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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Ownership of (content), "Page squatters"

I'd like to add an example quote to WP:OWN, please take a look at my Talk topic on the page. TIA. &mdash; David Spalding ta!k y@wp/Contribs 22:53, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Afd's-Tfd's-Cfd's

I've recently engaged in a couple of template-for-deletion and category-for-deletion exercises. I won't go into what they were, but on both occasions, the subjects clearly did not meet WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV policy in any way. This was shown to be the case by more experienced users in the debate. However, enough of what I would describe as tendentious or misguided users were in support of these templates and categories to kick up a cloud of sand. It would seem to me that the closing admins took one look at the handful of keep votes, judged the subjects "no consensus" and these were kept. My questions are, how seriously does a closing admin take policy when considering votes for deletion compared simply to counting votes? And why would a "no consensus" automatically mean keep? Wouldn't it be wise to consider a "no consensus" to mean delete, particularly in the case of controversial templates that will likely inflame disputes?

Another way of putting this is, if enough goons voted to keep a category called, say, "People who smell", would that lead to a keep on the basis of "no consensus"? --Zleitzen 17:09, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Ideally the closing admin is supposed to look at the arguments presented rather than the simple Keep vs Delete counts. If you don't like the final decision you could ask the closing admin why they made the decision they made, they might answer your question. As for why a "no consensus" in a XFD would result in a keep, the idea is to make it difficult to actually delete things from Wikipedia. If it weren't difficult than encyclopedic topics that were controversial would suddenly find themselves up for XFD and deleted. On the flip side, if a WP:DRV is created a "no consensus" would result in the topic not being recreated in Wikipedia. --Bobblehead 17:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I too was of the belief that admins were supposed to look at the arguments. In the case of an article, it is the responsibilty of an editor to ensure an edit meets WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV or it will likely be deleted. However, in the Xfd's, it seems to work the other way round. The onus seems to be on the editors who wish to delete the material to gain universal agreement. If this is not forthcoming, which is unlikely due to a few votes by tendentious or naive editors, then we are left with a "no consensus" decision which keeps categories etc regardless of how much they violate the basic tenets. There seems to be a conflict between adhering to policy and adhering to consensus (or lack of in this case). With a lonely admin making the final call. --Zleitzen 17:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I think the application of the onus being on the submitter to delete an entire topic is rightly placed. An XFD is more a discussion of why the topic should be deleted, rather than why the topic should be kept. If the content of the topic violates the three pillars, then the discussion can be done via the topic's talk page or via the dispute resolution process. If consensus is there to remove content that violates the three pillars, then it can be removed and if certain editors become tendentious, they can be sent through the Wikipedia:Disruptive editing process.--Bobblehead 18:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
if enough goons voted to keep a category called, say, "People who smell", would that lead to a keep -- yes, but then if you go the other way then all it takes is for someone to nominate (say) Mathematics and 'enough goons' to vote to dump it and we have to get rid of it because there isn't a consensus to keep it! In the event of a dispute, we have to favor keeping things to dumping things or a few idiots can dump valuable data. Having a bunch of crap pages (which nobody in their right mind is going to link to or to search for) has very little negative impact on the encyclopedia...compared to great articles being dumped by an annoying few. SteveBaker 00:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
No, sorry, that's not how xFDs work (or, at least, are supposed to work). Consensus/majority vote is not the be-all and end-all of a closing admin's decision. The admin needs to take into consideration the merits of the various arguments. If everybody said, "Keep it, it's cool", and one person said, "But there are no sources", that one exception should prevail. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Admins are supposed to weigh the arguments, precedent and policy, and not just count "votes". As Wikipedia grows this will be more and more important. If xFD's are closed by "vote" counting there will be more and more gaming of the system. If people realize that one well stated argument can trump dozens of impassioned "votes" people will put more effort into discussion. This is the only way to counter vote spamming, and restore civility. More about this here. -- Samuel Wantman 09:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

  • There is an element of the question, however, that is not really being addressed, and that is - when an admin is dealing with this process, does s/he take actual policy into account at all? Many, many AfDs (for example) involve a lot of users arguing for a keep with no basis in policy and ignoring very clear and valid arguments that point out policy violations. Yet I rarely see an admin delete an article per policy when there is a "consensus" to keep it. Wikipedia may be built on consensus, but there are policies in place to ensure that a "consensus" of 15 people out of the 2.5million users can't preserve an article like List of fictional rooms.--Dmz5 06:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
    • There is a role for closer's judgment, but there is also a role for humility. I've seen admins err in the opposite direction in closing AfDs, and simply decide that they like one set of arguments better than another, when the discussion shows that numerous editors have come to very different thoughtful conclusions. Or they invent whole new arguments that weren't aired in the actual discussion at all -- as when an article on a Chinese college was recently deleted for failing to meet WP:N, a non-policy which no one had even broached in the discussion. -- Visviva 15:58, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Use of vernacular scripts in India bio articles - 2

I strongly agree with Parthi. This is the English-language Wikipedia. The native scripts can be used in special cases such as Satyameva Jayate. But using native scripts for every article (including Bollywood films is unnecessary). It only leads to stupid linguistic wars between Indian editors, and makes the intro look cluttered. In my personal opinion, all Indic scripts (except some cases such as Satyameva Jayate) should be removed. I wonder if we can have a poll/survey to solve this problem. utcursch | talk 05:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I must note here again: it is not the case that articles are being stuffed with non-English text. Rather, ONLY having the person's name in his/her native script is being questioned. (That's only two or three words at most). Next, the only dispute to arise here are *a few* bio articles. It would be wrong to remove script from thousands of biography articles just because of the edit dispute between a handful of users. I also want to note that Indian biography articles are not something *so special* that a different policy will apply to them. The same policy needs to apply to ALL biography articles, and again, it is totally wrong to remove the useful native language version of the names, *only* because of edit war in Bollywood related articles. Solutions to this problem should be to get a better policy at deciding what the script of choice would be (which is the point of disgreement here), rather than complete removal of native language names. Thanks. --Ragib 06:06, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

This is not just an India-bio problem. As I said previously, I'm starting to see scripts multiply in Islam-related articles. Look at the start of Mecca, for instance. Someone adds Arabic, someone else adds Persian, someone else adds Turkish ... As for the suggestion that we just need a policy to decide what the one "script of choice" will be -- that doesn't seem to me to be possible. I'm arguing, not for REMOVING the scripts, but moving them to a box where they don't interrupt the article, and having as criteria not ethnic group, religion, or nationality (all of which will involve us in vicious internicine conflicts), but the existence of an article in the matching wiki. Ragib, this will mean that editors can't add Bengali script unless there's a matching article in the Bengali wiki. They'll have to write an article! Wouldn't that be fine? Zora 06:48, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that sounds ok to me. What I understand of your proposal is that, the scripts are to be removed from the header to a box somewhere else in the page. Fine by me. As long as the name in the native script is there, it should be fine. BTW, isn't it something to be discussed in WP_Biography rather than here? --Ragib 06:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
No. it's a stupid idea. The Bengali articles usually have no conflict or fierce edit wars over scripts. Plus, there will never a concensus to go all english and no scripts on wikipedia unless you get ton bots to remove them. Will the chinese like it if their script is removed from an edit war that has nothing to do with time. What about the Russians and the Greeks? I don't think so.--D-Boy 18:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
As the Mecca example shows, this goes beyond biography. As soon as one script gets added to an article, people who feel that THEIR language is being excluded start adding their scripts. We need a policy that applies to all articles. As said above, there would be exceptions for quoting texts. It's standard in scholarship to quote a text in the original so that those who can read it can check the translation. Perhaps we'd also need exceptions for dead languages that don't have wikis? Are there any dead languages for which WP supports a script but doesn't have a wiki? We have Latin and Sanskrit WPs, but not a Hittite or Sumerian one ... though, gee, the idea of a Sumerian wiki is immediately appealing :) Zora 07:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Why on earth is there turkish and farsi for an article such as Mecca? Islam was started by an arab in arabia. The sacred language the quran is arabic which is supposedly the truest way to read the scripture. Urdu shouldn't even be there. Maybe on articles such as Sufism they would have their native language from where it started.--D-Boy 18:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I've said lot about this before and many people here know my views. So my 2 cents/some quick points -

  • Vernacular scripts to be avoided as far as possible.
  • Sneaking in Hindi/Devanagari script into every possible 'India-related' article is reprehensible.
  • Bollywood movies are Hindi movies, atleast thats the "official" line(Posters arent 'official', certifications by the 'official' censor body displayed at the start of every movie are). So Urdu script is superfluous on Bollywood articles.
  • Vernacular script can be used where the ethnicity is beyond question. For e.g., for Chola tamil script is understandable and for Maratha Empire Marathi script is understandable, Jana Gana Mana is a Bengali song, so Bengali script is justified etc.,. But even if there is a semblance of confusion or dispute, I would support NOT using the controversial scripts.(Note: On JGM for e.g., Bengali is beyond question, it is the Hindi script that is controversial. So Bengali script should be allowed and Hindi thrown out.)
  • Now, I know, that above examples cannot be used to generalise, so if the consensus is that vernacular scripts be banned altogether, I would support such a decision. Atleast that should stop people pushing Hindi on all India-related articles ridiculously in the garb of 'patriotism' or pushing 'Hindi' in the garb of 'Devanagari' on Sanskrit/Hindu related articles and such other random BS. Sarvagnya 19:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
And what historic indic article that are located in pakistan? What scripts would we be able to add one those? Devangari? What about article like Sindh?--D-Boy 21:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I take it you meant "what about". Can you tell me why on earth we need Devanagari on Sindh? Devanagari is 'nothing' as far as Sindh is concerned. The only scripts justified on Sindh is the Sindhi script(first and foremost) and then may be... may be just Urdu script because, I believe Urdu is the national lang of Pak(even then, I am not sure that is a good enough reason). Sarvagnya 22:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
But Sindhi as well as punjabi and kashmiri are also written in devangari for their written langauges.--D-Boy 00:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Good, you may note that Hindi is one of two official central government languages in India (the other is english, which falls outside this discussion). Therefore, Hindi should be on every India related page. Of course using a logical argument like this makes me a "POV-pushing nationalist", "Hindutva bigot", "whitewasher" in the eyes of more than one user.Bakaman Bakatalk 03:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Good, you may also note that Official language != National language. India has no national language. And it is for a reason that the govt., has chosen to call it merely 'official' language and not 'national' language. And did u notice the may be.... maybe just in my above message? And in any case, if it ever came to a vote, I'd never vote for using it on the concerned country's pages and you know it. It is as ridiculous as, say, plastering an image of the peacock and the tiger on every Indian wildlife page simply because they are the national animals. huh. Sarvagnya 06:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I still don't understand why these scripts are so necessary here in English Wikipedia. Editors putting theirs views on Bollywood songs and film names suggest that it is for exact pronunciation. If it is mentioned only for accurate pronunciation, what purpose does it serve if most users can't read that script? I can't read and understand any script other than English, Tamil and basic Hindi. I can't understand if Rabindranath Tagore is pronounced as such or otherwise in Bengali. So are many other scripts for many other situations. If accurate pronunciation is to be specified, let us use standard IPA. I think every one can learn a single pronunciation format (if needed) than 100 other scripts from all parts of the world. This situation may seem specific to articles related to Indian languages as of now, but this is Wikipedia-wide issue. As mentioned above, local scripts do nothing more than appearing as gibberish to non-local readers. Believe me, people don't care much about exact pronunciation because of their inherent incapability to pronounce other languages so well. No matter how we try, foreign language speakers can nowhere be close to pronunciation level of native speakers. So let us just get rid of those scripts completely! -- Chez (Discuss / Email) 04:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this will help you pronouce it: Wikipedia:Indic transliteration scheme. I son't know tamil but it's interesting seeing the script of Chola dynasty in tamil script. Seein the script exposes you to different writing systems.--D-Boy 08:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
By that logic, people should start inserting all kinds of scripts in all the articles -- that'll expose readers to all kinds of writing systems. This is simply unnecessary. It doesn't serve any purpose and leads to stupid edit wars among overly fanatic linguistic patriots. I'm not opposed to vernacular scripts because of edit wars. I'm opposed to them because I feel they do not serve any purpose (except in cases such as Satyameva Jayate). They also make an article less readable. Look for example, at the intro of Rajnikanth article. The Marathi/Kannada/Tamil scripts are not there to make the article useful, they are present simply because of fanatic Marathi/Kannada/Tamil linguistic patriots. Why do we need a person's name in his/her native script (Indian or otherwise)? Why do we need a place's name in the native script? This is English Wikipedia. User:Chezhiyan has pointed out rightly -- they're certainly not useful for pronunciation. If people are willing to learn, they'll learn IPA instead. Like Zora has suggested, we need a policy on this. I think it will be nice to put different proposals and then have a voting (like Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Sidebar redesign/Final draft vote). utcursch | talk 08:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Utcursch, that's a useful link. I think I can write up my policy proposal, but coming up with a sample infobox will challenge my feeble coding skills. Anyone willing to work with me on designing an infobox template? I think the other proposals have been to eliminate all scripts (no infobox) and to keep one script, which is to be the script most closely associated with the subject of the article (how "most closely associated" is determined should be defined, otherwise the edit wars will continue). Is there anyone at all in favor of the present policy -- anyone can put any script anywhere and then we have an edit war? Zora 18:03, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Then why is important to Vladir putin's name in Russian or Mao Zedong's name in CHinese by that same logic? Or have Mecca in Arabic? If you're going to go all english, then you should do it for eery single article. Also you should write your policy at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Indic-related articles), if you're going to make one. Maybe people should have input on it and a concensus should be reached. Voting is not what wikipedia is about. Also, the Koreans have a really good infobox for their hangul scripts.--D-Boy 18:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, we need a policy that applies to every single article, not just the South Asia or India articles. Zora 19:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

My 0.02 pence.... Firstly i couldnt care less if scripts are there or not. I'd support removal of vernacular scripts ONLY if all non-English scripts are removed simultaneously. Indian articles shouldnt be held to different standards. Re:Bollywood it is really idiotic to add Urdu to Bollywood articles ad hoc, more so for Bollowood bios (Kajol article for example had Urdu but no Marathi!). Unless the said movie uses stresses on Urdu (as understood in post-1947 context) i see no point in adding urdu script to articles like say Lage Raho. File:England flag large.png अमेय आर्यन DaBroodey 18:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd propose removing all scripts to an infobox. Your declaration that no change should be allowed unless all articles can amended simultaneously ignores reality: we can't amend a substantial portion of 1.5 million articles simultaneously. It's going to take time to educate editors to use the infobox for new articles and to revise the old ones. If the proposal to use an infobox passes, let's first have a period just for moving scripts; we don't apply the criterion (is there an article in the matching wiki) immediately. However, unmatched scripts should show up as red links. We have a year during which any scripts can be added to the infobox and none deleted. At the end of that year, we start deleting the redlinked ones. We should give ample time for editors to create matching articles. Zora 19:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's an example of the korean's infobox: Template:Koreanname

The article Kalarippayattu also has good info box although it's not parameterized.--D-Boy 20:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm in favour of moving all scripts from the lead to an infobox placed at the bottom of the article. This will certainly improve the readability of the article. However these silly ethnic edit wars will continue in the infobox area. Parthi talk/contribs 21:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see the need for an additional infobox. I think most of us agree that the scripts add nothing significant to an article, especially for the millions who don't read that script. I say, just get rid of them altogether. IPA/ITRANS is all we need. Gamesmaster G-9 23:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

By the way, this discussion has gone on for ages. I think we should attempt to reach a consensus now. It would help if everyone wrote down their exact position on the issue in one line. Gamesmaster G-9 23:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Is it within the rules of the "game" for Dangerous-Boy to be posting messages on the talk pages of people whom he believes might support him, asking them to come vote here? See:
Technically, no it is not. Wikipedia:Spam#Canvassing.--Bobblehead 02:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Most of those people were involved in the discussion. Just making sure they get there input in.--D-Boy 02:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It is generally poor etiquette to notify only your side of the argument (which I'm not saying you're doing), even if they were all involved in the discussion. It tends to skew consensus in a certain direction. If you feel the need to canvas you should hit the proponents for all sides of the disagreement or make a single post on an article that they all are involved in. Rampant vote stacking can be considered a disruption and can get you an involuntary wikibreak. --Bobblehead 02:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Indeed...>_>--D-Boy 02:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Votes

YES

  1. Yes for (only) the native script, in the lead or at least somewhere else in the page. (lead/box/wherever). --Ragib 00:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. Yes for (only) the native script, in the lead or at least somewhere else in the page. (lead/box/wherever).--D-Boy 01:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  3. Yes for relevant scripts, in the lead of the page.--AnupamTalk 01:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. Yes for (only) the native script, in the lead or at least somewhere else in the page. (lead/box/wherever). Hindu stuff (unless purely non-Sanskrit) always in Nagari, and bios in the person's ethnicity.Bakaman Bakatalk 03:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  5. Yes - as far as the stuff I know something about - I would like Sanskrit and Pali in Buddhist articles. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

#Yes I strongly dislike IPA/ITRANS for correct pronunciation, so I prefer the native scripts to stay. GizzaChat &#169; 05:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

