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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy).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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Wikipedia:Child protection has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Child protection (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Sort of. Someone added the behavioral guideline cat in addition to the (still present) policy cats. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Council: Guidelines vs advice (essays)

Looking for some experienced editors about a question...
Page names (titles) with "guideline" and "policy" in them should be (if they are not already) reserved for community approved pages only????
Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#Guidelines vs advice (essays) for the ongoing discussion.Moxy (talk) 03:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Scrutiny would indeed be welcome. For some time, guidelines such as the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide have been added to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council pages by a small number of editors with minimal discussion. (I've only just discovered the page!) --Kleinzach 04:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what your concern about "adding pages to WikiProject Council" means. WikiProjects are entitled to add whatever pages they want or need to coordinate their group's work without consulting anyone else, exactly like you are entitled to add pages in your userspace to further your individual work without consulting anyone else.
But the /Guide has been tagged as an official community-wide guideline (not merely a WikiProject page) for five years now. That hardly seems like a relevant example of a page being added to the project space. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia to other wikis

Hi, i was just wondering if we can use other WikiMedia projects too, like wikispecies, wikiversity or wikinews for articles. There are only wikictionary and commons... --Sistemx (talk) 13:29, 1 December 2011 (UTC) (PD: My question is: ¿Does wikipedia let me link it to other wikimedia projects related to the article?

Yes. At least, it's technically possible (see WP:INTERWIKI). I'd only link to projects other than wiktionary in a See also section though.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail 14:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
==See also== is almost always the wrong section. Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects has the list of projects, methods for linking, and advice on when and where to provide the links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Could the addition of anything not acceptable in an article be equally unacceptable in an IP userspace?

An IP vandal has just vandalised a vandalism warning I gave them. I chuckled and thought "Yeah sure! Go ahead!". But then it occurred to me that that IP might not always be theirs. Should any editing done by any user to an IP userspace page be considered vandalism if the same edits added to any other public page would be? fredgandt 22:25, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Gerardw (talk) 22:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
And do warnings apply as they would elsewhere? If an IP vandalises {{Uw-vandalism2}} should they get {{Uw-vandalism3}}? fredgandt 22:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Sure. Gerardw (talk) 22:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Check the time stamps. If they're close in time, it's reasonable to assume that they're the same person, or otherwise using a shared IP (such as at a school), and then an upgraded warning is naturally appropriate. If they are far apart in time, use your own judgement which one is necessary, depending on the severity of the vandalism (as if it were a new person entirely). --Izno (talk) 20:42, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

TV show Themes in infobox proposal

I suggest that in much the same way that all lot of country articles (imo it should be all country articles) have a sound file of their national anthems in their infoboxes (e.g United States, all TV shows should have a sound file of their theme song in their infobox. I know a lot of them already do have a file somewhere in the article, but I think it would be better this way. Yes, there already are sections dedicated to the theme in the respective articles already, but underneath the file, it will state the name of the theme, which will be bluelinked, and will link to the respective paragraph/article about the theme, in the same way that below the USA article, it has a blue-linked "The Star-Spangled Banner"

