radio"? We delete biographies all day long, that doesn't mean the articles on Winston Churchill or Michelangelo are going to be gone tomorrow. Radio- and TV-stations are mostly notable, but they're not inherently notable, and not all are notable. henrik•talk 23:49, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

All I see in those AfDs are lots of "Keep" votes with no rationale other than the station has got an FCC license, closed by a well-meaning non-admin who didn't realise that this isn't actually a notability guideline. (Note that I am not actually commenting on the notability or otherwise of those stations, merely that I am somewhat perturbed that those AfDs appeared to ride roughshod over our notability and verifiability policies). And User:henrik is exactly right in his comment above.ELIMINATORJR 23:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

If one can argue that WRNY is not notable, I can argue that BBC Radio is not notable. Yeah, sure it's a world-wide radio network, but same with Voice of America. Do we need a massive article on each, no, hence it should be deleted. Not a perfect arguement, but neither is the one User:Mr.Z-man has given above either.

If the notability standard is changed, it will lead to a slippery slope for all radio and TV station articles, all radio and TV network articles and all radio and TV program articles at risk to deletion. Then the precedent set here will go to other WikiProjects...and then you have just eliminated Wikipedia. You open Pandora's Box, you ain't getting Pandora back in. - NeutralHomer ^T:C 00:02, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you seriously claiming that non-notable radio stations should be kept, because then we'd have to delete every radio station article? The only factors in play here are notability and verifiability, just as they are with every single other article on Wikipedia. Notable and verifiable articles stay; those that aren't should be deleted. No category of article is exempt from that. ELIMINATORJR 00:14, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

(e/c)Oh please, how on earth can you compare BBC Radio with worldwide coverage with some little college station with 10 square miles of coverage? I find it extremely hard to believe that there is no significant coverage in sources to establish notability for the BBC. That argument is absolutely ridiculous. My argument is that radio stations are no different from any other type of media or company, why do they need special rules? Where were these rules made up? Where is the wide consensus that would be needed to override the main notability criteria and WP:V? Mr.Z-man 00:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

The fact that we cannot, in advance, lay down a bright line rule about which items in some category are notable, and which are not, is not a real problem in practice. We don't have similar rules for many, many types of things. The "slippery slope" argument, also known as "OTHERSTUFFEXISTS/DOESNTEXIST", is not considered valid at AFD. Each is judged on its own merits, and whilst there may be some difficult choices at the borderline, in practical terms there is usually fairly clear consensus as you move away from it. Our solution is the one described - we set general principles, and allow the community to decide where different radio/TV stations fall within them. That's fine, and works. Some get deleted. Some get kept. WP:NOT is clear that we do not include all items indiscriminately, even if sources may exist. Perhaps some rules may apply that we will agree is a good indication a radio/TV station is notable, which might help, but often no such rule exists and it'll be down to sources, impressions and editor's views at AFD. In this context, FCC is "evidence" not "proof", and may be considered for some stations, insufficient evidence to compensate for smallness. In practice, it works. Wikipedia is non-deterministic that way, and both allows and is robust against inconsistency in its editorial AFD choices. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Thought 2: I dont have a problem with discussing the concept "are all licenced radio stations notable" (or some large part of them excluding tiny ones). It principle we can make that decision on any subject - population settlements, rivers, countries, for example. But I'd want it decided by the community, not just asserted... and that decision would need to look at examples of what might be included under it. If it includes some tiny hospital radio thing, then my personal opinion is, no... because as a sample item I wouldn't think all hospital radios are automatically notable, licensed or not. But that'd be my own opinion..... others might disagree. But if the category was narrowed to something like: "Permanent, established, and legally operated radio stations that serve the general population of a significant geographical area" (as opposed to some campus, or other organization, a tiny settlement's radio, or a specialist function not of general interest), then I'd be more inclined to consider it. Thoughts? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 00:41, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think low-power FM stations are notable. They serve maybe 3 miles from their transmitter, if that. Some don't even cover their community of license. These are not notable. But when a station covers their community of license (in WRNY's case, Rome, NY...which isn't college based) then it is notable. When a station covers a 75 miles radius, it is more than notable. I think we need to have a major consensus before changing anything. But if the box is open, any station or network is at risk. - NeutralHomer ^T:C 00:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Not if they meet the WP:N guideline that every other comapny and media outlet has to meet. Mr.Z-man 00:56, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Nothing is being changed - no one has ever produced a policy that an FCC-licensed station is inherently notable (at least not to me) - it's just a guideline that's been followed, whether it's within the realm of policy or not. JPG-GR (talk) 00:55, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I share several of NH's concerns. A 45-year old, well-established radio station which began operations during radio's "golden age" was nominated for deletion. People aren't thinking these nominations through. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:58, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Its a college radio station, with a broadcast area of ~10sq mi. I stand by my statement that if it so special that there should be substantial coverage in reliable sources. Things don't become notable automatically after reaching a certain age, they still need sources. Mr.Z-man 01:34, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