  1. Yes Native Scripts should be there for Bios. Most other common stuff should have Nagari script. --NRS | T/M\B 06:44, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
    Comment Me too.--D-Boy 04:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. YES for native script. 'relevant' scripts should be added only after consensus. Sarvabhaum 11:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  3. Yes for (only) the native script (the language in which the word or its native equivalent is most often used). For example, if its "Krishna", the term should be in sanskrit, and if its "thambi", the language should be tamil; for acchan, the language should be malayalam and so on. ­ If its going to be more than one script, my vote is "no" &#2384; Kris (&#9742; talk | contribs) 14:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. Yes for the inclusion of only appropriate scripts in the article.-Bharatveer 14:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  5. Yes for native script, and relevant scripts after consensus. In the case of Badal Roy (a musician from Bangladesh), the inclusion of such allows, in a "Rosetta Stone"-like manner, one to know the native spelling and to search for websites and photos about the person on websites in the original language or (especially helpful in the absence of a comparable interwiki article in that language). Putting the name in native script in a box to the right side would be a fine idea. This is already standard for East Asian articles (see Jin Hi Kim for an example). Badagnani 17:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  6. Yes for native script and relevant scripts. I'm not opposed to the idea of putting it in a box. And I'm not against using IPA as well (not instead). BernardM 21:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  7. Yes native scripts MUST be kept. This is relevant information for an encyclopedia. See the guidelines I have attempted to devise at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic) for when to use what. The work on this has stalled because of other commitments, but someone's welcome to restart it! Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 15:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  8. Yes for native script, and relevant scripts after consensus. The Rabindranath example in the previous section convinced me sufficiently although I think in such cases there's also a scope to include both native script and IPA so that those like myself who can't read the native script get some idea of the missing point. While this is the English wikipedia, this appears to be something which adds considerably to the value of the article to many readers and we already do it for Eastern European articles (which I can understand the script for). Orderinchaos78 17:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

NO

  1. No vernacular scripts in the lead. Parthi talk/contribs 00:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC) withdrawing my vote pending proper policy formulation. - Parthi talk/contribs 22:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  2. No vernacular scripts anywhere for biographical pages. Only IPA/ITRANS. Gamesmaster G-9 00:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  3. No scripts for bios. Is too devisive. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  4. No vernacular scripts, whether in biography or any other pages. It serves no purpose (refer this) and can prove a fertile source of many types of dispute, as we have seen in a dozen cases in just these past few days. IPA is more than sufficient, if pronounciation is such a concern. ImpuMozhi 03:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
  5. No Unless the page is filled with twenty scripts, there will be people who can't read it. I don't think IPA/ITRANS is much better though because even fewer people understand it (not referring to Wiki editors but to the entire subcontinent). GizzaChat &#169; 22:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I don't think we should vote on this as an India-only issue because as people said it affects Chinese and all other languages. I think we should make a proper proposal like somebody suggested and discuss it in the context of all languages and scripts. It is unfair to have different rules for India and different rules for other countries. Also I don't understand why you say we should use ITRANS. I think ISO 15919 or IAST are the proper things to use. Nobody uses ITRANS in serious articles outside email or places where you only can use ASCII. -- Ponnampalam 01:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I recommended ITRANS over IAST, because I felt it would be convenient for other scripts (Gurmukhi, Gujarati) as well. I have no specific bias in its favour. Gamesmaster G-9 02:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Itrans looks horried and it's not academic standard. It was designed when computers couldn't cope with IAST and other odd characters. I personally recommend ISO 15919 because it can be applied to all Indic scripts in India. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic). Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 15:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry to not have read the entire discussion and place my opinion. Probably the problem is due to abuse of regional scripts. Anything that is good and helpful would not be objected by any except by ill-motivated editor. My feeling is 1) Any regional script should be allowed within limits. 2) With Muslim's Jihad movement, there remains a scope of continuous abuse of a policy so there must be a body of editors/admins to monitor. If, the official body finds abuse of policy, the members should have tools to change and protect the page. 3) My feeling is use of national language in limits will be advantageous. 4) I disagree that since other encyclopedias do not use regional scripts, Wikipedia should also not use the same. 5) The policy not to include regional language would also be abused by objecting to necessary inclusions. 6) The grievances are going to remain, instead why not have a body who would concentrate in preventing abuse particularly between hostile societies? Pl. bear with me, if I am wrong. swadhyayee 05:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment: I feel this voting is being done in a hurry. This issue spans a large variety of articles. We should first make an effort to atleast broadly classify articles and then vote for each type one at a time. Bios certainly are a different class from say geography/history related articles. I dont see any harm using native scripts on articles like, say, Chola, Hoysala etc.,. There is no scope for any disputes on these articles. The disputes are really mostly on the articles where Hindi-pushers want Hindi scripts or the Hindi-pushers themselves run into Urdu-script supporters. On bios, I support using the script with which the person is most widely associated. Rajnikanth for example, should have only Tamil because that is what he's most widely seen as being associated with. Hindu/Sanskrit articles belong equally to whole of India and historically(until fairly recently), devanagari was never the script for Sanskrit. So, on these articles, we should just do with IPA. More later. Sarvagnya 06:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Response to Comment: And yet, if the pro-vernacular people have their way, then Rajnikanth would have his name written in Devanagri because his ethnicity is Marathi. Then someone else will add Kannada because he lived in Bangalore. And lets not forget the Hindi-fundamentalist who believe that Indian=Hindi. I have no doubts that people will indulge in non-stop linguistic one-upmanship. Gamesmaster G-9 07:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Completely agree with Utcursch. That's why I haven't "voted." The call for a poll was premature, was interpreted as being a binding YES or NO vote (but YES or NO on what?), and has already led to electioneering. Part of the murkiness here is that the script issue is a cover for yet another, even broader and more divisive issue: the use of Wikipedia for national/ethnic/religious tagging. The placing of a script seems to be interpreted by many of the editors here as a claim that the scripted person/thing/whatever "belongs" to the group symbolized by the script. IMHO, we need to stamp down hard on this use of non-Roman scripts as gang signs, equivalent to spray-painting "[insert name of group here] rulez!" on public spaces. Zora 16:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Response to Comment - When I asked for everyone to state their position in one line, I didn't intend for it to be a vote. I had hoped that this would help list out all the points for and against in a neat way. Unfortunately, people are just copy-pasting each other's positions. Gamesmaster G-9 20:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • CommentAnother vote! you have got to be kidding. I told you in the beginning not to make a vote about this! It's not the way of wikipedia. Even utcursh stated voting is evil. yet Parthi went ahead and did it anyway. The policy for the yes votes are pretty consistant. Also, you'll never get rid of all the chinese, all the russian, all the arabic scripts and so on. I'd really like to see you try to get rid of the arabic scripts because the muslim guild will fight you until the bitter end about such an issue.--D-Boy 18:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I quite often end up in lists of people which have (red links) to non-existent articles. It seems to me that while I am there, I may as well delete them (the red links), as it's just clutter. E.g. Santosh. One could argue that a recently added name may be an article about to be created, but certainly names that have been there for a while are stale. Often they are the result of links to speedy deleted bios/self written resumes, in which case they should be deleted, but it's not always easy to know that. --ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 15:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

  • In general a disambiguation page should not contain red links. So removing them from e.g. Santosh is a good idea. (Radiant) 15:44, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I would say that as an exception if a red link name is clearly notable (i.e. a former members of the United States House of Representatives) it will never become stale and should remain. In the example, the red-link article is supported by a WikiProject and will eventually be written, however long it might take.--G1076 15:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
    • The easiest thing is to write it yourself. Just jot down a few basics and add {{bio-stub}}. (Radiant) 10:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I agree in principle, but sometimes its not so easy. For example, I work on United States Congressional Delegations from New Jersey, a fairly complex table with lots of information. If I run across a link to the wrong person of the same name, then I have to chase it down and I end up 2 or 3 degrees away from the task that I originally working on. Then to have to immediately lookup the person and create a new stub article brings me 3 or 4 or 5 degrees away from the task that I was originally working on. Maybe I haven't been around here long enough, but I just don't see the difference between red links in articles or lists and red links on disambiguation pages.--G1076 14:59, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Just for clarification, are we just talking disambiguation pages here or all lists? In disambiguation pages I would agree that red links should generally be deleted. However, red links in lists should not generally be deleted (unless they're blatantly non-notable) as they are good indicators of articles that need to be created. If you have spent a lot of work creating a list of notable individuals it is irritating in the extreme if another editor comes along, however well-meaning, and deletes all the red links, often with the justification that "if they haven't got an article they're obviously not notable enough for the list". This is blatantly not true and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what Wikipedia is all about (i.e. it's an ever-growing encyclopaedia and lack of an article simply means nobody has got around to writing one yet, not that the subject is "obviously" non-notable). This has happened to me and it is extremely frustrating. -- Necrothesp 13:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment about red links on dab pages &mdash; Red-links are tolerated on dab pages, folks. The main reason they should be included is not in anticipation of the future, but as the result of some articles referring to the non-existent article. I often add red-links to dab pages when repairing them if I find in the 'what links here' link set one or more articles that link to the dab page and require disambiguation of terms to article titles that do not exist. The corollary of removing this type of red-link from a dab page (one the reflects usage in other articles) is removal of red-links from the referring articles - which is generally a no-no. I do agree that pre-loading dab pages with red-links in anticipation of use is not to be encouraged; but representation of red-links that are used in other articles I think is a reasonable reason for red-link representation. Note that you can see on a red-link whether or not other articles link to that non-existent article as the 'what links here' function works at the title level whether or not the article actually exists. There is a section of MOSDAB that addresses this, but I'm loath to simply say 'you should leave red-links in because the guideline says so' ... I hate being told things that way without additional explanation of benefits of editing in a certain way. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
    • It is not wrong to unlink redlinks to articles that are unlikely ever to be created. This happens sometimes with historical peerage articles -- an enthusiastic editor redlinks a batch of younger siblings and the mother, but there just isn't enough information to write an article on most of them, so someone else unlinks them. If it is not wrong to unlink a redlink in an article, it cannot be not wrong to remove the same redlink from a dab. Automatic removal is wrong, but some should be removed. Robert A.West (Talk) 15:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Photos by Wikipedia users, ourselves

If I submit a photo or scan that I created myself, would I have to list my real name in either the photo description page or whatever letter I have to send to wikipedia permissions to confirm I created it. Do I send a letter to Permissions dept confirming it, if I create an image myself? Is using our wikipedia username not enough for these licensing issues to identify ourselves; i.e., is wikipedia username anonymity disallowed for this licenses? Can I say "Bebop" licenses this CC by SA? Or tag it CC and say I created this image myself, sign it with my username and leave it at that? I don't want to find out later I have to name myself because I'd rather delete the image or try to find someone else who can shoot the image than do that. But it seems like you would have to do your real name in a copyright issue. Yet I feel certain I have seen images by Wikipedia users that didn't tell their real name and were licensed GFDL. Am I right? &ndash; Bebop 02:07, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

If you create it yourself just upload it and tag it. Real name not required although by not useing your real name you have an effect of the length of the copyright on the image.Geni 02:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
QUESTION - What do you mean by I have an effect on the length of the copyright on the image by not using my real name? It's not something I care to restrict at all. KEY ISSUE - It's a photo of a fair use image of a 12-inch album cover. How about that? I just realized that in this case the fact of me photographing an album cover or scanning a cd cover does not matter, right? I would just submit the photo of the fair use "album cover" and not even mention it was me who took the photo because of the fact I don't have any ownership of the image anyway, right? The worry about naming myself would only matter on a photo of other things, I would think, not this situation with photographing a fair use album cover/cd cover (which is similar to when you scan an image)? &ndash; Bebop 03:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
The effect on the length of the copyright is that if a work can not be atributed to a real identifiable person a different term applies. If you reveal your true identity then the copyright on your works last for as long as you live and for 70 years afterwards (controlled by your heirs). If you publish your works under a pseudonym and remain "unidentified" however, the term is instead a fixed 95 years after publication (I asume hitting "upload" here counts as publishing).
And you are correct, for all intents and purposes you would hold no rights to such a photo of a poster or albumcover, or at least what few rights you would have would be moot since you would need the permission of the copyright holder of the poster or whatever in order to do anyting with it. --Sherool (talk) 07:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:MALL, a proposed notability guideline

User Edison gave me a suggestion for notability guidelines for shopping centers based on one he knows of, WP:CONG, for religious congregations. I used that as a template to write Wikipedia:Notability (shopping malls), based on Edison's direct suggestion, and added some of my ideas and referenced WP:NOT, WP:CORP, WP:NOTE and WP:RS. Thanks, Edison and I hope this is a good next step in the shopping mall discussion. I look forward to everyone's ideas, edits, rewrites and comments.--Msr69er 01:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Why is a separate subguideline necessary? —Centrx→talk &bull; 02:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
The issue I am going to raise with this is the same one I have raised with the numerous other individualised notability guidelines: Malls do not have special issues that cannot be resolved via the Primary Notability Guideline(multiple, nontrivial references from reliable sources). Several mall AfDs have been handled poorly IMHO (such as mass-listing all malls rather than individually listing those that fail the PNC). However, there does not appear to be a "special problem" that makes shopping malls inherently harder to apply the PNC too. Either reliable sources (and newspapers ARE RELIABLE SOURCES) exist from which we can populate the article with verifiable, non-trivial facts, or they don't. If we can't get notable information from reliable sources, it fauls the PNC, and thus should be deleted, even if it is a mall. The places where guidelines exist that extend notability beyond the PNC (such as WP:CORP) contain secondary criteria ONLY in very narrowly defined areas, and ONLY to address a specific-problem which cannot be adequately solved by the PNC. I see no compelling evidence that malls are special in any way vis-a-vis their notability, and so I see no reason why the guideline should not contain one criteria only: A shopping mall is notable if it has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the mall itself. Period. Full stop. If it does not meet this criteria, we have no means to expand the article, and thus it must be deleted. --Jayron32 05:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to add to that previous comment that I have seen quite a few mall AfD debates (and I started a couple) where defenders come in and say "Aha! Sources have been found, see new improvements on the article". Most often these sources turn out to be local news article stating either "Yesterday, a man got arrested in the X shopping mall", "Yesterday, Santa Claus arrived at shopping mall X" or "Starbucks opens in shopping mall X". I think it's important to realize that these are not the kind of sources we are looking for as they have absolutely no relation to the content of the articles. As we all know, the content is always "Shopping mall X is at the corner of Maple & Elmwood and has a JC Penney". That makes us the Yellow Pages and, deservedly so, a laughing stock as an encyclopedia. Pascal.Tesson 06:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Excellent points, but none of these are problems unique to malls. Trivial information still cannot be used to establish notability. It still doesn't speak to any special necessity to this (or any of the other NUMEROUS) individualized guidelines. The PNC still squashes these sources, and can still be used to refute these sources as trivial. --Jayron32 06:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm all for using the PNC for malls as well as most other things. I just want to point out that the keep argument used in most AfDs is the "malls are inherently notable" blanket. "Notability" as is (or should be) used in AfD debates is not a measure of the worthiness of malls as institutions in a community but the confirmed or at the very least suspected existence of meaningful reliable sources supporting the content. And if the only meaningful verifiable content we have is a list of stores then this should go per WP:NOT. Pascal.Tesson 06:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
And those comments should meet with the response: "Nothing is inherently notable. If you wish to prove notability, provide sources per WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:NN. Otherwise, I think we are in complete agreement. --Jayron32 06:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually there are things that are inherently notable: US presidents, Olympic Games, etc, etc. The key point is whether there's enough information available to make a solid article. There are still people who have no clue what type of information belongs in an article, so a guideline that explains it, as notability guidelines tend to do, would be quite helpful. - Mgm|(talk) 10:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Actually, they a US president is only notable because all 43 of them have each been the subject of multiple references in reliable, third-party sources. All 15 gajillion shopping malls are not subject to the same level of coverage, thus all 15 gajillion shopping malls are not inherently notable. Nothing is. Notability test are ALWAYS to be applied to EVERY article on a case-by-case basis by READING the article, and DOING RESEARCH to establish if a VERIFIABLE, NON-TRIVIAL article can be written about the subject. If it can, it is notable. But the fact that any one article can pass this test does not transfer such quality to any other article merely by sharing some arbitrary commonality, like they are both about shopping malls. Notability is Not a Blanket.
Malls are not quite the same as corporations; they are venues where corporations rent space for stores. It is like trying to judge concert halls under guidelines for bands. A possible specific guideline for malls would be, for instance, to find an industry organization defining a regional mall as onwe with 1,000,000 square feet of leasable space, and using that to avoid endless debate over a smaller mall having an article if it has no other historic or architectural claim to fame. They do not quite fit in as local places WP:LOCAL either, since they may draw from a large area. A guideline lets the debating get done and perhaps a consensus arrived at in one forum rather than be repeated starting fresh in 1000 AfDs. I like to have some bright-line guides to quickly allow me to decide whether an article should be kept or deleted, so more time can be spent researching the borderine cases. Same for schools, professors, etc. Edison 21:59, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Malls are not quite the same as corporations or places of local interest, but they're close enough. We shouldn't create guidelines with this narrowly specific application. I'd suggest a subheading in WP:CORP and/or WP:LOCAL. (Radiant) 11:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I like the idea of a subheading. I see the problems with having a million notability guidelines, but it's very helpful to have specific guidelines for topics whose notability is often debated in this manner. Just like we have WP:BAND and the db-band speedy, not because they *couldn't* be done with WP:N and db-nn, but because it's a topic that comes up so often that it's worth having guidelines for. Malls seem, for whatever bizarre reason, to be in that category, so I can see how it would be helpful to have something specific written down. Perel 03:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Citing News stories mirrored on third-party sites

A copy of a news story has been posted on a third-party website. While we would prefer to cite the original source, if that has become unavailable, is it okay to link to the mirror site when referencing it? --Alecmconroy 14:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

My personal action is to source the original in the article without a link, and then either link the website it's mirrored in hidden text next to it, or, if it's possibly controversial, link the mirror on the talk page. As long as you're sure that the copy of the story is accurately mirrored, I don't think there's too much of a problem - we wouldn't hesititate using a news story from the 1940s if all you had was a photocopy from the library, after all. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Need to be careful. Sometimes sites which advocate on an issue are less than perfectly accurate or complete in mirroring content (I've seen some articles that have been selectively abridged). Sometimes they just outright lie, and make up articles, with fake attribution, that were never actually published. Well-known organizations with reputations to protect don't do this, but smaller, practically unknown groups may. Fan-1967 15:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Are you talking about an instance where, oh, say, AP (or Reuters, or any other wire service) has a story and all 5 zillion of their associated papers, magazines, websites, and other news outlets pick it up and run with it crediting the wire? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 18:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
We're just talking about an instance where ABC News ran a story four years ago, but the link has gone dead and we want to link to the mirror on another site. --Alecmconroy 11:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The Template:Cite web code was updated recently to include parameters 'archiveurl' and 'archivedate' to facilitate retirement/merger of Template:Waybackref into this template. A similar addition could/should be made to Template:Cite news. A related dead-link discussion appears at Template talk:Cite web ('Dead link question' topic). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 12:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Cite the original, note the mirror, after satisfying yourself that the mirror is a true mirror. If anyone disbelieves that, they can go to Lexis and check the original.And then they can delete the mirror. Hornplease 12:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Question on extent of right to vanish

User:Mike1 has requested that his previous failed RfA's Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mike1 and Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Mike1 2 be speedy deleted, citing m:right to vanish as the reasoning. The current language at m:right to vanish does not include deleting project pages related to a user's participation here, only to deleting personally identifying information and user and user talk pages.