This has already been discussed in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#TV show themes, but I was redirected to this page as it is more a matter of policy rather "technical or editorial".--Coin945 (talk) 09:14, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Can't do it; unlike national anthems, themes are copyrighted: and most of them are so short that a clip long enough to be recognizable is a substantial and copyright-violating fraction of the entire work. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:46, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Then how is Wikipedia able to get 30 second clips of pop songs? (e.g Bad Romance) P.S Why not extend this to songs? Instead of having to fish through the article for a sample of the song, it is right there in the infobox. Obviously any other clips, highlighting certain aspects of the song will be kept in their respective sections--Coin945 (talk) 15:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
30 seconds of a pop song is a much smaller percentage of it, than 30 seconds of a TV show theme; the latter seldom exceed 45-60 seconds. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
In that case the ovbious solution would be to always have a set ratio between the wikipedia clip and the total legth. So the theme song clip may only be 10 sec for example, due to the total clip being shorter.--Coin945 (talk) 16:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
If there's enough content in the article about the theme itself, or if the theme merits its own article (Doctor Who theme music, or Where Everybody Knows Your Name, Suicide Is Painless...) then an audio clip may satisfy WP:NFCC just as a clip may be used in an article about a pop song. Orange Mike is right, however, that including a clip as a routine matter wouldn't be permitted without satisfying NFCC, so making the file an infobox parameter would be a bad idea. postdlf (talk) 15:35, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Not even with reduced quality? I know that is one thing that will let you put a non-free pic onto wikipedia--Coin945 (talk) 15:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
That's one of the requirements, so it's necessary but not sufficient. Please read WP:NFCC. postdlf (talk) 15:47, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
I did read it before. I was wondering which specific rules of WP:NFCC it actually breaks. On first glaces it seems to me it doesn't break any.
  1. No free equivalent. - no free equivalents are available..unless you make midi versions of them or something like that..
  2. Respect for commercial opportunities. - if the ratio is adhered to, the clip doesn't prevent marketing of the song. (e.g say the ratio is 1:4, song clip=30sec & song=2min, theme clip=10sec & theme=40sec)
  3. Minimal usage. - obviously. already in some song articles htere are multiple clips of a song to hightlight different aspects of it.
  4. Minimal extent of use. - portions and low quality versions are suffice
  5. Previous publication. - all songs have been released out of wikipedia
  6. Content. - songs are encyclopaedic
  7. Media-specific policy. - unsure about what this means exactly..
  8. One-article minimum. - obviously
  9. Contextual significance. Songs do have contextual significance
  10. Restrictions on location. They would only appear in article mainspaces
  11. Image description page - all this info would be put in --Coin945 (talk) 17:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Frankly, even if we could do this, I don't see that as sufficient reason to do it. If the theme is of any significance, it can be discussed in article text. Most are of minimal interest, and adding an infobox option would likely to lead to endless problems with copyright violations from over-long excerpts inserted by people not understanding policy. In any case, theme tunes can change from time to time, and may vary between broadcasters too. This all seems more trouble than it's worth. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
.....I guess... I do honestly think though that if it were possible, it would be a great help. When I personally go onto song articles, I want the 30 second clip right there for me, instead of having to scroll thorugh loads to text to find it... and I'm not so sure that theme songs are as insignificant as you insinuate. I see nothing wrong with having different clips of the theme song, showing what it sounded like at different point in time (obviously an edited version of this is the most obvious example). I personally think this is an awesome idea but if it is logistically impossible, so be it. I do want to know, before I close this suggestion, please explain to me why this would be breaking copyright. If none of the above rules are broken, we can't get pinged for copright infringement. Maybe I have misread/misunderstood something. I know that Wikipedia has a general willingness to resist change regarding policy, so I want to make sure that that is not a factor, and that there is a legitimate reason (that I fully understand) to why this wont work.--Coin945 (talk) 17:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Copyright issues aren't really my field but I'd say that this was an adequate explanation: "Contextual significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding". The topic is the TV show, not the theme tune. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:56, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
I would like to note that firstly, this does not apply for songs (pop songs etc.) - in those situations, the topic is the song too. Secondly, I do think that songs have a degree of contextual significance. There must me situations (I've experienced this in the past) where you see the name of TV show somewhere and it does nothing for you, and then you look up the theme tune and memories come flooding back. Sometimes the theme tune can symbolise a show more than anything else. (e.g "thankyou for being a friend" from golden girls). Being in the general "first impression" area would to wonders imo. For theme tunes, arguably, and definately for songs. Also with the unslaught of copyright issues brought up before, it's the exact same thing with pictures - its in the infobox but most of it of copyrighted, and that hasnt seemed to have caused huge problems.--Coin945 (talk) 18:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Not going to happen. The issue here is essentially NFCC #2 -- respect for commercial opportunities. Lying behind this is the legal analysis expressed in the "four factors" of U.S. fair use law, particularly in this case factor 3 "the extent and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyright work as a whole". NFCC #2 and NFCC #8 essentially work together to try to satisfy these factors. At the moment in an infobox we often include a single title caption frame from the television programme's opening sequence. Compared to an entire hour of the programme, the copyright taking that that single frame represents is essentially very, very slight -- not zero, but slight. On the other hand, an extract of several seconds from a theme tune that may last only 30 seconds in all can not be described as slight in at all the same way -- particularly if the extract contains, for example, the key riff of the theme tune, that extract may be seen as representing essentially a very substantial extract indeed. On top of this there is also a difference in another of the legal fair use factors, the fourth factor "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work". There is, essentially, likely to be very little commercial value in a sufficiently low-res screenshot from the title sequence: this is not likely to affect anyone, say, considering to rent an episode of the series from a commercial download service. In contrast, there is a separate market for tracks of tv theme music, which in the past have often been made available commercially as tracks on compilation albums, and which may be available to buy individually on commercial download services. So in respect of both of these formal legal factors, the music extract is a much more substantial copyright taking than the title caption frame. And, as a result, we are much more cautious in how we use it.
NFCC #8 is presented as a separate criterion at WP:NFC; but, if you look at the list of usually acceptable examples at WP:NFCI, you can see that how we weigh "sufficiently significant" in assessing NFCC #8 is rightly influenced by the degree of the copyright taking. So when the copyright taking is very slight, like a logo or a caption slide, something comparatively mundane like showing how the item was presented and marketed we hold to be sufficient. But when the taking is not so slight, and when the taking may have real-world licenseable value, we rightly have to be much more cautious. So, for example, an extract from a song is only allowed when there is direct commentary that is directly, necessarily illuminated by hearing that extract. Similarly for a TV theme extract; since this is a very substantial taking in respect of the theme as whole, it will only be acceptable tied very closely to direct commentary directly discussing its musical structure. Examples where this is not the case will be removed, and merely having the playbox for the theme generally floating around in the infobox is not going to be acceptable.
Your proposal has no chance of success, so this discussion should probably be closed. If you want a second opinion, you could ask at WT:NFC, but you're not likely to find any more encouraging a response. Jheald (talk) 19:01, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
Thankyou very much for your indepth response. I understand completely it now :D. Yes, you may now close the discussion.--Coin945 (talk) 07:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Making life easier for us