No, it not a radio station with a broadcast area of ~10 square miles. It is a radio station with a radius of ~10 miles: huge difference. Its coverage is around 350 quare miles, with a potential audience of around 313,000 persons,[9] as already linked in the article. Clearly, you made a mistake somewhere. Firsfron of Ronchester 01:42, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

There is no "pandoras box" here, Homer. AFd and Wikipedia don't work that way. Since you can't readily argue from precedent at AFD (some very strong precedents and principles excepting), the "pandoras box" effect doesn't happen, and has singularly failed to happen on thousands of subjects to date. (It fails to happen roughly at the point someone tries to say "We have to keep/delete X because we have/don't have Y" and the AFD closer strikes that out saying "OTHERSTUFFEXISTS/DOESNTEXIST" is not valid here.) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Administrator Re-confirmation en masse

Before you jump all over my humble suggestion, let me assure you I'm no crank and am saying this with the best interests of Wikipedia in mind. However, the spate of wheel-warring, direct overruling of James Wales by that one admin, admins with mental disturbances ..., and blatant admin vandalism and deletion sprees in the last year really have cast disrepute on the current corpus of sysops and stewards.

Therefore I propose that on Christmas Day 2007 (25 December), ALL admins and stewards have their access removed and are immediately put up again for re-nomination and discussion. That way the 'bad apples' can be easily removed without incident whilst the bulk of decent admins and stewards will be re-confirmed, likewise uneventfully. I hope this proposal helps. Thanks, BradTimlin (talk) 00:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I hope you're prepared to hear the myriad reasons why that idea is beyond foolish. Aside from the massive problems removing all access would cause, renomming would take too long and what can only be described as a train full of crap will rush onto Wikipedia like the plague in the meantime. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:02, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

There are 1400 administrators on the English Wikipedia. The time cost alone of "reconfirmation" proceedings would make this an impossible exercise. With respect to stewards, they are elected on Meta-wiki, not on English Wikipedia, and I believe that most of them are being put up for reconfirmation in December. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:08, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Clearly you have some examples in mind - a spate of wheel wars that the community has not addressed, or 'blatent bad adminship' causing admin vandalism and deletion sprees likewise needing exceptional handling? The thing is, as with articles, admins are given trust to use admin tools, and this is removed or cautioned if they later fail to use them well. So what I'd need to see is evidence that there are significant cases where 1/ this stuff has gone on, but 2/ the specific individuals responsible have not been censured by the community, and 3/ it happens often enough with enough (hundreds of?) current admins are implicated, that we're better off renominating all 1400 or so admins, rather than dealing with these cases as/when they arise. I'd need to see significant advantage or need, in the cost-benefit scale. I don't see the relevance of "stewards", since non-admin stewards will not be "wheel warring" or doing "blatent" admin disruption as asserted -- they can't. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is such a horrible idea for admins (not stewards though, they have been multiply-vetted already), but removing the bit on all admins at once would leave the project in a tight spot. I think that an organized and gradual reconfirmation of admins in groups, perhaps after one year of service, might not be a bad idea. I don't think removing their bit beforehand would be necessary either. - Crockspot (talk) 01:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

If you want to punish admins for having the guts to make tough decisions, this is one way to do it. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

There aren't enough admins to handle the load. Admins are getting burned out, that's a bigger problem than the admins who leave messes and create embarassing drama.Professor marginalia (talk) 01:40, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I have blocked this user following discussion, as a disruption-only account, see User talk:BradTimlin. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Good move. A look at his contribs shows charming edits such as this. Raymond Arritt (talk) 01:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)