So the question is, are these valid requests? —Doug Bell talk 22:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Been deleted. --Majorly 22:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Is that simply a statement of fact or an answer to my question? I have no viewpoint on the user or his request, only an interest in the extent of the policy. —Doug Bell talk 22:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I have no idea: I twice asked on the IRC channel but no one answered. I guess it isn't policy, but I think they are valid. --Majorly 22:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The real situation is probably more like "anything can be deleted as long as no one objects". I wouldn't so much say it's policy, as say that no one has brought forth any argument against it. I can think of one, but I'm not sure I want to go there. Wjhonson 22:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't generally think such deletions are a good idea. Same goes for user and user talk pages IMO. They can serve the project as a useful record of past events. Friday (talk) 22:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
My opinion is that deleting the user pages is OK, but I share your opinion on the user talk pages. I also don't think it's a good idea to start extending this to project pages. Without wanting to get into instruction creep, it would be nice to have some guidance on this issue in the right-to-vanish policy. The current absence of any discussion of it makes me think this is not a valid request and should not be granted. —Doug Bell talk 23:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Shall I undelete them, for historical sake? --Majorly 23:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I've added a back-link from the Talk page of the Right to Vanish to this discussion. Wjhonson 23:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
OK they're undeleted for now. --Majorly 23:22, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I would say my concern with the Right to Vanish in these cases is that you not really just "vanishing" a single user's words and works but rather the contribution of many editors who commented on those pages. What rights do they have for their work and good faith contributions to not just "vanish"? At the very least, there should be some some soft of consistent MfD process that these requests can go through. Agne 23:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It's difficult for RfAs, as they are all recorded on various lists (e.g. Wikipedia:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies). --Majo (rly?) 23:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the meta article, it says that "right to vanish" is intended as a privacy feature. I get the impression it is more intended for people who use their real name, or have info on their user page that would identify them. Looking at the two RfAs, while I can see why he may be a bit embarassed by them, I don't see any information that would identify him. Deleting something like that just because someone feels like it makes them look bad seems unnecessary and unfair to others who posted on those pages. --Milo H Minderbinder 23:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Send them to MFD if it's really thought this is a viable option, but I would oppose deleting any pages that talk about the person who is vanishing. That's just... odd. -- nae'blis 01:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • If they're malformed, unaccepted or empty, deleting RFAs sounds reasonable. Otherwise, I'd prefer not to. For instance, there may be feedback from other users here that is relevant for future RFAs. (Radiant) 17:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Change to Upload (Image/Media) Form

Where would I propose to change the upload form? My idea is to have several more boxes where the user must supply the source and license tag. The source would require a URL and the license tag would require a valid license template. A description box could still be available and an optional fair use box could be used if they are claiming fair use. Failure to fill in a valid URL or license would prevent the image/media from being uploaded. My reasoning is looking through the categories of unsourced, unknown copyright images and the uploader failed to even try to comply with the rules of providing a source and/or license.

Also, I'd like to know where I would propose a change to the CSD rule of 48 hours deletion after the image uploader has been notified to 24 hours after the image is uploaded. I think even 6 hours should be plenty, but 24 is a nice round number. My reasoning is that a large portion of the images I've seen have no encyclopedic content. Currently, someone could upload images for sharing with friends (Hey, go look at these images I took of my vacation!) and they would exist for 7 days (or 48, if someone took the time to notify them, which doesn't seem to happen much, most go by the 7 day rule once tagged). Any advice is appreciated. Thank you. --MECU≈talk 17:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Changeing the interface would require software changes. Makeing people provide sources would result in nonsense sources which would make them harder to spot.Geni 18:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
A problem with requiring people to provide a URL would be that it would make it impossible for people to upload their own photographs or drawings. Of course, Commons is better for those anyway, but not everyone knows about Commons or has the inclination to create an account there (single-user log-in will help with this, but not solve it). Also, I would take issue with your, "even 6 hours should be plenty" statement. I don't know about you; but I typically sleep for 8-10 hours at a time, and sometimes go 2-3 days or more without checking on Wikipedia. I certianly don't check Wikipedia every 6 hours and I think it's unreasonable to expect anyone else to. I think 48 hours is reasonable. 3 days or more is too long, 6 hours is way too short to give the uploader time to fix the problem. Unsourced images are a problem, and copyvios are serious, but I think the end result of your proposal would be to discourage people from going out with a camera and taking totally free images for Wikipedia's use. In otherwords, it would make the problem worse rather than better. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs) 14:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

People have been deleting Crown Copyright photos. While they are technically unfree, they are of provincial leaders. This is pathetic. Is there no way that Crown photos can be kept? See fair dealing. -- Zanimum 20:10, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

In something like this case, can you argue for fair-use in the same way we normally deal with press-release photos? Shimgray | talk | 20:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
How do you do that? Technically, the photos they've been deleting are the ones the press would be provided if they asked for a portrait of the politician. -- Zanimum 19:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Consider dropping a line on WP:DRV. (Radiant) 17:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I've already tried and lost my case with Bob Rae on DRV. It doesn't work. No matter how much I battle there, they won't hear any of it. -- Zanimum 19:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

A guideline on Positive Contributions Please?

I have had the frustrating experience of putting a lot of work into carefully referenced enhancements of articles, only to have them completely reverted by a few editors determined to maintain the status quo. After a lot of discussion on the talk pages usually some progress is made, but one or two editors just say no-no-no and revert and never offer any positive suggestions as to how the text might be improved. I do not want to name names or personalise this at all, but in principle I think this is unsatisfactory. I wonder if we should have a guideline (PCP - Positive Contributions Please) which:

  1. Reinforces the message that it is WP Policy that contributions should be constructive and not simple reverts.
  2. Allows an editor to reply WP:+P (one problem is that it takes a lot of energy to reply to a negative contribution, most of which is ultimately wasted.
  3. Enshrines the principle that at least no-one should make 3 contributions to a topic/article in a row which are negative, without one positive suggestion.
  4. Allows an editor to reply WP:3+P if someone has violated this principle, with the undertsanding that this editors comments will generally be ignored until (s)he has made a positive contribution.

What do people think? NBeale 16:14, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Your frustration is understandable, but I'm afraid the propsosal is a bit mistaken. In the case of established articles with a long history that have achieved FA status, sometimes the best thing "regular" editors can do is keep the article clean. It's very common for well-meaning newcomers to try "improving" an FA article, but the edits are often non-productive and actually lower the quality of the article. In cases like these, "negative" contributions (ie, reverts) are both appropriate and necessary. Once an article has achieved FA status, there is rarely a need for sweeping changes...if there were, it shouldn't have been made FA. Doc Tropics 16:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I am one of those whom NBeale dares not name. There is of course another perspective, and that is simply that I and others are trying to defend certain articles from insertions of text which are clear breaches of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, and which also add so many microfacts, footnotes and glosses on minor points that they obscure the meaning of an article. That is why the contributions get deleted. Snalwibma 18:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not arguing against all deletions, and such a guideline might not apply to WP:FA. If an Editor thinks text is a "clear violation of NPOV" it should be possible to re-word to NPOV, at least 25% of the time. One Editor's "footnotes and glosses on minor points" (etc...) can be another Editor's "inconvenient facts that people are trying to hide". By collaborating we can make better articles. NBeale 17:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I think I'm one of those too who dares not have his name spoken and the article is The God Delusion in which there has been resistence to adding words describing why Dawkins uses the word "Delusion". The article has a suitable section decided by consensus and is of an appropriate weight (given the word itself is not a central theme). The anti-consensus view is that unless there is further text added that shows that Dawkins uses the word incorrectly in a non-technical/non-medical sense it is hoped that the whole premise of the book is flawed. A number of editors have reverted various versions of WP:OR for a few weeks now and I feel that if this proposal was progressed the consensus (i.e. the views of the reverters) would be biased away from the consensus as only views positive to the anti-consensus view would be accepted. This proposal would plainly makes a nonsense of consensus. In the Dawkins article if Dawkins felt that a footnote was worthy of inclusion as a central theme then it would be in the main text. That something is a footnote means it was not central to the book. Wikipedia should reflect more or less a degree a similar weight from what the author gives to the subject and not ride off on some tangent. WP:Undue weight clearly applies and this idea of "Positive Contributions Please" smacks of trying to bash in factoids which there is a clear consensus that they are not relevant. Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes is perfectly adequate. Ttiotsw 01:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Protection of user pages

What's the policy on protecting user pages? Should user pages be protected or semi-protected simply because the user wants them to be without any evidence of need? —Doug Bell talk 21:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know of an official policy, except the general polices on page protection in general, which don't, as far as I can see, allow for routine protection without evidence of need. Fan-1967 21:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
That would be my understanding as well. —Doug Bell talk 23:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm wondering if one could request semi-protection of user pages if one is concerned about retribution from vandals who you have been warning with templates on their talk pages. (I'm in a 'conversation' about this currently) My argument is that, yes, one could justify this in order to encourage signing of warning template additions - the result of the protection would be increasing comfort level of the editor to a place where generally accepted behavior could be engaged in without concern. This would generally apply to those folks who engage in anti-vandal activity as a major proportion of their effort here. Thoughts? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I think that goes against the general philosophy here of assuming good faith. I think we should wait until there is a proven need to protect. Nobody should be worried about leaving notices on vandals pages—any damage done to user pages is as easily reverted as anywhere else and if the problem becomes a pattern, the pages can be semiprotected. So no, I don't think this is justified here. —Doug Bell talk 04:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, my first gut reaction was 'gee, please just assume good faith and if something bad happens - take it from there', and it is this opinion (albeit in a much harsher tone, unfortunately) I espoused in the conversation. I got to thinking then about adaptation of tools to editors needs (perceived or real) versus temperamental/behavioral changes required to be a fully functioning Wikipedian and thought 'well, are there some relatively minor things that could be done to accomodate certain editor proclivities or fears in order for them to fully function.' It's a Wikipedian culture question, and I think my first gut reaction - that there is a culture and adaptation to the culture is part of participating in it - was probably the right one. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
My userpage has been vandalized frequently, as I get heavily involved in vandalism patrolling. I had it semi-protected for a few weeks because of one persistent anon, but that was months ago, and it's been unprotected. Generally, my experience has been that most vandals tend not to target you more than once or twice. You revert it and move on. Certainly you don't anticipate it. The ones who actually do it may well be the ones you least expect, when you least expect it. You don't protect just in case. Fan-1967 04:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It's not a big deal to protect or semi-protect any user page at that user's request (of course, usertalk pages should not be protected as such). If you think about it, how would it hurt the encyclopedia if you were unable to edit User:Somebody's user page? (Radiant) 17:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I protect userpages upon request per the same logic as Radiant! described. I mean, if it's not in the encyclopedia, there's no harm done. It's as simple as that. Nishkid64 21:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Then if that's the case, perhaps we should change the protection policy so that those changes are covered. Not that I'm in favor of encouraging endless requests from users to protect their user pages, but I do think that if this is going to be defacto policy it should probably be listed as an acceptable use of protection. —Doug Bell talk 23:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality?

Shouldn't we be be concentrating on being complete and current too Some people's ideas of neutrality are extremely narrow (such as rabid views of some people on g theory). Reactive / Redactive neutrality is not the neutrality that we need. We need factual neutrality. Complete exposition of the common viewpoint, but not ignorant of the less common viewpoint, but not tolerant of the intolerant viewpoint. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.213.103.55 (talk • contribs) 21:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a rewrite of WP:NPOV; perhaps you might want to discuss at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view, if not already previously discussed there? John Broughton | Talk 01:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Sounds a bit like an "English Irregular Verb"[1]. And if we didn't tolerate intolerance (to some extent) a lot of articles would have to be deleted! NBeale 18:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there an existing guideline on the notability of cases? I ask because Lindon v. First National Bank was recently posted, and an editor asked on its talk page whether it was available online. It's not, without recourse to LexisNexis. The problem is that a reasonable notability guideline, citation of the opinion in law review articles and other opinions, is also not easily available online, and I personally don't like Shepardizing any more than I have to. Mytildebang 17:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Should the discussion be about whether this one-paragraph article should be merged into name change? The availability, or not, of an on-line version of an 1882 U.S. court case seems a lesser issue. John Broughton | Talk
You're right. I was just wondering if there was a law-specific policy that could actually be applied to other cases. Mytildebang 00:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Redirection instead of deletion

A solution sometimes adopted on AfD is to redirect instead of delete a page. Generally this may or may not be a good idea. My question isn't there though.

Instead of proposing the deletion of an article, an editor insists on redirecting pages instead of listing them for deletion. Is there a policy to prevent this? If the content is to be removed, there isn't really a reason not to list it? -- User:Docu

No, because redirection is not deletion. WP:BOLD. Chris cheese whine 04:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, one can look at it from the vandalism perspective and consider conservation of information. If the redirection essentially eliminates substantial Wikipedia content from view, it is tantamount to page blanking or section removal, both of which are considered vandalism in the absence of good explanations for the actions. Merger+Redirect should be the preferred route over Redirect alone when there is the potential for removal of significant content. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Precisely. And this is why it is important to categorise redirects, or at least to have an easy way of listing all the redirects pointing at a page (the only way I know of at the moment is visually scanning the 'what links here' list for the 'redirect' label). Then the redirects can be examined to see if (a) they contain edit history of text that was merged to the destination (in which case it is vital to not delete the redirect without retaining the history somewhere); (b) the edit history of the redirect contains unmerged text that has been lost. Carcharoth 11:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The editor who changes an article to a redirect has the responsibility to move any appropriate content from the article becoming a redirect to the target article. For moved text, the edit summary should mention the name of the article that has become a redirect. If for some reason there is no content to be moved (e.g., the editor thinks virtually everyting is duplicated or dross), the editor should put a comment at the talk page of the target article saying that a redirect had been done and other editors were welcome to review what the former article said, to see if they wanted to incorporate anything. John Broughton | Talk 15:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

RFC on WP:FRINGE

A question has been raised at a recent RfD whether the guideline WP:FRINGE applies purely to fringe theories in the field of science, or whether it should apply to other fields as well. Please pop over to the guideline talk page and comment. Blueboar 15:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Deleted articles