Three proposals here:

  1. Your username and password can be used to get into any wiki, that is, you don't have to sign up again. Instead, you just type in the exact same username and password into, say, german wikipedia, and off we go.
  2. To be able to add other language wikipedia pages to our talk pages.
  3. Having a (don't know what their called) symbol in the top left hand corner saying what the quality grade of an article is, for ANY grade. It would so much easier to see what grade an article was without having to check the talk page all the time. This would be ranging from everything - A's to stubs etc.
--Coin945 (talk) 18:05, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
  1. See Wikipedia:Unified login
  2. Not sure exactly what you mean
  3. There is already line just under the title of an article that identifies its quality, see Toast. I'm not sure why its not visible when logged out, but it is there in both Monobook and Vector while logged in. There is gadget you can enable to see the assessments, see User:Pyrospirit/metadata. Monty845 18:33, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
  1. Thankyou, extremely useful. I honesly didn't know such a thing already existed. It really should be publicized, or done automatically.
  2. What i mean is, (well maybe this is done anyway because of the unified account thing) but if i want to add, say, a german wikipedia page to my watchlist, can i do that?
  3. Hmm... no, I don't think I want that. What i meant was, like, at the moment if an article is good or featured, that symbol appears in the top-right hand corner of the page. I am merely asking, why not do it for all grades?
--Coin945 (talk) 18:52, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Re #2, that would be very useful if we could do that, for me it would be watch listing things at commons but same idea. Monty845 19:01, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
#2 has been a feature request for some time.
As for #3, the images are added manually. We'd need to do that for every article, for no really meaningful reason, as we already do that on the talk page. You might see about leaving a note at User talk:Pyrospirit/metadata to see if that could be added to its functionality, but otherwise, that gadget is probably the closest you're going to get. --Izno (talk) 20:35, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Are you aware of how to use User:Pyrospirit/metadata? After glancing at the page, I am still unsure as to what I should do to start using it.--Coin945 (talk) 22:19, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Go to Special:Preferences. Click the tab named "Gadgets". It should be listed somewhere there. Click the form next to it, then hit save. --Izno (talk) 23:23, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Preferences → Gadgets → Display an assessment of an article's quality as part of the page header for each article. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 00:01, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks :) I'm finding the gadget to be a great help.--Coin945 (talk) 00:12, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
2 will be possible once "reasonably efficient interwiki translation" is implemented. Meanwhile you can leave the "email me when someone leaves me a talk message" option enabled on wikis you don't regularly visit. Rich Farmbrough, 00:27, 6 December 2011 (UTC).

Quick Response Code

I was on User:Mattgirling's userpage and I noticed this QR image and for shits and giggles I decided to scan it on my phone and see where it sent me. Surprisingly, it sent me right back to his userpage. It occurred to me that this might be a useful tool. Wouldn't it be useful if, say, I was at home reading an article and I had to run out the door. I wanted to read it on my phone so I quickly scanned the article's QR code and instantly had the article on my screen so I could run out the door. These tiny little screens are hard to navigate with even with mobile versions of websites and this could be really useful for mobile users. At first, I thought we might be able to create a talk page template that users a PHP gd library script to generate the QR code. Then I thought: what if this were to be expanded onto more than just articles? What if MediaWiki automatically generated a QR code for every page and placed it at the bottom left corner of the screen below the "Toolbox" and "Interaction" menus? It could also be placed at the very bottom of every Wikipedia article on the mobile site so if someone wanted to share an article with a friend, their friend can just scan their screen. It wouldn't be tough to do and it wouldn't affect content at all. Bad idea?--v/r - TP 21:40, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

QR codes, in common usage, don't seem very secure to me, and they are also essentially useless to people who don't use smartphones (and IMHO are exceedingly annoying). Any administrator (or anyone who compromised the security of Wikipedia) could change "legitimate" codes to malicious codes which could compromise users' security. The addition of this feature seems like it would be a big target for hackers/script kiddies to try and abuse. —danhash (talk) 22:02, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
A user script could be created for people who want this feature, effectively making it an "opt in" feature, but in my opinion it isn't an appropriate feature for Wikipedia as a whole. —danhash (talk) 22:04, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
It could be made more secure by incorporating it into the MediaWiki software as an automatically generated image. It would prevent the less-sophisticated attacks from being successful. Other than a absolute positioned div tag with a QR code inside of it placed directly over a legitmate code, but we deal with the absolute positioned giant penis all the time.--v/r - TP 22:25, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Might be good for the toolbox. Waste of real-estate for most users to have it on every page though. Rich Farmbrough, 00:34, 6 December 2011 (UTC).

False citations

What is the policy, precedent, or de facto standard regarding editors (specifically IP editors) who add information to an article with a <ref> tag but no actual reference (see this diff of FL Studio for an example). The entire edit in question consists of the addition of the following to the notable users section of the page:

* [[Lex Luger (producer)]]<ref name="Lex Luger"/>

Which results in the following output in the text of the page:

As you can see, the information was added in a way that looks like the information has a source, yet no source is given. This has happened continually on the FL Studio page by multiple IP editors. These edits give a large red error in the references section, however this error is easily missed when casually reading an article. My question is mainly regarding situations where the editor added information without a source and intentionally tried to make the information look properly referenced (in other words bad faith edits). The edit in question is not a good faith edit in my opinion because:

  1. There is an edit notice (here) stating that addition of artists to the notable users section must be "verifiable via a reliable source".
  2. There are large comments in the source of the page specifically saying that artists added to the notable users section must have "a reference to an independent source mentioning the artist's use of FL Studio" and directing editors to the talk page.
  3. An editor who knows how to use a <ref> tag is experienced enough to know that this type of edit results in unsourced information appearing on the surface like sourced information.

IP editors have continually added unsourced information to the FL Studio article, particularly to the lead and to the notable users section. After consensus on the talk page was reached that each mention of a notable artist must be independently sourced, IP editors have started adding false citations to their additions (and the same artists keep getting added back). Most of these edits come from different IPs, so user warnings are not effective in stopping these disruptive edits.

Is there a quicker road to blocking these deceptive editors than the regular process at WP:ARV? Obviously semi-protection would work, but it seems unnecessary for such a limited scope of vandalism. —danhash (talk) 20:15, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

This seems like an unusual error. The fact that it is all being done to a single article makes me agree with Danhash that this is concerted sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry. I think the solution would require examination of the location and ISP of the IPs involved, to see if a range block would be in order. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:25, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
There was a recent thread at ANI where a user falsified a citation by not checking it when translating from another language's wikipedia. They were banned instantly, and only unbanned when it was discovered they had WP:COMPETENCE issues about appropriate sourcing behaviour. So fake citations like these seem like a fundamental attack on the encyclopaedic process, and when done deliberately, are one of the worst kinds of vandalism. Take it to ANI. AIV doesn't ban hard enough for deliberate, deep and sneaky attacks on the verifiability of the encyclopaedic. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:35, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
I've semi-protected the article. Seems like a single promotional editor who's not getting it. It could be the case that he's simply mechanically copying the footnoting style of the surrounding entries, which are also of the same type, but never understood that a mark of the type <ref name="xyz"/> has to be matched by another entry providing the actual footnote; in any case, the edit-warring is disruptive and a textbook case for what semi is for. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:02, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
Would investigation into a range block per Jc3s5h's comment be appropriate? —danhash (talk) 14:05, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Bell Pottinger Group