I would like to know what articles I've edited have disappeared. I know Kate's tool used to do this job. But may be for privacy reasons, it no longer works. I understand privacy is important, but I just want to know only myself's deleted edits. I always suddenly found some of my edits disappear and nobody (the one who deleted it) tells me before. Special:Contributions without a username specified is not used at this time, so how about make this special page show the current users' full edit history including deleted ones? I've submitted a request at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8017 . Yao Ziyuan 10:05, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Please give us specific examples. You should check out wikipedia's guidelines for speedy deletion and wikipedia's guidelines for proposed deletions and wikipedia's articles for deletion discusions. Of the 3, only speedy deletion generally happens without your knowledges. PRODS and AFDS (the other 2 deletion methods) all leave tags on the page for a minimum of 5 days, meaning that you should have the opportunity to correct them. Speedy Deletes are done only in a very narrowly defined set of examples. Please read the speedy deletion guidelines I put above; even speedy deletes generally take a day or so to happen, so as long as you check into Wikipedia once every few days, you should find them and be able to stop or comment on the. In addition, you can contact the admin that deleted your article, or you can request a deletion review to overturn any deletion. Hope that helps... Again, please give us specific examples of the articles you found deleted, so we can comment perhaps on why they were? --Jayron32 18:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it would be helpful for deleted edits to show up in a user's contribution history, not just so users can see for themselves, but without that contribution history visible talk page warnings are often inexplicable and vandalism histories undocumented. How possible is it to implement this change? Postdlf 18:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I guess the problem with that is in deciding what constitutes a 'deleted edit'. A literal revert of the article might be easy to detect - but if someone deletes an entire paragraph except for a couple of words - then writes an entire new paragraph using those words in a completely different way - then they effectively deleted your edit - but it would be hard for automated software to figure out the difference between that and a simple typo/spelling/grammar correction. Personally, I think setting up your preferences so that every article you edit is automatically watched - then patrolling your 'my watchlist' is the best you can do. SteveBaker 19:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
No, by "deleted edits" I mean edits that are made to articles that are subsequently deleted. When an article is deleted, none of the edits made to that article show up in user contribution histories. Postdlf 19:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh man, I'd love to see this feature. EVula // talk // &#9775; // 19:38, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if the edits should necessarily be visible (except to admins), but it would be quite helpful to know that they existed. --Improv 21:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
The content of the edits themselves shouldn't be visible to everyone, but the fact that the edits were made should be. Think of all the times you delete nonsense such as profanity or an attack page and treat it as a "test" due to the user's lack of prior contributions, when the deleted history would show that it's actually persistent, reposted vandalism? Postdlf 00:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Per Postdlf's comment, I agree that the contents of deleted edits shouldn't be visible to everyone. In fact, I'd go one further and suggest that the other details of the deleted edits should remain hidden except from admins&mdash;one of the most common reasons for deletion of a page revision is that it contains personal information or gross libels; sometimes that information is in the edit summary, or even in a deliberately offensive username.
If we could have something that pops up on an editors Special:Contributions page when an admin visits, that would be ideal. Right now when I visit an article that has deleted revisions in its history, I see a View or restore 3 deleted edits? message above the rest of the article's history. I'd be thrilled to have something similar that appeared (to admins) on editors' Contributions pages: View this editor's 168 deleted edits... or similar. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
There was a tool for this here, but it is toolserver dependent, and the toolserver isn't currently working for the English Wikipedia. Prodego talk 02:19, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, this is the email that used to be linked from River(Kate)'s archived-contributions counter. Now that we have oversight though, I've been wondering if there's a chance that deleted edit summaries, etc. might be visible again, on-wiki? --Interiot 02:34, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the edit summaries should be available, but it does seem like it would be worthwhile to see a placeholder in a user's contribution history for deleted edits that listed the date, the page and minor edit flag. —Doug Bell talk 19:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
I think no information (other than perhaps the number of deleted edits) should be available to non-admins, but the whole information (pages and edit summaries) should be available to admins so a block or unblock decision can be based on all of the user's contributions, not just those that happen to be easily accessible. Having to note the names of all bad pages created by an editor somewhere for later review is work that should be better done by software. Kusma (討論) 12:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I have an article on my watch list with an incorrect name and is now deleted. It appears a vandal had edited the article and then moved it to a nonsensical name -- therefore the article was probably speedily deleted without proper checking. I don't know know what the page was originally about, since the history is now gone, and my watchlist is too large to remember every article individually. This is a loophole in the system, and allows vandals to get legitimate articles deleted without editors of those articles noticing until it's too late (deleted articles don't appear on my watchlist changes, so I never noticed the deletion). falsedef 11:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I recently had a page deleted within 3 days of creation. It was Heywood-Wakefield, a major business force in furniture in the 19th and early 20th C., particularly in wicker and rattan. They are no longer in business, and consequently somewhat invisible on the interenet outside of antique dealers, etc. I created a stub because I was aware of its existence and historical importance. I anticipated those with more knowledge than I would flesh it out. I thought this was the WP community's goal - group knowledge. I think I detect a move toward only allowing articles that are mostly complete when created, with references satisfactory to an admin who may be unaware of the article's significance because it doesn't exist in the "internet age". I don't know how to find the person who removed it, and can't rebut the removal. Wake 03:14, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

You can rebut the deletion &mdash; there is a formal process for that. See Wikipedia:Undeletion policy. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll try that. Wake 03:39, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
There are actually two choices - you can appeal a deletion, or you can simply ask for a copy of the deleted article to be put into your user space (this is called userfication). For a stub, I'd recommend doing the latter, by posting a request at Wikipedia:Deletion review#Content review. Getting a copy of a deleted article is an administrative action; you don't have to convince anyone of the merits of that article, as is the case with a formal deletion review, which is similar to an AfD. Once you have a copy of the article in your user space, you have time to improve it, and then you can place it back in the article namespace, where it is much more likely to survive on its own. John Broughton | Talk 13:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Notability (fandom)

I have proposed a guideline on Wikipedia:Notability (fandom) to help sort out articles on minor subjects. Some of these appear to be self-serving and/or POV, but the fan categories are not clearly delineated by other guidelines.Avt tor 16:48, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Notifying new users when their page is db'd

As a member of the Wikipedia:Welcoming committee, I just wanted to point out some major problems with Newpage Patrolling as it stands.

One of the duties of a NPPer is to mark bad pages with an appropriate db tag. However, while patrolling, I find a large number of users are (a) not notified their page was marked for deletion, therefore creating confusion on their part and not encouraging them to edit, a mild form of biting the newbies, and (b) not notified when their page was deleted, and for which reason. I am not impressed by the handling of these tasks. I admit I used to do the same, but recently I began to always warn the users.

Something needs to be done about this, even if a bot could be assigned. I am interested to see how other Wikipedians think about this. Cheers! Yuser31415 22:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

This is part of the reason why the new article text now says "Articles without reliable published sources are likely to be deleted." New users should read that before creating junk. --Centrx→talk &bull; 22:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
New users should and probably do read the notice. What is considered junk is a matter of opinion, however. And that is no excuse for not notifying the user in question. Yuser31415 23:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
New users should, but rarely do, read anything at all before posting. As a prolific db-er, I have found that notifying them about a db tag actually involves less work than not notifying them. If they get nothing, they will think "Wonder what happened to that. Oh, well, I'll just create it again." It's also not hard, since there are standard notification templates. Doesn't hurt to add the {{welcome}} template above the notice if it remotely looks like they might be a potential useful contributor. Also, on the db-bio's, whenever possible, if the name's a close enough match to the username, or the article uses the first person, and the User page is a redlink, and the content is acceptable for a User page, just move it to the user page. Tag the leftover redirect with a {{db-r2}}. It's easier than having to explain eight times why they can't write about themselves. 90% of new editors will not try to recreate in articlespace if you leave the {{userfied}}. Fan-1967 23:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Disagree with characterization of that as mild newbie bites. It rejects peoples contributions, which is as big as a slap in the face as one can administer here outside of a direct personal attack. I've long felt all deletion tagging should require a mandantory talk page notice and an attempt to email the party.
At the least, substandard pages ought to be duplicated in user space as a courtesy if a speedy delete criteria is being applied, with some boilerplate guidance to where and how the newbie can get help improving the offense, whatever the decision criteria may be.
Ditto for Afd'd pages. Too bad if that takes extra time for the Admins, but it's common courtesy and respect for anothers time. In my experience, many admins are too jaded and perhaps don't appreciate how hard it is to write well, as most are good at that aspect too. That page may have taken someone four hours to put together that one such as they could do in five minutes. That's a lot of effort to smash.
Such courtesy shows we value the attempt, even if the standards are higher than the effort. A newbie doesn't know such deleted pages are retrievable, and may never learn. That should be information included in a parallell notice on their talk when a deletion is made. // FrankB 23:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
At the risk of being impolitic, a huge percentage of new articles are absolute garbage, and did not take any effort from the contributor at all, and quite frankly we don't value the attempt that much. If I see one more article whose entire content is "John smith is the biggest fag in xxx sixth-form college" or "Bob jones is the coolest guy in Watertown." I'm going to hurl. There are hundreds (thousands?) of these a day, and there's a limit on how much effort we should extend on welcoming their authors. Fan-1967 23:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Honestly, we get so many very embarassing pages that slip through and stay up for weeks or even longer that I don't think we should be doing anything to reduce the number of people who are willing to do newpage patrol. I've long said we need a better article creation process, I think the solution lies there for this too... if a page has been deleted, it should clearly display on that deleted page why the page was deleted when the creator returns. A javascript tool "notify creator" would be very helpful... just to post the deletion rational on the article creator's talkpage. It would take a repetitive task and make it very painless. --W.marsh 23:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for continuing to voice your opinions. I certainly agree with Fan-1967: "If they get nothing, they will think "Wonder what happened to that. Oh, well, I'll just create it again."" More than 99% of new article creators are intelligent people; even vandals may turn into our strongest contributors in ten years' time. I think we should make a special effort to help all of these people, and the least we can do is to notify them why their page is being or was deleted, so they can possibly resubmit it in a better form. Cheers! Yuser31415 23:43, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for replying to my argument and ignoring everything I said... --W.marsh 23:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
We don't have the resources to make a "special effort". Last I heard it's several thousand new articles a day, most of which get speedied, mostly from new editors. A very small percentage of those editors will stick around and become useful contributors. We don't want to bite them, but we really can't make the effort to coddle all of them. Fan-1967 23:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that suggested javascript tool would be quite helpful. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:53, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
(encountered an edit conflict) I think it is a matter of common sense as to when a new article's author (and Wikipedia) would benefit from notification of the impending deletion of the article aimed at the author - and what type of notification should be given. The examples put forth by Fan-1967 of "John smith is the biggest fag in xxx sixth-form college" and "Bob jones is the coolest guy in Watertown." are examples of things that would either not warrant notification or would warrant a warning not to add nonsense to Wikipedia. However, a one line (sub)stub on a company in Indonesia would likely warrant a positive and welcoming notification. The latter indicates some effort to constructively contribute to Wikipedia. I've not spent but a short time looking at new pages, so my opinion might change after substantial exposure to the environment, but that's my opinion as of the moment. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:52, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
You are correct, and this is my feeling on the matter. We have initiative; let's use it. Vandalism is one side of the story and should be speedied with no notification; a good-faith edit that does not (currently) match our criteria warrants due attention and a friendly message to the creator. Should I put this in WP:NPP and WP:RCP anywhere? Yuser31415 00:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Just as an aside based on one of the comments above. Spend a few hours on NPP. Don't even tag anything, just open every newly created article you see, especially the ones from a redlinked user name. Get a feel for what's showing up. I think some of the people who make proposals on speedy deletion maybe don't have a full appreciation for what's coming in. Fan-1967 00:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

At any rate, until the software is improved, the solution for people concerned about article creators is to do newpage patrol themselves in a manner they agree with. (You might find your perspective changes a great deal once you are actually doing it, rather than commenting on it!) A lot of people propose to fix problems by adding various rules for admins to follow, but this really isn't practical because, if nothing else it's nearly impossible to enforce in any meaningful way. If an admin doesn't follow your rules, what can you really do but nag them? That's just how it is. --W.marsh 00:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I thought I'd spend a bit of time looking at the New Pages ... I just PROD'd Poloniumed and initiated transwikification of it ... first time I've punted on a brand new article and it seemed the right thing to do - but if I had to do that day in and day out I think I'd need counseling or grow a very thick skin or both. Hope the new user takes it well - it was their very first article, so I tried to be as kind as I could on their talk page. *sigh* User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I have been doing NPP for a little while now and my perspective hasn't changed much. Okay, so blatant vandalism can go, the user expected it to, and no harm done. But when we request speedy deletion on an article about the Rare spotted red horse beetle (ie), it might just be useful and we could help improve it, mark it with 'cleanup', 'expand', or 'stub' templates. A lot of what I've seen are users just too lazy, or who claim 'they haven't enough time' to help that user improve the article. Let's just face it. Thousands of pages are created every day; about, in my opinion, a third of those could become real articles. And we should always notify the creator of the article unless we are absolutely sure it is pure vandalism. Agreement? Cheers! Yuser31415 02:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


Vandalism to Monopoly (board game)

Um... I dont know if this the place to post this or not. In the article about the board game Monopoly, the original creator [the person who first patented it] is called "big tit whore monger." This is clearly out of place, and I wanted to bring it to the community's attention. It should probably changed by someone who knows more about the game's history than I do. Thank you in advance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.9.76.149 (talk • contribs)

Dealt with ;) Yuser31415 06:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

My editing on articles on "Jacques Pluss" and "National Socialist Movement (USA)."

I noted that my recent editing on both of the articles above was removed. It was decided that I seemed to be using the articles to publish my own websites or blogs. New information was contained in those sources, but I do respect Wikipedia's decision, do not wish to contest your removal of my editing, and I thank you for your attention. Sincerely, Dr. Jacques PLUSS.


You're not allowed to edit articles about yourself. Unless you're Jimbo Wales. Sharkface217 04:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not forbidden, but it is considered an undesireable conflict of interests. LeaHazel : talk : contribs 19:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this was taken from Wales article: Following this incident, Wales apologized for editing his own biography, which is practice generally frowned upon at Wikipedia. Wales said in the Wired interview, "People shouldn't do it, including me. I wish I hadn't done it."[7] However, he continues to assert that he is the sole founder of Wikipedia.[15] :) Noobeditor 00:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Are articles on shopping centers allowed on Wikipedia?

Hello all. I have been a Wikipedian for a couple of years now, and have edited many existing articles on local shopping centers in Phoenix, Arizona, where I live; and the San Francisco area, where I am originally from. Two of the articles on Phoenix malls were speedy deleted yesterday, citing lack of notability. The argument from the admin was that shopping malls in and of themselves are not appropriately notable since there are few scholarly "reliable secondary sources" available to support the text of each article (outside of local newspaper articles); and therefore such articles fall under the category of directory listings, which I have come to understand are not allowed on Wikipedia at all.

My argument in favor of inclusion would include the following assertions:

  1. Shopping centers are a topic of great general local interest.
  2. Shopping centers are critical in many ways to local economies. Neighborhoods (especially in the heavily suburban western United States) live and die based on the opening, closing, health, or lack thereof, of any one mall.
  3. Shopping centers are notable examples of local architecture - at the very least, they generate debate on architectural merit.
  4. Shopping centers are community gathering places and have become the modern "town square", making them relevant from a social and cultural standpoint.

As I stated on WP:DRV, it sounds like Wikipedia is moving towards eliminating ALL individual articles on shopping centers as they do not fit notability requirements as stated. If the articles I have questioned are deleted (and the consensus is currently leaning towards endorsement for deletion), the same must be done to about 75% of the rest, in the interest of fairness. If that is the case there could be hundreds of articles so targeted.

Can an official policy be formulated and publicly stated on the relevance, appropriateness, and/or notability of individual articles on shopping centers? If they are not allowed, that should be explicitly stated somewhere on an official policy page accessible to all editors.

Furthermore, is there a place where major announcements of page deletions and other policy implementation are made to all editors?

And lastly, can editors have the option to relocate such articles to other wikis or other resources on the Internet that may be a more appropriate home?

Thanks very much for reading.--Msr69er 12:23, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

  • While I have not yet read the DRV, there is a general and a specific concern. The general concern about any topic is whether an article can be written from the neutral point of view. In order to do that, we require sources independent of the topic and its proponents. If the only sources for a topic are a combination of self-published material and relatively trivial and/or routine news coverage (the annual Black Friday stories on the TV news), then there is no way to write an NPOV article.
  • With commercial ventures, the specific concern is that Wikipedia not be turned into a venue for advertising, and specifically to raise a Google ranking. There is the further awareness that a commercial establishment will employ advertising and press releases to raise its profile, so many editors try to be vigilent to identify puff pieces and unedited press releases.
  • Now, some malls are unquestionably notable, just as some companies are unquestionably notable. The Mall of America is at least as famous as many small cities. Suburban Square is considered by some to be the first mall, and so might be a good candidate for an article. On the other hand, I can't think why anyone who doesn't live within twenty miles of the place would care about 99% of the malls in the U.S., and that includes the ones at which I shop.
  • Your point about "fairness" is a bit off-the-mark. Each mall needs to be evaluated on its own merits, and since Wikipedia is not an advertisement, covering one mall does not mean that we have to cover all similarly-situated malls. There will always be marginal cases, and there is no way to ensure consistency across all of them. Moreover, consensus can change, so you will always find some inconsistency, because articles are written at different times. Robert A.West (Talk) 12:58, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
If the excellent criterion requiring the subject's relevance outside itself were generally applied, Wikipedia would be lightened of much less-than-marginal cruft. --Wetman 13:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
WP:LOCAL is a useful guideline here. I would agree that many of these deserve coverage, but in most cases the potential for expansion is severely limited; merging into a more general article (or better, initially placing the information in a more general article) is often the best solution. -- Visviva 15:29, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
What impact has the mall had beyond its own community? A routine shopping outlet full of nearly franchise and chain stores would not merit conclusion, but there could be exceptions. The original Sherman_Oaks_Galleria was in several films and a hit song. DurovaCharge! 16:18, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. It sounds like many of the individual articles that exist on malls may indeed be targets for eventual deletion in the future, if the guidelines I have learned about are to be applied on a case-by-case basis. I can tell you right now that several other similar articles to the ones I submitted to DRV, including a few more I have made edits to, do not pass the test. Perhaps this is the impetus for me to investigate alternative places on the Internet, maybe through Wikia, that might serve as a more useful home for this information, which I maintain has a high degree of validity. Please be assured that it is not my intention to come on Wikipedia and knowingly violate rules. Any suggestions on alternate places to go, if you know of any, would be of interest.--Msr69er 17:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

My own opinion is that some malls are notable, but that doesn't mean that all of them are. A mall should be evaluated as any other business per WP:CORP. If it is genuinely notable, meaning that it's had non-trivial mentions in the news, or had a scholarly book written about it, or meets other listed qualifications, and if references which can be used to verify the information are listed in the article, then I can see keeping a Wikipedia article about it. If, however, an article has little information except, "This is a big mall in Cleveland", and there are no references aside from the mall's own website, then the article, in my opinion, should be nominated for deletion. I'd also point out that I've been seeing many new articles show up that seem to be being created by real estate developers who are using Wikipedia to promote a property which is up for sale. Per the request from the Wikimedia Foundation[8], we should be aggressive about getting rid of this kind of spam. --Elonka 19:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Did many of the recent mall deletions end up being a combination of Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles + possible G11(spam)? In my case (Gurnee Mills), that's what it ended up being (there was a spammer who was peripherally involved in the article, turning it into a borderline G11 even though it wasn't necessarily G11 for most of its life; plus it had the forementioned no-sources issue, something we haven't yet been deleting articles for). It just would have been nice to have been given the 5 or 14-day warning to look around for sources before it was deleted. I've managed to find a few, and once I find one or two more, I'll recreate it from scratch. *shrug* Whatever. --Interiot 20:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Submit a deletion review for Gurnee Mills; I agree, that was a perfectly valid article that shouldn't have been speedily deleted (I always check the history of a G11 article before deleting; 42 edits from numerous articles means it isn't a single-purpose article, and at worst, should be sent through AfD). Make sure to drop me a line if you submit a DR. EVula // talk // &#9775; // 21:26, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I have noticed that there is a somewhat uneven coverage of shopping malls in Wikipedia. In particular, there are not articles for some of the largest malls in the world. I was somewhat surprised by this, given the importance of malls in commerce worldwide. There is also a variety of scholarly investigation of malls, and the evolution of their appearance over the years. I think frankly there should be an organized attempt to rectify this situation.--Filll 19:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