This link may prove interesting to some, specifically the last quoted paragraph, which reads "Revealing that Bell Pottinger has a team which “sorts” negative Wikipedia coverage of clients;". I think it's fairly obvious what that means. Parrot of Doom 14:40, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Attempt at coding policy for ArbCom elections

A second attempt has been made at coding the policy. Please review User:Od Mishehu/Arbitration Committee Elections, and express your opinions at User talk:Od Mishehu/Arbitration Committee Elections. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 21:09, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Animated images

I find animated images distracting, and they make it difficult to read the text. As someone who reads the website, I feel admins pay no attention whatsoever to my thoughts or opinions. This is frustrating, as common-sense seems to indicate that animated images should not be automatically started. 97.94.198.18 (talk) 16:20, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi.
Anyone can edit pages; not just admins. And all suggestions are very welcome. Is there some specific article that has an animated GIF that you find objectionable?  Chzz  ►  17:07, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Every animated image is a distraction from the text. Try actually reading the articles, its impossible when some image is flashing and moving around. And no, common average users are not given much respect around here. Just watch how what I've said here will be ignored and go nowhere and nothing will happen. 97.94.198.18 (talk) 17:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

There should be NO animated images which automatically start. Its absurd that Wikipedia uses them like this. 97.94.198.18 (talk) 17:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I can imagine it must be frustrating if your comments are ignored.... So as Chzz asks, which specific image in which specific article annoys you, please? The overwhelming majority of images are not animated, so we would really like to know which one is bothering you. --GRuban (talk) 18:05, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Specifically, any and every animated image in any and every article annoys me. The overwhelming images are not animated, and those that are should be de-animated. 97.94.198.18 (talk) 18:06, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Just so you know, we have no easy way to determine what images are animated with the server software. We can find what .GIFs there are, but that's it, we'd have to manually check every one of those to see if its animated. If you can name one or more articles where you find the animated image making it difficult to read the article, we just need you to identify them so we can discuss if it is appropriate or not. --MASEM (t) 18:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I am not sure it's technically possible to "delay" animated images until the user requests them to start; this might require replacing them with videos or with something Flash-esque, which brings other usability problems in its own right. Shimgray | talk | 20:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
The reason people keep asking for examples is because animated images are extremely rare in the English Wikipedia. I don't remember seeing a single animated image in any article this entire year, and I've looked at thousands of articles during that time. So right now, your request is not very much different from "I saw a misspelled word somewhere, but I don't remember what the word was or what page it was on, but you should fix it right away". There are 6,918,557 articles on the English Wikipedia at the moment. If you want help, you've got to tell us which one contains the animated image. We can't realistically go look at each and every one of them to find the one that contains an animated image. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:47, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
MDMA and a whole load more of the designer/recreational drugs. John lilburne (talk) 01:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Image use policy#Animated images recommends "use sparingly". They're not as uncommon as you might think, but they do tend to be restricted to topics that are more easily explained with animation - for an example, Internal combustion engine has three, and Pi has one (very elegant one). Shimgray | talk | 21:53, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I saw one recently which annoyed me. Can't remember for the life of me which page it was on ... Pesky (talk …stalk!) 21:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
They're very easy to find if you know where to look, for example in the category for images featured on the maths portal. Many are featured pictures in their own right, such as File:Pythagoras-2a.gif. a featured picture here and on commons and a valued image there. It appeared on the main page only in October, and no-one objected that it was distracting or otherwise poorly chosen. With so many images like this promoted to FP it seems at least as many like them as dislike them, and they are especially valuable in mathematics.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 12:37, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
It would be possible by css to have all animated images only show on mouse hover, while all the rest of the time a single frame of that image was shown. This would require each gif to have a single frame non animated version uploaded to commons and then added as the default image. Both images files could then be added as template params and the template creates an html element with a certain class that creates the on hover change between one image and the next. Something along those lines anyway. If you're confused by what I just typed, join the club! fredgandt 01:10, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
For your delectation. Save this as a .html file on your computer and add two image paths to the marked lines of css to see a practical demo of what I suggested. If the image when not hovering was a still version of the animated gif and the image when hovering was the animated version, bob's your uncle. →
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
.foo
{
	background-image:url('URLURLURLURL'); <!-- use the path to an image on your computer -->
	height:500px;
	width:500px;
}
.foo:hover
{
	background-image:url('URLURLURLURL'); <!-- use the path to an image on your computer -->
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="foo"></div>
</body>
</html>