You could always make a Shopping Malls Wikiproject...~user:orngjce223how am I typing? 22:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Malls don't completely fit into the mold of WP:CORP. Yes, they are almost always private, but they have, in many cases, replaced traditional downtown business districts. Furthermore, despite being private, they are generally open to the public, and are used for get-togethers. Many also have completely public spaces, often as a result of a tax agreement. For example, they might house a county's library or have meeting space that is rentable to the public. I thus don't see them as purely fitting into WP:CORP. -newkai t-c 22:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

My comment: wikipedia is not a city guide. Someone might develop an interest in "gas stations with friendly attendants", and start listing them on Wikipedia. There has to be some standard of appropriateness. Richiar 17:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe only famous malls should have articles made about them, such as the largest shopping mall in the world, which may be a point of intrest and tourist attraction. Noobeditor 00:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Protect user pages

I propose that all user pages should be semi-protected by default. I can't see any reason why an unregistered user should be allowed to edit another user's page, or why a user registered for less than four days needs a user page of their own. My user page was recently vandalised, and looking over others, it appears that it is almost always inflammatory in nature. User page vandalism is a problem, and a seemingly preventable one at that. - Jack (talk) 14:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why users registered for less than four days can't have a userpage. If a page gets vandalised a lot, then the user can request it be protected. Some pages are never vandalised. --Majorly 14:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I've always thought that user page vandalism was a healthy test of character... people who can't deal with it are likely to have problems dealing with other aspects of Wikipedia.  :-) -- Visviva 15:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, no. There's no compelling reason to forbid people from making their own userpage for four-five days; sometimes the first test edits are done there while they figure out wiki syntax. Established users/admins are much more likely targets for vengeful vandalism, I'd think, and security through obscurity might actually apply to a new user among thousands. -- nae'blis 17:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I second that, userpages shouldn't be auto-semi'd. Personally, my only "contributions" for the first week that I found Wikipedia were solely to my userpage (making bookmarks to the pages that interested me). It wasn't a stellar beginning, but as Nae'blis said, it's one way to learn wikitext... --Interiot 23:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • We don't semi-protect anything by default (because indeed, some users start with their userpage, and many welcome all kinds of edits). However, I'd be happy to protect yours if you want me to. (Radiant) 17:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • A user's custom css/js is only editable by that user (and admins). Why is that? --*Spark* 16:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • To stop me from going and making every page you view turn into a YTMND collage of shocksite images, of course. If it were possible to vandalize other's css pages it would be quite possible to mess them up so badly that they literally could not edit anything or even fix the vandalism. --tjstrf talk 05:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:AGF. Even anon users are assumed to make all edits, even those to others User Page, in good faith. If your user page is a target of anon vandalism, you may request it to be semiprotected; but we should not assume that all anon editors are potential vandals, and premptively shut off part of wikipedia from them for any reason. --Jayron32 05:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose We'll always have userpage vandalism; a much better solution would be to just disable editing by anyone that isn't an admin. ;-) EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Better yet, let's ban userpages! >:-D -Freekee 05:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

New proposal/survey to clarify "use common names" guideline/convention

There is a new proposal and survey to clarify the meaning/applicability of the "use common names" guideline/convention. See WT:NC#Proposal: clarify meaning of "use most common name" guideline. --Serge 00:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

List article title changes

Perhaps it would be worthwhile to change the titles of articles that are merely lists of people (such as List of Jews, List of atheists, etc.) to something more appropriate for its content, such as "List of notable Jews" or "List of notable Atheists". My reasoning for this proposal is simply that the articles are not intended (as far as I know) to actually catalog every Jew or Atheist in existence, but to catalog those worthy of mention. Thoughts? --Jmax- 07:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, and I can see your point - but, arguably, anyone who is included on Wikipedia at all ought to be "notable" in some way. So your proposed change might be redundant. Walton monarchist89 10:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I vote with the "redundant" camp. People added to these lists should either already have an article on Wikipedia, or qualify for one by reason of notability, in which case the redlink listed is a helpful reminder on what articles need to be created in a certain topic/category. LeaHazel : talk : contribs 12:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Human Rights

I am a representative of a non-governmental organization to the United Nations. This entails attending meetings, conferences, briefings; organizing any or all of the above; and lobbying member states for changes in policies that are of interest to our organization. I recently attended a briefing for the NGOs in observance of International Human Rights Day. One of the speakers was from Chile who spoke about some of the things the new president, Michelle Bachelet, is doing to improve human rights in her country. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything in your entry on Chile about human rights. Since this is such an important issue, I would ask that your Board of Editors consider creating a category on Human Rights practices for every country. Whoever is doing the writing on a particular country could go to the independent Human Rights Watch website and the UN Human Rights website to get information. Ultimately, aren't the human rights practices in a country just as important to know about as their art, music, language and culture?

Thank you for your consideration.

Charlotte Hubbell —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.174.5.110 (talk • contribs).

Is this U.N. spam? —Wknight94 (talk) 19:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • We have "Human rights in..." articles on 83 countries so far, see Category:Human rights by country. Anyone can edit Wikipedia so if you'd like to improve the existing articles or create new ones, you can do it. If you have the pull to get the "UN Human rights website" to release their text under the GFDL that would probably spur development. --W.marsh 19:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Charlotte Hubbell, I hope that you agree with W.marsh. Your idea is good ; no Board of Editors exists here, however, anyone might try to collect help for the task - creating a project, &c. Does this answer your concern ? -- DLL .. T 18:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
The proposal is a good idea, although I don't think this person understands that she could make that contribution herself - and is probably in a position to supply some very useful information. It's interesting to see how non-Wikipedians think this site operates. DurovaCharge! 22:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Although a speech made at a UN conference, unless published somewhere, is not a reliable source. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

CHICOTW

I would like to place {{CHICOTW}} (seen below) on the Chicago article page. It was moved very promptly to the talk page. {{CHICOTW}}
The template is used to advertise the COTW on WikiProject Chicago and other Chicago/Illinois ect. related discussion boards and pages. It would be very useful in generating traffic to the WikiProject Chicago and its COTW pages. I think all Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities should be able to place a collaboration notice on their corresponding cities article page. Is there a policy? If not I would like some feedback here. TonyTheTiger 22:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Collaborations of the week are self references and meta content. The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:Avoid self-references. So not, it does not belong on the article page. GRBerry 22:43, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I agree. If we all created templates advertising non-article related subjects, it could get out of control, and would dilute the quality of the articles. --Iantresman 23:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

O.K. so I was a bit hasty then. I am attempting to revive an inactive COTW. I thought it would be as simple as reformatting the page and posting a notice on the Chicago page. Will the talk page generate enough traffic to make my effort useful. TonyTheTiger 23:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
For a well-watched article like Chicago, probably. --Carnildo 04:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Dealing with vandals

Well, I don't really know where to put this.. When dealing with an obvious vandal (like the one here), what's the appropriate course of action to take? I flagged it with {{db}}, and went to the user's talk page and used {{test1}}. Was this correct? --Split Infinity (talk) 02:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that was close enough, though there was probably a more specific test template you could have issued him. If he keeps going, you should report him to the WP:AIV board. --tjstrf talk 02:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
That article looked like a {{db-nonsense}} article rather than vandalism. General warnings you can use for nonsense/vandal new page creators are talk templates like {{test1article}}. Usually you will notice when you tag an article with tags like the nonsense tag I provided above, at the very bottom there is a little note which provides a template you could also use to warn the user on their talk page. To research about new page template warnings/db labels check here, it lists warnings used in the category descriptions.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 02:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Model infobox, model articles

{{Infobox Female Model Bio
| name= Riya Dev Varma 
| image-name= <!--Note to editor: Fair use images may be used only in the article namespace. See Wikipedia:Fair use criteria [[:Image:Riya promo.jpg]]-->
| caption= Riya Sen
| birthplace=[[Kolkata]], [[India]] 
| birthdate= {{birth date and age|1981|1|24}}
| hair= Black
| eyes= Brown
| bust= 32.5
| waist= 25
| hips= 36
| height= 5'1" (155.4 cm)
| weight= 
| size=  5½
| site= [http://www.riyasen.org/ Riya Sen]
}}

I've been clashing with a number of editors writing Indian actress articles. They've been using a "model infobox" that was apparently developed for people writing articles about Western models and supermodels. Here's an example of such an infobox, from Riya Sen.

I haven't ever thought of myself as a feminist, but this infobox upsets me, in that it treats women as pieces of meat to be weighed and measured.

I'm also offended as a scholar in that none of these claims to weight (not filled in here, but in the code), measurements, and dress sizes are ever referenced. They can't be: they're bogus claims, or ephemera.

I know that dress sizes no longer mean anything -- there's been a constant "deflation" of sizes, as manufacturers slap a size 8 label on a dress that would have been a size 14 thirty years ago. The rag trade has discovered that no one wants to be a size 14, but will buy a size 14 labeled as an 8. So there's incentive to cheat. If an actress or model claims that her size is X, she's flat out lying.

I've also listened to countless friends talking about how they gained or lost weight, lost inches when they started an exercise program, even gained inches in the bust when they got breast implants. Just how can we publish some measurements, derived ghu knows how, as if they were immutable facts about a woman? One editor, asked where he got his numbers, said they were from a beauty contest web site. I said, "That was years ago, how do you know they haven't changed?" He replied that since they were actresses and models, it was their business to keep their bodies the same, therefore their bodies did not change.

A related issued has been the lavish inclusion of company names in the context of "she was chosen as the Lakme model of the year" and suchlike. I think that this is advertising and I don't want to see it sneaked into the article under the guise of reportage. The Indian editors' comment is that this is OK in the regular model articles (see Kate Moss) so it must be OK in Indian actress articles. Do model and celebrity articles get a pass on the advertising rules? Or do we apply those even there?

If I can convince the community at large that the model infobox and the advertising have to go, there are a fair number of model articles that need to be revised. I posted at Model (person) but no one has replied. I don't know how to get feedback from that community. Zora 23:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Would you feel slightly better if the fields were referenced or had "approx" tagged on them? I personally do not see the problem with this infobox. It no more demeans women than all the articles on porn stars. Infoboxes are only meant to collect general infomation into a nice little box. It's not meant to demean or deavalue anything. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 23:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I looked at the porn star articles -- sheesh, I never considered that such things would exist here. Yes, I think those articles demean women too. Questions of taste aside, however, all the comments re verifiability of information apply to the pornstar infoboxes as they do to the model infoboxes. No references, and the assumption that these are eternally true measurements. Adding approx wouldn't begin to solve the problem.
I suppose that, on the grounds of "no censorship," prurient interest in women's bodies might have to be tolerated. However, like any other POV, it has to have references, not just figures pulled out of the ether. A reference would be something like, "On X date, model Y asserted that she weighed XX pounds and measured XX-XX-XX," and then a ref to the published article where she made this assertion. Her assertion is not necessarily true. She is very likely minimizing her weight and waist size, and exaggerating her bust and hip measurements. Zora 00:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, but this is not at all "misogynyc" for the same box is applied to men. See for example John Holmes (actor) or Ron Jeremy as it states their penis' size. We can remove the infobox for both or leave it for both. Lincher 02:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Until the day comes where we can spirit models away on a whim for physical testing to ensure Wikipedia articles accurately reflect their physical attributes, we'll just have to take their word for it. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
It might be wise to insist on a reputable source for such measurements. --Improv 03:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
These allegedly witty comebacks are bizarre. Clearly the context matters. Sure there might be an info box on Ron Jeremy showing his penis size. But does that mean there should be one for Abraham Lincoln shwoing his penis size (perhaps it's in his autopsy). Even if we had that information availalbe on old Abe, I don't think it belongs in the Abraham Lincoln article. As for the article Zora's working on, I'm not sure about that either, but simply syaying it's appropriate because Wikipedia publishes Ron Jeremy's penis size si bizarre. I would also say the data should be removed if no verifiable source could be provided for it. --63.250.231.17 04:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I would think penis size to be an appropriate, if not necessarily useful, bit of data for a porn star's article. As for models, there's already a source for this particular models bio, even if its not cited directly. Unless people are just whipping up guesses, I would say such information is readily available and reliable in the case of this particular model. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 04:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Back to the infoboxes - vital stats of a female model are clearly relevant information. Agreed, they contain information that is very likely to change, but as long as one mentions the point when measurements were taken, it shouldn't be an issue. Gamesmaster G-9 05:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The advertising stuff is a completely separate discussion issue, not just a minor point to be sneaked into another discussion in the guise of an afterthought. I'd welcome Zora wholeheartedly to initiate a discussion on brand names featured in articles on showbiz personalities who are notable as models, especially as there career highlights. It was most inapropriate to imply that Lakme the brand (there goes an advertisement of Lakme) was made by Riya Sen's endorsement, not the other way round. For someone who declares a war against advertisement, it should be a priority to establish a guideline, by consenus, to differentiate advertisement from information/education.

Now, back to the infobox. The only point in Zora's complaint that I see is that these measurements are not properly cited for source, though the level of precision Zora is demanding may actually put almost all the WP articles to a tough test. Otherwise models are and always was appreciated for their looks and their figure (appreciated as meat if you prefer), and their statistics is much an anti-woman statement as there very existence. If women's bodies and its commercialization is so scandalous, I propose that we remove all female models from WP, they all may represent anti-woman statements (check The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer).

I see no problem with the infobox itself, may be all they require is a request to post the source for the stated stats. By the way, the implied difference between Western models having a right to flaunt their brands and Indian models lacking it was amazingly racist for someone who speaks for women's dignity and stuff. Thank you all. - Aditya Kabir 15:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Aditya, I don't think Western model articles should be full of brand names either. Please don't hint that I'm a racist. But I agree that it might be a good idea to bring up the advertisement discussion in a separate thread.
As for the measurements -- I'd suggest that they be sourced, to reputable sources, and dated. Readers will be able to evaluate ten-year-old measurements with the necessary grain of salt. They may also require a disclaimer on the order of "stated by subject, not verified". We don't otherwise let people write their own biographies on WP. I don't regard pornstars and models as such reliable sources that they should be exempt from this requirement.
I'd also suggest that the measurements be moved OUT of the infobox. The vast majority of WP biographical infoboxes give data like name, birth and death dates and places, and reason for notability. Having a separate infobox for people who are notable only as bodies IS demeaning, don't you think? As someone said previously, imagine the porn star infobox applied to Abraham Lincoln ... or perhaps Mahatma Gandhi. In terms of the Indian actress articles, the use of the model infobox has meant that some actresses, who were never models or beauty contestants, get an infobox of the same type as given to any other notable figure, like a writer or politician. Actresses who were models or beauty contestants get infoboxes that suggest that they're only notable because of their bodies. That's just not even-handed. Zora 01:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Infobox for the occasion, that's how it works. Your assertion that we should somehow blanket infoboxes is ridiculous. That'd be a pointless mess of code and a severe risk to Wikipedia integrity (literally speaking). A model is notable for modeling, Ghandi is notable for humanitarianism, and presidents are notable for being presidents. It is in no way uneven-handed to classify an article on a person by what they're most notable for. If a model is a crappy actor or does it as a side job, are you seriously suggesting we use the actor infobox simply to be more "politically correct?" I'm sorry to say this, but it seems as if you're trying to make Wikipedia seem sexist. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually - models ARE in fact notable for their bodies. Its their job to have great bodies, and they perform that. I didn't understand the Gandhi example. Its like asking - "Can you imagine Cindy Crawford with a scientist infobox". Its not demeaning, just bizarre. Gamesmaster G-9 03:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think the essential question is; "If these women do not feel personally demeaned or debased by their use of their bodies to make a living, why should you?" I have many friends who are sexworkers, and several who are current or former "porn stars" and though most of them will tell you that it isn't the world's best job, all of them have reasons why they do now or did once prefer it over other employment. How, for example, is making love with the camera rolling more demeaning that cleaning toilets mucking out stables or asking "Do you want fries with that?" for minimum wage? (And I've done all three of those things, BTW.) Why is how they choose to live their lives threatening to YOU? --BenBurch 05:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I have no quarrel with the way they live; that's their choice. However, there's no evidence whatsoever that any of them WANT to be represented on WP by the infobox in question. This isn't advertising, or co-eds gone wild, or the Man Show, or any of the other venues in which women get money or attention by appealing to men's prurient interests. If Paris Hilton or Britney Spears don't get model or pornstar infoboxes, despite their public (and pubic) shenanigans, then neither should the women in question now. Zora 05:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thats a complete non sequitur. Britney Spears in neither a model nor a porn star - she's a singer. Riya Sen, Celina Jaitley and the others did have careers as models before turning to movies. Hence they have model infoboxes. And hello - why should a model not WANT to be referred to as a model on WP? Its not something they are or should be embarassed of. I'm afraid this entire discussion suggests a regressive mindset. Gamesmaster G-9 05:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Damn, you're faster at expressing the same sentiment. This is getting ridiculous. Now we're to try and assume what the subject wants? Not gonna happen. &ndash; Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
And what exactly is Paris Hilton? Her bio lists "Singer, Fashion model, Actress, Author", but in line with what you said before, she doesn't do any of those things well and they're not really what she's notable for. In all honesty, she's notable having sex on camera, just like Ron Jeremy. Curiously, she doesn't get {{female adult bio}}, but {{infobox celebrity}}. It seems sometimes we do put some weight into how a person wants to represent themselves. &ndash;  Anþony  talk  13:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, there are occasions when we need to respect the wishes of the livin person in question, but what Zora is suggesting that some women may be offended if their vital stats were put in an infobox on WP. Now sticking to the example of Riya Sen (the lovely lady whose picture is directly above) - this is a woman who has walked the ramp, who has appeared in a number of ad campaigns, and posed semi-nude for a calendar. The information on her vital stats were put there by me. I got them off a website that serves as a database of Indian models, for the benefit of advertisers. Given that she carried out her activities as a model in the public eye and that her measurements have been circulating among photographers for a while now - how can we make the leap to suggest that she would specifically take offense to the said mmeasaurements being put up on WP? Gamesmaster G-9 18:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the essential question is whether the information is notable enough to belong in an infobox. Personally, I think not. Speaking as someone who likes ogling the scantily clad females, I don't need to see her measurements in the infobox (and dress size is just ridiculous). Or her hair color. Maybe her height. And birthday. How about just use the Celebrity infobox? -Freekee 05:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Apologies. Dear Zora, I have nothing against you personally. In fact I hold your efforts to put WP right in real high esteem. I hope I can be of one tenth of your use and resolve someday. But, yes, I'll hint, smirk, scream and shout at all flavours of bigotry and zealotry whenever and wherever I can. And, trust me, racist overtones can creep into even the very best of intentions. It's dictated by the culture we live in (just take a trip to an international soccer match, or read some of Michel Foucault's thoughts), and, yes, it's the same in Hawaii and Bangladesh, Iceland and Madagascar. My sincere apologies to you. But, please, try to remember your "tanks & Islamabad" comment, to remember how a slip of insensitivity can prove as racism. Thank you. - Aditya Kabir 16:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to Wikipedia not being censored, I'm free to say that these infoboxes are the crappiest piece of shit that ever happended to Wikipedia. All bio infoboxes. Only completely stupid morons can prefer infoboxes over text. --Pjacobi 14:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a lot of patronising nonsense up here. First of all, Gamesmaster's attempt to seize some sort of moral high ground on the basis that he got the information from a modeling website is a little pointless; the claim that some -possibly unauthorised - website thinks that some potential employers would be interested is irrelevant to whether or not WP thinks that that information is relevant to a person notable as an actor. Zora, how the individual wants to be represented is clearly not directly relevant. How she or he is notable is.
Secondly, physical statistics are relevant for individuals notable as porn stars. Height and dress size are relevant for models. Bust size is probably irrelevant for the vast majority of actresses. If someone wants to add the information, it can be sourced, and will almost certainly be deleted unless most users think that it is directly relevant to the individual. To have a box that seems to imply that it is relevant to all individuals is presumptuous, and somewhat puerile. Hornplease 12:20, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not commenting on the substance of Zora's complaint, but it's mildly irritating to have "dress size" listed as though every country in the world used American standards. I have no idea what India uses, but certainly a size 8 in the US is not the same as a size 8 in the UK. Loganberry (Talk) 05:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Where did Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep come from?