 fredgandt 01:35, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

It does not matter which specific animated image I am complaining about. I am complaining about ALL of them. Every single one of them is a distraction from the text, as it is hard to read when some stupid animation is flashing and moving around on the side of the screen. Yes, animations can be useful, but they should not be placed next to text that people are trying to READ. I am not suggesting that you remove a particular animation, I am suggesting that you change your policy and BAN all animations from the main-body of ALL articles. If someone wants to see one, they should be satisfied with a link that they can click on in order to go to a different page where the animation is hosted seperately. I am therefore proposing a formal policy change, and I think its absurd that I am denied the ability to do so, simply because I am not a fancy admin. I am however someone who actually reads the site, and I know for a fact that the animations are NOT a good idea. You should NEVER ever ever have an animation within or next to the text of the article, as it ALWAYS an unnecessary distraction. There is NO article or subject which requires an animation to discuss. In any case where an animation is deemed helpful, it should be on a separate page which the user can click on IF and only if they desire to see it. 97.94.198.18 (talk) 19:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I take it you didn't think much of my compromise suggestion then. fredgandt 21:28, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
What suggestion? I'm not going to hack my computer just to deal with a stupid problem that could be fixed by a simple common-sense policy to not use animated images within the text of an article.97.94.198.18 (talk) 20:18, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
See my links above: it may seem common sense to you but not only are such images widely used but they have repeatedly been judged by editors to be among the best images on Wikipedia. This could hardly happen if the only 'common sense' policy were to exclude them.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 20:30, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Simply hold your hand in front of the offending image until you have read the text. If you do this a lot you may find it easier to prepare small cardboard cut-outs in the size of common images. Breakfast cereal boxes will provide suitable card. If you have a moral objections to breakfast cereal produced by monopolistic agribusiness, simply return the boxes to the store, complaining of a rectangular hole in the carton, for a full refund. Rich Farmbrough, 00:12, 6 December 2011 (UTC).
    • A possible technical improvement for this proposal would be to apply Blu-Tack to the back of the card shields making it simple to affix said card to the screen. I'm not sure it would be possible to script the cardboard to scroll with the page but a more experienced programmer may be able to help. fredgandt 00:29, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

FYI, we DO know now at the backend if images are animatable or not (for GIF, PNG and SVG). It's just that no one has written wrapping code around it to add a 'play' mode. Wouldn't be terribly hard to do. But it's not very high up on the list with priorities I think. So 'get hacking' if you really want this. :D—TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:36, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

If you are using Internet Explorer, hitting the ESC key will stop animations. At least, it works with IE9 on my computer. I don't know about other browsers. --Kusunose 08:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I do not support a blanket ban on such images. They are sometimes quite valuable. They aren't present in 99% of our articles (and aren't appropriate for at least 98% of articles), but a total ban is completely inappropriate. Some may be overkill (rotating smaller chemicals), but that's something to be decided image-by-image. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:36, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

List from category tags, undeletable list-stub items

I think that Wikipedia:Lists are better generated from articles with category tags (or equivalent). The problem is that list items without an article are excluded, resulting in incomplete lists, whereas many lists are inclusive of non-notable items. I think there should be a way of creating a "list-stub page", that belongs to one or more lists, that won't/can't be deleted. It would save space too, by having a single "list-stub page", instead of duplicating the information (manually!) in several manually-created lists. --Iantresman (talk) 12:53, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Some lists allow non-notable members. Generally these are lists that can be exhaustively enumerated, such as members of a minor sports team, or people who stood at a minor election (where the winner might just scrape notability). Other lists are pretty open ended, American saxophone players, for example, and are often curtailed by notability, which in turn is proxied by article existence. I'm not sure how your proposal fits into this scenario. Rich Farmbrough, 00:24, 6 December 2011 (UTC).
You can't create a list from a category (or list-equivalent) tag, because there is no guarantee that a page containing a non-notable subject will survive. In my opinion, this is short-sighted. Yes an article subject may be non-notable, but could easily be part of several lists, and tagging is the best way to create them. --Iantresman (talk) 19:58, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia's proposed Terms of Use agreement – last call

meta:Talk:Terms_of_use#Closing_of_Discussion:_December_31.3F – Discussions relating to Wikimedia's proposed Terms of Use might end by December 31, 2011. Every Wikimedia user would have to agree to comply with the terms of this document, so if anyone has any concerns, then please let Geoffbrigham and those watching the page know about them. Geoffbrigham responds well to feedback. He and other have made many, many changes due to the feedback they've received. They will politely listen to anything that you have to say, so please don't be afraid to say it. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:01, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Update: December 31 will definitely be the final day to comment on the new Terms of use. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:28, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, you can comment all you want after that, but the comments won't affect the final results.
Before commenting, please consider searching through the ~500K of talk page archives to make sure that your question hasn't already been asked and answered. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Improving AFD debates