I'm confused about how Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep became a guideline. From what I can tell, it has never been proposed, attempts to tag it as such was reverted according to the history. There's not consensus on Talk (no active discussions either). Does anybody know something I don't know? -- Steve Hart 08:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Requiring we do those things to it would be instruction creep, wouldn't it? Jokes aside, it was probably tagged a guideline, no-one objected, and since there is a consensus regarding it now no harm is done in having skipped a minor unofficial step of the process. As for the ultimate source, it's from meta:, as the original version clearly shows[9]. On meta: it's been around since 2004[10] and enjoys a nice acting consensus of editors. --tjstrf talk 08:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
From what I can tell from the history, the article originated at Wikipedia:Instruction creep before it was moved (see talk at [11]) into the guideline space on August 3, and briefly tagged as a proposal the same day [12] before the same editor the next day tagged it as an essay [13]. It was then tagged as a guideline by a different editor on September 9 [14] with edit summary: It is a longstanding guideline to avoid ins.creep, as a corollary to policy WP:NOT a bureaucracy, even though the few comments on talk at that time indicated it should be an essay. (btw: I see I put this at the top of page, moving to bottom) -- Steve Hart 09:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The page originates from meta (m:instruction creep), was written in 2004 and has been a guiding principle since before it was written. There appears to be some confusion here about what a guideline is (see WP:POL) and how they are made (see WP:PPP). Specifically, Steve seems to allude that there is a formal process that needs to be followed to make a guideline - but we do not in fact have such a process. We should ask ourselves whether this page is (1) actionable and (2) consensual. The first is obvious, as it specifies a course of action. The second is visible all over the wiki where we, indeed, avoid instruction creep. Note that the talk page lists a total of 43 users who concur. The counterquestion is, can you find me anyone who thinks we should use instruction creep, or bureaucratic instructions for the sake of covering every possible angle? "It sounds like an essay" doesn't really mean anything. (Radiant) 12:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I was under the impression that the process outlined at Wikipedia:How to create policy guided the making of guidelines and policies. And I know that consensus needs to be reached, which we don't have yet according to the talk page. And yes, I believe instructions can be quite handy sometimes. What I disagree with specifically is how that "guideline" is written up, it's unspecified and comes off saying that our policies and guidelines aren't that important (something I can do something about of course). On a second note, I see that the "guideline" now is demoted to proposed. -- Steve Hart 17:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
For the sake of correctness, the talk page doesn't list 43 users who concur, it lists 43 editors who has quote, "referenced instruction creep during discussions". Which was another thing that made me cringe: naming editors who has used the expression at one time or another, found by doing a earch I suppose, thereby giving the impression that all of them support the proposal. For all we know none of them even knows their name is listed on that page. Just saying. -- Steve Hart 18:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • There is something to be said for the idea that our policies and guidelines aren't that important. Indeed, we want people to be able to edit freely without having to learn The Rules first. Note that the 43-list isn't meant to indicate support for the proposal, it is meant to indicate that the term is indeed in use as such, and if you follow the links you'll note many remarks discouraging instruction creep. Sometimes we make a guideline simply by writing down what already happens. (Radiant) 16:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The page says nothing about ignoring policy. What it says is that a lot of proposals suggest long complicated procedures which are complicated for their own sake, when either a very simple guideline will solve the problem, or the problem, if it exists, cannot be fixed with such a policy. Fagstein 06:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I would be surprised if "instruction creep" were encouraged. —Centrx→talk &bull; 17:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Two issues: 1) One problem with "instruction creep" is that it leads to shoving beans up your nose... People devise all sorts of rules to address problems that don't exist yet. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 2) The other problem is that this guideline is LARGELY being ignored, especially in the realm of Notability Guidelines. People get pissed off over an AfD of a favored article, then go about creating a guideline to prevent it from happening in the future. Many of these proposed guidelines directly violate long established policies like WP:V and WP:NOT, not to mention the very spirit of the original Primary Notability Criteria. Not only do we need a guideline like Avoiding Instructional Creep, we need to apply it more liberally. --Jayron32 04:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

You know, I used to think that I'm one of the people who does read instructions, but then I met Wikipedia and I can't seem to read all of them no matter how hard I try, so I'm constantly stumbling over guildelines I've never heard of before...and I'm just wondering if I'm the only one out here having this problem... Cryptonymius 19:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope, certainly not the only one. I've built (still a work in progress) an editor's index to try to keep track of all the things I've come across that pertain to a given subject, since I couldn't find anything similar. In general, I think most editors just do their best and shrug it off when they inadvertently make a mistake. John Broughton | Talk 20:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

answers obvious id have thought, leave all the info on the page, if you dnt like it compose yourself and put a counter argument, cenorship goes against everything the net and wiki stand for. i get very annoyed about all the religious arguments but its best to have all the aguments there, fear that somene undecided will come alng and be swayed by one of the well written arguments into beliving somthing which they dont really want to, if they could see that both sides of a dscusion have eloquent speekers then they can make a more informed decision.

Original research and griefing

I'm familiar with wikipedia's policy on original research, and understand its value. From my experience, however, the majority of articles on Wikipedia are original research -- there are no serious academic articles on Bravestarr or Friendship Bracelets, and according to WP:NOR referencing websites doesn't count.

Because WP:NOR is an official policy despite the fact that it does not apply to most of Wikipedia, I've noticed that, in addition to its intended use as an extension of "Wikipedia is not for things you made up at school today", it's also being used by griefers to undermine articles about subjects they don't like, or just for random bullying.

For instance, I don't particularly care for Garth Brooks. If I were a griefer, I could "legitimately vandalize" the page by putting [citation needed] tags after almost every single sentence in the article, and drop a big WP:NOR banner on the top, and Wikipedia policy would actually support this vandalism rather than discourage it. Even if someone complained that I was abusing WP:NOR and that my usage was not in the "spirit" of the policy, the policy would still be on my side, and the best recourse the defenders of that article would have would be to wage an edit war against me and any literalists who felt that the word of the policy was more important than the spirit of the policy, and hope that we gave up on the edit war before they did.

I guess what this boils down to is that I think that WP:NOR and [citation needed] need to include sections on "when WP:NOR / [citation needed] is not necessary", because they're already starting to be abused. Luvcraft 16:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a work in progress towards the overriding goal of producing a world class encyclopedia. Someday, we will either have reliable sources for those vast majority of articles on Wikipedia that cross into the original search realm or the articles will be deleted. As for the here and now, a request for citation is a far leap from vandalism and even if it is annoying there is an easy solution to the problem--provide a source. There doesn't need to be a citation for every line since even an editor with minimum skills could craft an article to where an entire paragraph (or several lines) has a single source at the end. Agne 20:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't see anything about "the overriding goal of producing a world class encyclopedia" in the Wikipedia article on Wikipedia. In fact I thought that that was the primary difference between Wikipedia and Nupedia, was that Wikipedia strived to be well-written but all-inclusive, while Nupedia was going to be the strict and official one. Is there an article somewhere about Wikipedia's goals that I'm missing? Luvcraft 20:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
To respond to an earlier note (and to keep this on track, maybe), WP:NOR and [citation needed] aren't necessarily related. That most or every sentence or section in an article, tagged or not, lacks a source is a WP:V problem. WP:NOR is where an editor essentially creates something out of whole cloth. Compare:
  • On November 1, 2006, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. announced that Garth Brooks, made history as the company's top selling music artist of all time. That's either true or not true; it needs a reliable source for verification.
  • Brooks' Oklahoma roots account for the wide range of his song-writing. Open skies and low population density -- emblamatic of Oklahoma and Texas - are highly correlated with a need to do a variety of tasks in order to make a living, something that Brooks experienced vicariously through the many jobs that his parents held and the many things that his neighbors did to scratch a living from of the land. That's "original research" (I just made it up). John Broughton | Talk 20:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
How important is it to source that line about the Wal-Mart announcement? -Freekee 02:29, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
repsonse: WP:NOR says NOTHING about websites not being valid references. Many websites are valid references, and they can and should be used with frequency. There is a difference between a reliable website and an unreliable one; just like there is a difference between a reliable newspaper, and the fanzine written and printed on a home computer. There is a difference between unsourced and original research. If the information likely exists somewhere, and just hasn't been correctly referenced to an outside source yet, it is simply an unsourced statement. It is verifiable even if it has not been yet referenced. Original research is information that is not likely to exist ANYWHERE outside of wikipedia. Its simply; if an article has been tagged for deletion by a "griefer" as you call them, show that someone, somewhere outside of wikipedia and outside of the subject of the article cared enought to write about it. It needn't be a serious academic source as you call it; it just needs to be a reliable source; the threshold for which is actually pretty low. --Jayron32 23:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not using the term "griefer" to refer to people who legitimately propose articles for deletion or ask for citation where citation is reasonably necessary; I'm using the term to refer to people who exploit wikipedia's policies to make "grief" for other people. As for referencing websites, I've gone back and read through WP:NOR, which loosely defines reliable sources as books, journals, newspapers and magazines. I took this to mean that websites were not considered reliable sources, but now realize that journals, newspapers, and magazines published online probably are reliable sources. Luvcraft 00:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
It's a case-by-case basis isn't it? The Journal for Used Toothbrush Collectors which has a subscription base of 12 is probably not a reliable source. However the Journal of the American Medical Association is. It's not whether it's printed on paper, or published on the web that makes it reliable. Rather it's whether it has a history of giving information that it believes is factual and whether many other people share that viewpoint. By "many" let's just arbitrarily say "a thousand" as a number I pulled out of thin air. Wjhonson 05:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Arbitration appeals

Can arbitration cases be appealed? I found one reference to appealing,[15], but no further details? --Iantresman 22:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I rather hope not. The whole point of Arbcom is that it can produce final decisions, which, whether correct or not, will put an end to dispute and allow us to get on with the business of building an encyclopedia. However, I've raised the question at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration policy, where hopefully an informed response will be forthcoming. --
If a decision is made which might not be correct, then it probably hasn't addressed the cause of the problem, and may reoccur. --Iantresman 11:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I would assume User:Jimbo Wales could do it if he felt the urge, but he'd probably avoid making any such overruling proclamations unless the ArbCom did something totally crazy and against the foundation principals. Otherwise, probably not. --tjstrf talk 05:38, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, I feel that the recent Arbitration case did indeed produce some findings which I feel (a) were against the foundation principals (b) were not based on evidence (c) were not admissible (d) Were unfair in issuing its decisions. --Iantresman 11:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
You can appeal to Jimbo, but unless you've got a very compelling case, he won't change a decision. He hasn't overturned any decision in the past three years. --Carnildo 10:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Trolling: I know it when I see it

Everyone agrees that trolling is bad. It's right up there with vandalism and spam. But often people disagree about what constitutes trolling. Since it is as bad as vandalism and spam, editors often take it upon themselves to remove what they consider trolling. This then sets off edit wars with people who don't consider it trolling.

Reverting mainspace articles to remove vandalism and spam is uncontroversial. But trolling happens on discussion pages. I believe that discussion pages exist to document what people said, and editing them to remove trolling doesn't make what was said go away. It's right there in the history.

Furthermore, I firmly believe that whether a post is trolling is a matter to be decided by the community, not a small group of editors who often are emotionally involved.

At first I thought I was the only victim of this. Then I saw the same group do the same thing to another editor.

I believe this has to stop. I work on Wikipedia for fun, and if it stops being fun I will stop doing it. If the community decides I am a troll, I will be happy to leave. But this is not a decision to be made by a small group.

If you believe I am a troll, there is no need to participate in this discussion. You will not listen to anything I say, and anything you say to me would just be "feeding the troll". It is impossible for me to prove I am not a troll, since by definition everything a troll says is suspect.

If, however, you can look at my edit history and AGF about me, I welcome your input. --Ideogram 06:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Personally I believe, removal of one user's comments from a Talk page should be against policy for *any* reason whatsoever. It is so outrageously antagonistic that it does not serve any wikipurpose. Actually it serves the purpose of keeping the mediation cabal and the anti-vandal police active, also the sockpuppet warriors... and the vandals for that matter. Go figure! Wjhonson 07:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, with an obvious exception for personal attacks and vandalism. --tjstrf talk 07:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Eh? If the community thinks you are a troll you will leave but if anyone here thinks you are a troll they should keep their mouth shut and not add to this thread? eh? (Never interacted with this editor before) I find that a bizzare statement to make - it's basically saying "speak up if you support me or shut your gob if you don't!" --Charlesknight 20:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I already know who thinks I am a troll. I also know who does not think I am a troll. I am looking for opinions from those who are yet undecided. --Ideogram 20:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)


I would be very interested in hearing opinions on this edit. --Ideogram 19:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

In my experience, you know the process is doomed when a) people start deleting other's comments, and b) someone accuses someone else of a personal attack for accusing someone of a personal attack. -Patstuarttalk|edits 20:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
What do you think I should do in this situation? --Ideogram 20:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Patstuart. It was debatable whether your post was trolling or not, but it wasn't constructive. Neither was the reaction, of course. What to do? Stop your side of it. Don't make it worse. That's all you can do. AnonEMouse (squeak) 21:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
It was my view. Are you saying I should not speak my opinion? That the other party should be allowed to say whatever he wants without opposition? --Ideogram 21:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Personally I believe that you should report this to WP:PAIN, as far as I am concern you obviously were not trolling, and accusing other person of trolling (not to mention deleting his comment) should be a blockable offence per WP:CIV/WP:NPA. Unfortunatly me experience shows that unlike 3RR, abuse of those policies is usually ignored :( -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Piotr, I appreciate your input, but I think it is difficult for you to be objective here. --Ideogram 21:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
"Wikipedia is not a forum for unregulated free speech." But, let's look at your statement again. "I am quite certain nothing will come of this RfC." If that's actually so, then there doesn't seem to be a reason to fight about it. If you can avoid hurting someone's feelings, and get the same result, then, yes, you should avoid hurting their feelings. AnonEMouse (squeak) 21:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

(outdenting) For some reason Ghirla doesn't care about hurting my feelings (or those of many other people). Do you really think it is best for the project to let him have his way and just wring our hands? Are you saying his feelings are more important than mine? --Ideogram 21:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

No, and if he had asked for comments on his behaviour here, I would write something similar to him. He didn't, and you did. I could, of course, write for advice to you on how he should behave, but ... I'm a strong fan of being "constructive", as you may have gathered. :-) By the way, "he did it first", and "he did it worse", is not usually accepted as sufficient excuse. AnonEMouse (squeak) 21:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
You know, I do have a temper. Given sufficient motivation, I can restrain it. But if I feel I am doing all the work to maintain the peace I am likely to decide it is not worth it. In order to follow your advice, I would have to avoid Ghirla and, perhaps, leave Wikipedia entirely. I think there are not a few editors who feel the same way. I honestly don't feel it is right to tell them all, "let him be a jerk, as long as you don't reciprocate". --Ideogram 22:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Do not feed the trolls. Now that that's answered, can you take your personal conflict elsewhere? Fagstein 06:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I would just remind people to assume good faith before leveling accusations. Wikipedia can often get rather ugly when that principle is forgotten. EReference 08:42, 13 December 2006 (UTC) I would add that this type of matter can quickly become VERY ugly when the "assume good faith" principle is ignored, as I have found out. EReference 09:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

A "good" troll and a legitimately concerned person cannot always be distinguished and we should always assume good faith. For example this comment about Peter Garrett's dancing abilities.. The comments are legitimate, and anyone who's seen a Midnight Oils video clip can attest. Sadly the comments were deleted shortly after being made, and again after I tried to restore them. —Pengo talk · contribs 02:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Tribal and Oral Knowledge wiki

The call for a citation in Mukurob (yes, I am the original author) sparked a train of thought which I think is interesting and might be very important.

Throughout the world, but especially in Africa, knowledge, news, fiction and so on are all passed on orally. Only rarely are these nuggets of information (and disinformation) formally recorded, and then often with great differences of interpretation and content.

In the article, I assert that Nama oral tradition predicted that 'white' rule would end when the rock structure collapsed. My statement is based on several conversations in the Seventies and Eighties, around campfires and while travelling through the desert. There are no citations; the Nama stories are largely unrecorded.

The fact that I cannot provide a citation does not particularly bother me; I think that factoid is interesting but not significant. Probably a coincidence. There have been several other similar predictions the most famous of which is the prediction of Nonquase, a Xhosa girl, that two suns would rise and the white people would be driven into the sea by the ancestors who have risen from the grave. Well, that didn't happen.

What does concern me (and prompted my relating the prediction) is that these snippets information are just going to be lost through inattention, and worse, through self-censorship. On the other hand, I do recognise and agree with the policy of NOR; however, these oral nuggets are only unpublished, not original.

Perhaps there should be another wiki for this sort of thing. Before it is too late.

not young enough to know everything 04:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Oral sources have become acceptable to historians and other academics, but unfortunetaly I don't think we can use them in Wikipedia. To ensure accuracy and NPOV all our articles need to be verifiable, and there is no reasonable way to verify such oral sources. - SimonP 15:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Realistically, we have too many pranksters who make stuff up to see if they can get away with it. Some of it is quite reasonable-sounding unless an expert is available. We have to require accessible sources for verification, or risk allowing false content. Fan-1967 16:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
If historians and other academics publish work about such oral histories, then we can use them as a source. --Sam Blanning(talk) 17:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that having a Wiki (separate from Wikipedia) to record oral history is a very admirable goal. Wikis are perfect for this, since they allow the user to enter the information without requiring an academic to record it directly. Bluap 23:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Would that fall under any of our existing projects? Wikisource doesn't seem like the right place for it. Wikibooks maybe? --tjstrf talk 03:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Here are some thoughts that occur based on the responses above
  • Regarding the need to 'ensure accuracy'; this is a admirable goal, but somewhat elusive as far as history is concerned. And citations and publications will not help much; publications cannot be revised as easily as a wiki, but they can be revised. See how, on the White House website, the words "Mission Accomplished" prominently displayed behind George Bush as he made his 'victory' speech, have now mysteriously disappeared from a video made by CNN.
  • It is true that we can use published work as a citation. That is not the question or concern. The concern is about the rich (admittedly undisciplined) knowledge that is being discarded. One spectacular example. The Khoi-San have known for millenia that a certain plant has wonderful medicinal properties. A large pharmaceutical company discovered this 'fact' from the Khoi-San's oral 'knowledge' (no previous research or publications!), and have started the (admittedly expensive) process or providing it commercially. They refuse to compensate or acknowledge the contribution of the Khoi-San in any way (despicable, but understandable). The case is sub judicae, so please don't ask me for any citations or details. The point I am making is that valuable, real knowledge is being lost.
I don't think that wikipedia is the right place for this knowledge to be recorded. However, I do think that this community could be invaluable in helping to establish and manage a wiki where it can be recorded, and eventually fed into wikipedia.
Where would one inquire about establishing such a thing? -Freekee 16:30, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I would presonally be pleased and proud to play any role in such a project as my skills and knowledge would permit.
not young enough to know everything 04:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Labelling "obviously bogus" theories as pseudoscience

A recent arbitration case (in which I was a subject) noted that:

Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more.

I don't think it needs to supersede WP:V and WP:RS. If a reliable source (such as a peer reviewed journal in that field) proclaims that it is "obviously bogus" a mention of that can be made in the article. Similarly, if another reliable source disputes the "obviously bogus" claim, that too should be included as a conflict of views on the subject. I would be weary of editors going around slapping the "obviously bogus" tag (or removing it) without that strong connection to a reliable source. That would seem to trickle into original research. Agne 20:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I have one article [16] described as pseudoscience, and the reference is to a Wired magazine article which seems to reference Wikipedia as its source. I've requested an alternative source, but none are forthcoming. I'm not disputing the critical sources. --Iantresman 22:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

While there's no original research allowed, there is original analysis. If the claims that the Time Cube article make are sourced, and the definition of pseudoscience is sourced, then I don't think you need a source to link the two together, and so I see no reason why it cannot be categorized as such. —Pengo talk · contribs 01:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Hypothesis

Hello

I am new to contributing to Wikipedia. I have a hypothesis that is relevant to the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe. It is based on observational data from the Hubble programme and draws upon other observations at the quantum and atomic level.

I am concerned that as a hypothesis it is original thought and so barred from Wikipedia.

The hypothesis relates to the creation of our visible universe as a subset of the total universe. It proposes an unique model for gravity and the fundamental nature of energy.

I thought it might be useful to add as a stub to the main Big Bang Theory page.

Should I contribute it? It is not famous, challenges Einstein's views and is my original work.

Any advice would be welcome.

Kind Regards Bob —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bwallum (talk • contribs) 19:12, 16 December 2006 (UTC).

Thanking you for taking the time to ask this question. Per Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia does not allow for the inclusions of new interpretations of science, only those that have been previously published in an appropriate peer reviewed venue. It is Wikipedia's goal to be a comprehensive encyclopedia, which necessarily means limiting ourselves to work that has been previously vetted. So, I'm sorry, but Wikipedia is not the right place for your new ideas. However, I'm sure there are other venues on the internet where new theories can be included. Dragons flight 19:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Upgrading WikiLawyering to a guideline?

I think we should upgrade WikiLawyering to guideline status. I've seen this used a lot in the community, and it's already being treated like one. Several policy pages, such as WP:NPA and WP:3RR mention WikiLawyering as being a bad thing. It would definitely benefit the community. There's already been a ton of disruptive 3RR violations that sysyops can't do anything that's too uncontroversial because WikiLawyering is a simple essay. With this in place, there would be a lot less edit wars. That's for sure. -- Selmo (talk) 04:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree fundamentally, but isn't essentially the same concept expressed in the Ignore all rules policy? Mytildebang 04:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
IAR and WiliLawyering are related, but I wouldn't call it the same. IAR is more like the be bold guideline: don't worry about the rules, because someone else will fix it. WikiLawyering, while it in a way says we should ignore the rules, it's more focused on ignoring the technical interpretation of the rules, while it still requires editors to follow the spirit. -- Selmo (talk) 04:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
This essay was essentially created in order to document a common piece of jargon, normally used in a pejorative manner, rather than to prescribe a particular course of action. Nobody ever does wikilawyering from their own perspective. Thus it doesn't particularly make sense as a guideline. Deco 10:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't upgrading this essay allow it to be used by those who are wikilawyering? Seriously. Carcharoth 11:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I think Wikilawyering is covered more by WP:POINT than by IAR. Even real courts have the power to say, "Clever argument, and you would appear to be right on the technicalities, but that is not what this particular law is meant to accomplish, and we don't intend to be a party to defeating the intent of the legislature." That is not ignoring the rules, it is implementing them with a clue. If Wikilawyering does not rise to the level of disruption, what is the need for a guideline? Robert A.West (Talk) 12:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that the page as written is guideline material; it doesn't really provide much guidance on what to do. That said, it would be helpful to have a more detailed treatment of what rules are and aren't good for on Wikipedia. For a start, it would be good to have a line in WP:NOT to go alongside "not a bureaucracy" and "not a democracy" ... maybe "Wikipedia is not consistent"? Or perhaps Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not governed by rules as a spinoff page expanding on the various Wikipedia-is-not-government items on the NOT page? -- Visviva 04:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I have seen people use policies like WP:NPA to issue WARnings to someone who dares to speak a contrary opionion in a AfD debate, then if the warned person seeks to defend his speech or to get a block rescinded as not a violation, they fall back on claims the accused is Wikilawyering. This seems like the policies are there for some to usew, but not for their opponents to use in their own defense when blocked. Very convenient. If Wikipedia establishes policies, guidelines, and rules, they should beusable by anyone, without accusations of "Wikilawyering." Edison 18:50, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Anyway. Obviously, Wikipedia does and should discourage wikilawyering. The page is both actionable and consensual, and per WP:POL that would make it a guideline. It's not particularly important, though, as Wikilawyers almost never see themselves as such and thus would not apply such a guideline to themselves. (Radiant) 13:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Deleting images along with articles

I've noticed that articles that get deleted via AfD (and probably other processes as well) often don't get their images deleted as well. (Look at these contribs and this AfD, for example, where an experienced AfD closer didn't delete the images or list them at IFD.) There's not an explicit image CSD that covers this, nor is deletion of related images part of the AfD process (that I know of). Perhaps it should be one or both of these things.

The only counter-argument I can see is that images could be re-used in other articles, leading to disputes at AfD about whether to keep an image that might be useful elsewhere. That said, images on WP (as opposed to commons) are often only categorized by license, meaning if you didn't know the name of whatever you were looking for, you wouldn't find it. Thoughts?--Kchase T 06:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Although I'm not active in the image speedy process, I like the idea of a criterion for images along the lines of "The image's only conceivable use is in an article which has been deleted". I'm thinking more along the lines of Newpage patrolling for vanity articles than AfD, but it should work for both. Melchoir 08:01, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Special:Unusedimages lists images that don't appear in any article.
I have mixed feelings about the proposal to delete images along with articles. One the one hand, why not clean these up. On the other, unused images take up a trivial amount of computer storage space, aren't accessible via search, might actually be useful at some point (deleted articles DO reappear for one reason or another, legitimately - for example, via deletion review. (If an image is deleted, can be it be restored by an admin? And even so, this is more work.)
In short, is this really such a problem that a policy change needs to be considered? John Broughton | Talk 01:55, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I just proposed this at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#proposal_for_images_in_deleted_articles. Admins can restore images.--Kchase T 01:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, yes it is a problem. It's quite common that vanity and nonsense speedied articles have images that end up not getting deleted along with them. Whether CSD or AFD, if an image was uploaded by the author of a later-deleted article, as part of the article creation process, I can't see keeping them around on the off-chance that some other article might use them. (Really, we don't have that much need for pictures of drunken teenagers.) -- Fan-1967 05:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Summaries

Many articles about films/books have a plot/spoiler which are too long to read within a few minutes. For someone who wants info about the film/book quicky, it won't be possible for him to stay reading such a long review. Therefore, I think that apart from the plot subtitle, we should add another feature: Summaries. Summaries would be only a paragraph long, very concised, yet contain all the necessary information about the plot. This would also be useful for poeple who want to know the basics about a film/book before renting it, yet do not wish to learn everything in one go, as it would ruin the fun of watching/reading it. Please add you comments below. Keith Azzopardi 20:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I usually find the premise of the film is included in the lead. Ofrcouse it's usually only a couple sentences long most but it gives a general idea of what the film is about. When looking to read a film plot preview, I dont think anyone wants to see it go into much detail, so personally I find including it in the lead quite convenient and satisfying. - Tutmosis 21:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
  • If film/book spoilers are too long, as you suggest, you should consider trimming them down. Wikipedia is supposed to write about a book/film, not reiterate its plot. See also WP:WAF. (Radiant) 13:26, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protect user pages?

Can the user pages of all logged in users be semi-protected? Most vandals of such pages are IP addresses. One user told me that he was being vandalized by someone with an open proxy. You can't block those users as they just get a new IP. The only reason we felt it was the same vandal was the consistancy of the attack.

Nothing I am proposing would affect the user's talk page. Also, I would suggest continuing to let new users edit their own user page -- even if they just created their account. Will (Talk - contribs) 03:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I think every editor has the right to request semiprotection of his or her user page: just ask your friendly sysadmin to do it for you. I personally would prefer my own userpage to act as a honeypot for the vandals. It is on the watchlist of many good people and it is easier to fix than an obscure article in the mainspace Alex Bakharev 05:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • There was a discussion on this last week. The short answer is no. We do not preemptively (semi-)protect an entire namespace. If you want your userpage protected, go to WP:RFPP. (Radiant) 13:25, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Inactive Sysop/Bureaucrat/Checkuser/Oversight

I'm requesting your comments and constructive criticism on Wikipedia:Inactive_policy_idea it is worth noting here atleast, that this would affect inactive sysops/bureaucrats, not those who are active and is __NOT__ a recall policy. Somitho 11:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Taiwan/Republic of China

due to a recent act of "content dispute" at the article Chinese Taipei at the 2006 Asian Games, i committed myself to raising this point of order. an administrator treated This, a "content dispute" instead of an act of vandalism. Taiwan, Republic of China or Chinese Taipei is NOT a province of China. my proposal here is: Any direct implication that Chinese Taipei/ROC/Taiwan as a province of China should be considered vandalism and MUST be deleted. the following are my rationale:

  • the Taiwanese Government officially calls itself Republic of China. (an indisputable verifiable fact)
  • the government of People's Republic of China exercises NO active jurisdiction over the domains of Taiwan.
  • the International Court of Law has NO final and executory ruling on this subject.therefore status quo should stand.
  • the claims of PRC and ROC are internal, Wikipedia has no control over it. as per WP:NOT Wikipedia is not a medium for soapboxes.

Since wikipedia is not a democracy, more weight should be given on discussion points raised here rather than mere voting. --RebSkii 19:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

  • I'm not sure how to handle this one - it's pretty sticky. But I can say that referring to Taiwan as a province of China, without explanation of the conflict, ought to be treated as unnecessary POV-pushing. Unfortunately, it's not vandalism, and can't be treated as bannable. -Patstuarttalk|edits 19:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't think it's vandalism either, but it's definately POV-pushing. That's why I replaced the original text in this article with the headlines used in the Chinese Taipei article. Somebody making these kind of changes should however be warned. If he/she still make edits like this, then it's vandalism. SportsAddicted | discuss 19:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Systematic POV pushing by one given user should be considered as vandalism but we most certainly won't start creating classes of particularly unwelcome POV pushing. Pascal.Tesson 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Blatent POV pushing of a political agenda without fact to back it up most certainly constitutes vandalism. I realize that I have more experience with the Chinese Communists and their sympathizers than most because I live in Taiwan and am very active in support of the legitimate rights of the Taiwanese people. Chinese use that reference to Taiwan being a part of the PRC to serve political ends, though we have hashed out the most acceptible wording regarding this in a variety of places, the lastest of which was on the 2006 Asian Games discussion page, where we seem to have come up with a workable compromise regarding the use of Chinese Taipei. I will henceforth regard any insertion of this line in Chinese Taipei related sports articles as vandalism and will summarily delete any such references I see. ludahai 魯大海 22:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It's a content dispute. It may be wrong, it may be POV pushing, and it may require warnings be given to the user if this persists against a clear consensus, but it is not vandalism. That policy page makes clear that NPOV violations and stubbornness are not considered vandalism. Fagstein 05:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It is definately POV pushing. The status of Taiwan is NOT resolved in any meaningful way, and any statements on a Wikipedia article implying that it IS resolved (either by stating that it definitively IS a province of China or that it IS NOT a province of China) is pushing a non-neutral Point of View. Any article on Taiwan or the ROC or Chinese Taipei needs to carefully indicate the controversy and the unresolved issue of Taiwans independance. It may be treated as de facto independant in certain contexts (such as international sports competitions or in business dealings) but neither the PRC or major international agencies like the United Nations recognize it as such, so de jure it is not a fully accepted member of the international community. Again, unless and until the status of Taiwan is resolved one way or the other, all articles dealing with Taiwan at wikipedia need to indicate BOTH points of view in such a way that the entirity of the issue can be presented. --Jayron32 04:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • How about a China Policy disclaimer template, that pretty much recaps the lead paragraph of Chinese Taipei and any article on mainland China acknowledging the dispute, and giving some acceptable names wrt NPOV. That paragraph gives all the pertinent information with links, and I'd much prefer to see that sort of informative acknowledgement of a dispute template IN-MY-FACE than many of the one's we use for routine maintenance and notification. Ditto for a few others, like the Sea of Japan naming dispute. Given the general ineffectiveness of the UN, (ask any Israeli or Palestinian, Korean and Japanese nationals, etc.) these matters probably won't be resolved in our lifetimes, and I hope wikipedia will outlast us all. // FrankB 02:42, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Featured topic

Template:Featured topic has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. -- this newly created project is adding a big "constellation of stars" graphic on the main article space page of many FAs in contravention of the "no metadata on main article space" rule. please comment at the TFD discussion. 195.114.94.194 18:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletion criteria for images?