I have been concerned for some time that the quality of AFD discussions hasn't kept pace with a clearer enforcement of our inclusion standards and this leads to a lot of unnecessary relists and will result, as participation continues to decline, in the process becoming even more arbitrary and confusing. That's if AFD doesn't end up breaking from a lack of policy based contributions. My view is that we need to improve understanding of what is or is not a policy based vote to improve the quality of debate. This will result in fewer relists, more consistent outcomes and allow the process to continue to work in the future. I'm proposing that AFD regulars who close and relist discussions explain which votes they counted and why and offer direction when they relist to make what's needed clearer. I started (yeah, its awful and needs lots of work) an essay to explain the process as above and would welcome any comments or feedback that anyone has on this. Since I'm going to spam this round the houses WT:AFD or the talk of the essay seem like good locations to hold the discussion. Spartaz Humbug! 18:59, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Clarifying what does and does not constitute "guilt by association" in a WP:BLP.

Just to note that I have initiated a policy discussion under the Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons, entitled "Clarifying what does and does not constitute Guilt By Association in relation to controversial incidents in BLP entries". Several controversial incidents have occurred in 2011, names the 2011 Tucson shooting and the 2011 Norway attacks, in which heated exchanges have taken place regarding whether or not these incidents should be mentioned in BLP articles of persons somehow implicated. While I agree that guilt by association' is to be avoided entirely, I would argue that if person X commits act Y, and claims that person Z caused, inspired, or otherwise motivated them to perpetrate Y, and that there is a significant level of discussion of Z's supposed involvement in nation or international media, including unequivocal responses and denunciations by Z, then mention of such incidents in a careful, concise fashion in a way that references both the charges and the denunciations does not constitute an association fallacy in violation of WP:BLP. It would be helpful to develop some sort of threshold for when such an inclusion is or is not warranted. I invite anyone interested to comment on this matter in the section on the Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons page. It just would be really helpful to have some sort of policy framework that can be referred to, which would help head off the contentious debates and edit warring that often resultsJemiljan (talk) 22:54, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (cuisines) has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (cuisines) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (cuisines) no longer marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (cuisines) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy has been marked as a policy

Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy/Draft no longer marked as a policy

Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy/Draft (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Change of policy towards Dutch (and other non EN-languages) Wikipedia's

For almost any non local article there is a huge difference in quality between the Dutch Wikipedia and the English one. (Note: On some more philosophical subjects the German Wikipedia may surpass the EN version). On politically more problematic subjects there is also the problem that bias is not or not correctly tackled in NL. Most Dutch people understand enough English to use the EN version. So it is a huge loss of energy to write and discuss new NL articles in stead of just translating the EN one's and participate in writing good EN articles. Maybe there can be given some thought to this problem. I suggest something like this:

For many categories, for instance EN pop-music, the policy could be that any local page is replaced by a direct link to the EN one, pending translation. This translation should be more or less monitored for quality and updates.

For pages of local (Dutch) subjects NL would be leading. Of course it does not make much sense to link to an untranslated NL page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Victor50 (talk • contribs) 15:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