I see a number of images in CAT:CSD with reasons given for speedy deletion that aren't listed at WP:CSD. While I think all of these should be candidates for speedy deletion, are they? Examples:

  1. Image:125 2503.JPG: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  2. Image:KICX2384.JPG: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  3. Image:Moorestours.JPG: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  4. Image:1542372727 m.jpg: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  5. Image:Benwald.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  6. Image:Brandonmcclain.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  7. Image:Buggia.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  8. Image:Duhaimemichael.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  9. Image:HEXTEHSEX.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  10. Image:Image-1158287647 l.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  11. Image:Copas.jpg: UE
  12. Image:Ludi Too Bright Tour.JPG: UE, SPAM, childish joke?
  13. Image:Ludi is Back.jpg: UE, SPAM, joke, need I go on?
  14. Image:Ludi.JPG: UE, orphan, vandalism, SPAM
  15. Image:Mackbrownnn.JPG: UE
  16. Image:Me&Ally.jpg: unencyclopedic
  17. Image:Monavista.jpg: used for vandalism
  18. Image:Mustache 001.JPG: UE, Patrick Wensink does not have an article. WP:NOT an image hosting service
  19. Image:Myphoto1copy.jpg: WP:NOT a file hosting service, UE
  20. Image:OriePaul.JPG: Unencyclopedic - non notable person, picture uploaded for spam reasons
  21. Image:PakFlag7.jpg: Wikipedia is not a private image hosting service...
  22. Image:Picture 42.jpg: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  23. Image:Raypirate.jpg: UE, NN person
  24. Image:Route Nationale N1.JPG: UE
  25. Image:Simon new.jpg: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  26. Image:Stick Figure.JPG: UE
  27. Image:ThaBeastNewWorld.jpg: UE, WP:NOT a file hosting service
  28. Image:ZzzD.jpg: WP:NOT a file hosting service
  • First reason listed under Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#Non-criteria: Reasons derived from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not
  • Presumably UE stands for unencyclopedic, which is not listed as a reason. (Also fails to follow WP:CSD guideline for {{db-reason}} template which states: Please try to write out a reason that will be comprehensible to non-Wikipedians)
  • Used for vandalism is not the same as is vandalism.
  • Non-notable is a criteria for articles, but not for images.
  • Spam is defined in a commercial context, which does not apply in any of these cases.

The above images account for most of the speedy-tagged images in CAT:CSD. Either we need to expand WP:CSD or untag all these images. I prefer expanding WP:CSD to cover these types of personal images that will never be used in the encyclopedia. —Doug Bell talk 09:04, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: As expected, somebody has gone and deleted the images, but the question still remains regarding the speedy deletion criteria. Being able to see the images is not that useful to evaluating the question: as I said above, they all should be speedy deletable, they just don't happen to meet any speedy deletion criteria. —Doug Bell talk 11:41, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

So should I remove speedy-deletion request tags from images that don't cite a proper speedy-deletion criteria for images? —Doug Bell talk 07:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
What new criteria would you suggest? The general point seems reasonable; if the images have no conceivable encyclopedic value, I can't see any reason not to speedily delete them. But encyclopedic value can be hard to judge, which is presumably why UE is currently a criterion for IfD and not for speedy. -- Visviva 07:11, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree, UE should probably not be a speedy deletion criteria. One criteria could be personal images, but then that would create a criteria for people to delete all user page photos, including what would be the few personal userpage photos that are typically allowed for regular contributors. But having to go through IfD for all these is burdensome, so I don't think that should be the solution. Perhaps a WP:PROD process for images? I don't know, but I don't think we should continue with the current practice of tagging and speedy deleting images without setting some guidelines that cover those situations. I'm bringing it up here to stimulate discussion, but it's apparently not a very stimulating topic. :-) —Doug Bell talk 09:14, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
It would be nice to extend prod to images. Remarkably few IfD's are controversial, but listing something on IfD is such a headache that one is often tempted to just "look the other way." -- Visviva 16:44, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
It is a pain to list at IfD, more so than other XfDs. It's just that "looking the other way" now seems to be defacto policy. It would be better to extend policy than just have people make up reasons to speedy delete images. —Doug Bell talk 22:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Image #1 is still there, and it is used in the article Miniature schnauzer, unsurprisingly enough. What is wrong with it? 6SJ7 21:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

That image was tagged right after uploading, before it could be added to the article. Although it's not a very good picture (poor composistion, lighting and angle), tagging it was not correct. The tag was subsequently removed. —Doug Bell talk 22:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

If we want to get rid of a lot of useless clutter I would suggest we make images that meet all of these criterea deletable on sight:

  1. Photo where the focus is only one or more non-notable persons (typicaly user mugshots, random "party photos", funny poses or garage-band "promos" leftover from deleted articles).
  2. Image is not used on any pages (if for example used on a userpage it's not speedyable, if you think a userpage is breaching the "not a personal photo album" policy simply ask the user to tone it down, or failing that go though the normal deletion proces).
  3. Image was uploaded more than -- let's say 2 hours ago (should give people ample time to put the image on a suitable page if that was the plan).

I must have listed several hundreds of such images on IFD in my time, and all have been deleted without objection so I don't think such a speedy deletion criterea would be very controversial. --Sherool (talk) 01:10, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think it needs to be something like this. Any single criteria is going to sweep up other stuff, but not having any criteria makes it too much work to remove these. —Doug Bell talk 02:24, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm the one that has listed all the above images, and others. I have been asked to stop since it isn't CSD criteria and I have. But I do believe that listing these, and similar images through IFD is a burden on IFD and the purpose of CSD, to relieve the burden from a full xFD process. I do agree that I over-stepped the bounds on several images that were recently uploaded and tagged them before they could be properly added to an article. I have proposed criteria at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Proposal for Additional Image CSD Criteria which requires a 2 hour minimum before tagging (I now use this personally, despite not being policy). In the past few days I have looked at thousands of images (a guess) and there are so many images that 1) have no encyclopedic value, 2) the user provides no source, not even a guess at copyright, no description, or 3) the image is redundant and only a different size/shape (this is caused by ignorance that an image can be resized, proper planning to upload the best image format, or other image use lack of knowledge items). I believe images that are uploaded that are of the user and used solely on user pages should be deleted. Upload them to WikiCommons. WP:NOT specifically states that images uploaded to Wikipedia should be used (or planned to be used) in the article or project namespace only. Userspace is not covered. They should host them on an image hosting service, such as Photobucket or otherwise. I also think that a user that uploads these "nonsense" images should be warned not to do so and if they continue, they should be blocked (it's in the proposed policy I mentioned above). Lastly, I was bold in trying to subject that these types of images have no place on Wikipedia and tagged them as CSD since there is no need to wait 5 days and burden the IFD with them. However, I was asked to stop and in order to prevent being accused of making a point I have, though by no means should that be construed as a change in my mind that this is the proper method to handle these images. --MECU≈talk 02:52, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

An additional note, I did start listing these as IFDs and stopped since they were getting quite numerous. See Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2006 December 17. --MECU≈talk 02:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Also, not being vandalism is irrelevant if the image is used only for vandalism. After I posted that last message, I looked at new images and this one: Image:Corndoggy.PNG was used to vandalize the Corn dog article (see history before my revert). Should we keep this image then? I believe that CSD should handle this also, so long as the image still retains no UE criteria. --MECU≈talk 03:00, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Mass dumping images with false criteria onto CSD is unhelpful. CSD is at capaicty and doesn't need any more people trying to introduce deletion policies by fait.Geni 03:17, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I've used {{db|Only uploaded for vandalism}} before, because it was what any sensible person would call obscene and was added to totally irrelevant articles. Sometimes applying WP:BOLD and WP:IAR is OK if you're absolutely certain that everyone will agree. I like the proposed deletion idea extending to images - it would make things a lot easier for everyone. --WikiSlasher 08:23, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
I would very much like to see prod for images. How hard would that be to implement? Perel 20:10, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Fund solicitation link from James Kim article

Is there or should there be a policy, perhaps as part of WP:SPAM, which prohibits links to websites purportedly collecting money for the victim families when there are memorial articles about people who die in well publicized incidents such as the tragic case of James Kim dying of exposure when he and his familiy got lost and stranded in the mountains? The links in question go to sites JamesAndKati.com "set up by friends and family of James Kim" and (Link provided by James' former employer CNET)the first of which says which says in part

"We have set up "The James Kim Memorial Fund" through Bank of America. Donations to the paypal account above will be transferred to that account. Checks can be sent to either of the addresses listed below. Make checks payable to "The James Kim Memorial Fund".

We have also received requests for some who wish to send items to the girls or the family. Cnet has graciously offered to receive and store these packages, letters and cards.

The Kim Family c/o CNET Networks 235 2nd Street San Francisco, CA 94105 The James Kim Memorial Fund c/o Bank of America Noe Valley Banking Center 4098 24th Street San Francisco, CA 94114-3716

James and Kati started two stores in San Francisco in the past couple of years. Helping to support these stores is a way that residents of San Francisco can help support the family. Doe is in the lower Haight and Church Street Apothecary is in Noe Valley.

I deleted the link to the website, but it was restored on the grounds that it is an official family website providing info about the family of the subject of the article. It is claimed in the AfD debate for the article that the James Kim article is not a memorial article, that he was notable before the incident, but just did not happen to have an article. But in general, if links are sometimes deleted as being spam links because they link to a site which provides information but also seeks to sell items, is it legitimate to link to a site created by the family or friends of the family which solicits funds and gifts in addition to well-wishes and condolences? I can see that this method might be widely used whenever there is some well-publicized tragedy in which Wikipedia readers might feel sympathy for the families of conjoined twins, victims of a plane crash, coal mine disaster, war injury, or fire, in which money might be sought for the family or sadly, as in several well-known cases of the past, by charlatans. Is it legitimate to use Wikipedia for fundraising efforts? Thanks. Edison 18:46, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's the link as it appears now (in the external links section):
[http://www.jamesandkati.com JamesAndKati.com] set up by friends and family of James Kim [http://news.com.com/How+to+help+the+James+Kim+family/2100-1028_3-6142209.html (Link provided by James' former employer CNET)]
I personally find the first link okay, though I'd prefer more neutral language describing it (such as - help, support, and donations. The second link, which leads to a CNet page titled "How to help the James Kim family", I DO find problematical. I don't think it's Wikipedia's place to provide a link, then a second link that provide informations about the first link.
As for charlatans, if there is any question of the veracity of link - and there is clearly none here - then obviously it should come done.
But I do agree that policy/guidance is needed here - how does one properly interpret this (from WP:EL): Is [the link] proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.)? John Broughton | Talk 21:33, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
WP:SENSE, we're not robots. Discuss it on the article talk page and come to consensus. The Cnet page verifies the authenticity of the family link so I'd leave it in for a while (especially since the family link is asking for donations). I'd get uncomfortable with the family/memorial page if it doesn't tone down the fundraising within a reasonable period (a month or two maybe) but at the moment I can understand that the family is having a rough time. 67.117.130.181 15:31, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Interacting with child editors

This is something that's been on my mind for a while, so I thought I'd ask for input. Has there ever been any substantial discussion about the appropriate way to interact with users that have identified themselves as children, or given a lot of reasons to think that they probably are? I have followed Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy a bit, and that is not exactly what I'm talking about, though it obviously has relevance. And I agree with the statement that children who vandalize, violate WP:NPA, etc. need to be treated precisely the same way as adults that do those things. I am thinking more about tough-ish cases like <snip>, or <snip> who clearly don't intend to do harm, but can be quite, well, consternating. My first impulse, a while ago, was to suggest a talk page template something like "this user is a child, be gentle" but obviously that has some serious issues with the children's privacy concerns. I have occasionally witnessed users who either have a lower tolerance for childishness, or who haven't figured out that a user is probably a child engaging in "edit warring" of one kind of another with children. Which, god, anyone who's tried to argue with a bright child in real life knows can only be an exercise in total frustration. I know some users are quite young and have made substantial contributions, and that many adult users have behaved quite awfully. So I'm not trying to be ageist. Perhaps a welcome message that specifically mentions activities that children could be helpful with (some wikignome activities could certainly be performed well by a bright child)? Something to direct their energies into good directions? Dina 19:29, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm uncertain to where you trying to get at. As far as I am aware, children are looked upon the same as adults here. If their edits do not contribute to wikipedia then they are reverted. Assuming good faith is directed at both the young and the old. As I understand it, you are frustrated with some young wikipedian users making unprofessional edits and are reluctant to criticize them. I wouldn't worry about the possibility "hurting their feelings" but just inform them in the nicest possible way of how their edits are problematic. Personally I came across quite young wikipedians who have a quite good knowledge of complicated fields such as programming so I wouldn't go as far as "discriminate", in a sense, agains't young wikipedians by suggesting to them what they are allowed to do here. Just my 2 cents. - Tutmosis 19:53, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I guess I'm not making myself clear (my fault): discriminating against younger users is exactly what I do not want to do. But I do find that the standard methods for explaining editing errors and Wikipedia policy (warning templates, references to policy and guideline pages) seem to fail when it comes to very young users. It is difficult to fault someone for really not understanding something. If you look at some of the contribs and experiences of the two editors above, perhaps what I mean will be more clear. I recently spent a fair amount of time with another user, trying to explain what "non-notable" meant. It seemed that she was quite young and not really grasping it. Maybe I should sit down and write some simplified versions of policy pages to help editors confronted with this situation. Dina 21:04, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, WP:N is now a disputed policy. My recommendation, based on comments of others, is to use WP:V and WP:NOR instead; notability, quite frankly, is so squishy, and is defined so differently for different types of articles, that it's probably only suitable for hashing out at AfDs.
In other words, perhaps something like: You're not allowed to make things up, or add things you think you heard or read somewhere else. If you add something, you HAVE to provide a link to where you got it. Admitted, it's still challenging to explain what "self-published" means, but getting a link would certainly be progress (for adult editors, as well, for that matter). John Broughton | Talk 21:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I think these things are best handled on a case-by-case basis, for all the reasons mentioned. I think the younger editors want, for the most part, to be treated just like anyone else, and to take their lumps with the rest of us when that's what's called for. Equal treatment is the way it should be, ninety-five or so percent of the time; but sometimes occasionally there are special circumstances, and my rule of thumb is to treat a younger newbie the same way that I would have wanted to be treated if there had been an Internet and a Wikipedia when I was a child–to be given the full run of the place if I could handle it, but not to be thrown in at the deep end unnecessarily, either.
When a sixth-grader entered a writing contest and won best book in the county by a student in that grade, and he (or perhaps his parents) was excited and proud enough to write a Wikipedia article on the book and the series it was part of, a few kind words beyond the norm would have been in order when the article was listed for deletion as non-notable/possible hoax and the creator started getting scolded for vandalism for reverting the AfD tags. When an RfC was filed because a younger editor was occasionally making immature remarks, someone pointed out that it was probably in order for fewer editors to pile on with "we all agree you're being a jerk, cut it out at once" than might have been the case in other circumstances. When a younger editor is clearly in over his or her head on RfA, I'll occasionally throw in a "moral support" and praise for his good contributions rather than cast "not experienced enough, immature, clueless, no freaking way" oppose !vote number 25. I certainly would have counselled Nathannoblet that his arbitration cases two months ago should be withdrawn if I'd realized he was a younger editor rather than just someone who thought he was right all the time.
Those situations are the exceptions, though. Wikipedia and other Internet forums are founded on recognition of a person's merits rather than any other criteria, to a greater extent than probably any other institution. We have an ArbCom member who's 17 (unless he just had a birthday recently), a bureaucrat who's 14 (ditto), and several administrators who are 14 (and perhaps even a year or two younger, I'm not sure). We have lots of excellent editors of all ages. If an editor is contributing good edits, it makes no difference to me (except as anecdotal background information) if he or she is 13 or 23 or 43 or 83. The only official restriction I know of on our editors under 18 is that they're ineligible under Florida law to run for the Board of Directors of the Wikimedia Foundation. I think most of them can live with that. Newyorkbrad 21:57, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I've snipped user names of alleged "children" in the above, per the remedies proposed at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy, which includes not exposing any info regarding the alleged age of Wikipedia contributors.

Suggestion: maybe read that arbitration case in its entirity, I think it contains many steps towards a solution of the issue presented here. If a contributor behaves "childish" that's not so much an "age" problem (Wikipedia doesn't, and shouldn't, investigate the "real" age of contributors): it is rather a behaviour issue. And as far as behaviour is concerned, Wikipedia doesn't discern on the basis of age. If the behaviour is disruptive, try to remedy it as you would remedy any disruptive behaviour: that includes with respect (it might be a young person) as well as with firmness (it might be an adult impostor or just a make-believe childish troll). --Francis Schonken 12:26, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough to snip out their names -- that's one of the things that makes even discussing this issue a bit difficult. I'll dive deeper into the arbitration. User:Trödel's recent mentorship towards "snip" are instructive as well. Cheers. Dina 15:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I think, when it is known that an editor is a child or rather in his early teens should be dealt with love, respect, politeness and encouragement. The possibilities of posititve results would be any day far better than getting the same from an adult editor. We do have to be extra nice and show niceties to children editors. The care for Wikipedia articles should not neglect care for feelings of children editors. They are the assets of Wikipedia. They will deal with other editors in future, the way we deal with them now. swadhyayee 13:26, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I disagree to some extent. I believe all editors should be given equal respect while always assuming the assumption of good faith, but not go as far as becoming Kids Help Phone online operators. We are here to built an encyclopedia foremost. - Tutmosis 18:46, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding warning templates: I don't think this is an age-specific problem, though some very young editors might have problems.. just like it's not a location-specific problem, even though some editors whose first language is not English have trouble with some of them as well. Many of the warning templates are fairly "dense" and could be simplified; I've been looking at the templates the Simple English Wikipedia uses and wondering if maybe we should move a bit in that direction for warning templates. Perel 20:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

  1. ^ such as I am strong-minded, you are obstinate, his is a pig-headed fool "My viewpoint is 'the common viewpoint', yours is 'the less common', his is 'intolerant'"
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