How would this affect the English Wikipedia? It seems like you would do better to make this proposal at nl:Wikipedia:De kroeg. Anomie⚔ 16:12, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
This suggestion seems completely bonkers. It's not up to English editors to dictate the content of any other language's Wiki, any more than they can decide the English language version doktorb wordsdeeds 16:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I would like to see more cooperation in the area of articles in different languages and a more unified system of rules for Wikis in other languages. USchick (talk) 16:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm appalled and distressed at this apparent surrender to the imperial rule of English over all other languages; and I'm a native speaker of English who doesn't speak a word of Nederlands! --Orange Mike | Talk 17:45, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
If the NL Wikipedia has a consensus for this, then do so. I don't see that you are proposing a policy that affects the EN Wikipedia. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 17:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
If I understand the original proposal correctly, it's just saying "why start a new article from scratch, if there's already a good article in another language that can be translated?" It just so happens that many English Wiki articles may be further developed that those in other wikis, because it's been around longer. I don't infer any suggestion that the English is in any way "better" than other language. Equally I often translated articles from German because there's little or nothing on them in English and it's far quicker than starting from scratch. That doesn't stop anyone enhancing them from English or German sources. The main problem is the paucity of translators. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
It's been around longer for 5 months and 4 days before the Dutch Wikipedia was started. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 04:29, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
There is also the difference in policies. For example, the Dutch wikipedia does not have a notability guideline and they are much less strict about unsourced contents then we are. For example, their current featured article of the day is nl:Ku Klux Klan, which does not contain a single reference. Yoenit (talk) 00:07, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose using Dutch wikipedia as "leading" on some subjects, don't give a shit on what they decide the other way around. Until nlwiki starts using proper inline references (see example above) there is nothing worth translating. Yoenit (talk) 00:19, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Question: How is this different than current operating procedure? An editor who is conversant enough in both languages will open the foreign language one for editing, start typing and translating the article to our article space, insert references as they appear in the foreign language, add the categories, infoboxes, interwiki-link, and assorted wiki-extras. At some later point it'll get reviewed and if the article creator did their job correctly, the reviewer won't have too many issues with the new article. Hasteur (talk) 00:32, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree - we are already doing this, at least with German Wiki articles, which is my field. I don't see this as any one Wiki "leading" another; just sensible transfer of information between them. Sometimes they're well referenced, sometimes not. In the latter case we just need to find suitable refs in due course. --Bermicourt (talk) 07:38, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

  • I've translated quite a bit between the English and the Dutch wikis. It's clear that Osdorp Posse, for instance, was written according to what I see as Dutch standards: somewhat informative, but too chatty, too full of lists, and totally lacking reliable sources. Letting the Dutch wiki lead--lead what? Compare these two articles: nl:Claw Boys Claw and Claw Boys Claw. Or nl:Annie M. G. Schmidt and Annie M. G. Schmidt--and those are "local" articles. Maybe their list of Dutch prime ministers has more blue links than ours, but what those links are leading to isn't necessarily any good at all. Sorry Dutchies, but your wiki needs work, and I'm putting this mildly.

    Cross-wiki cooperation is of course to be applauded--but what I'd like to see even more is someone from the main office calling the Amsterdam office to tell them about things like WP:RS and WP:V. I mean, someone there nominated this for deletion based on tone. Drmies (talk) 15:53, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

    • Ok I compared the Annie M.G. Smidt articles and, a.f.a.i.c.t. th english version is lacking most of the detailthe dutch version offers. Only if cites-per-square-foot is a criterion, the english version wins. Kleuske (talk) 12:31, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't get it... what's the "policy" proposal? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 16:23, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not fair to be a critic of any other language articles if you:
  1. don't understand the language well enough
  2. don't understand anything of the area's culture
  3. don't understand anything of the area's politics
  4. etc.

If I would say anything about the French WP everyone would laugh, because I'm Dutch by birth and my school French is worse than my practical Itakian and even to criticize the latter I don't. I live in Italy, but the way they write about their musicians, paonters, politicians I leave up to them and take a more neutral point of view [sounds familiar? ;-)]. Please, let all locals do their thing their way. Freedom of speech, right? Cheers and don't worry, be happy, ZeaForUs (talk) 02:44, 17 December 2011 (UTC)


May I humbly suggest before making unjust assumptions and jumping to conclusions to compare some articles on nl-wiki and en-wiki about non-typical-dutch topics please? Please take a look at:

If help is needed translating and expanding the en-wiki version I am sure several knowledgeable Dutch editors including me would be glad to be of assistance. Kind regards, MoiraMoira (talk) 09:27, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

It is simply two ways around, some articles might be better in language A, some might be better in language B. En-wiki has 30 times more editors, so you've much more time to put into the articles, thus they have a higher chance to become bigger and better. That doesn't mean that all articles on the dutch wiki are shit. For instance on the part of vandalism the dutch wiki is, for what I've seen ahead of the english wiki, it's very rare to see any vandalism (things like: Pete is crazy) in articles there because everything gets checked. I don't read that often on the English wiki, but as a reader I sometimes see vandalism allready 3 months here. Mvg, Basvb (talk) 10:17, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Everything gets checked here as well by the Recent Changes patrollers. I'm sure you've heard of Huggle. I don't use it now as my Windows PC is messed up and there is no version for Linux AFAIK. But every change is checked and vandalism usually gets reverted. There is more vandalism that sticks because English Wikipedia has a far larger user base (there up to 1.8 billion people who speak English according to English language) and the number of active editors isn't the same factor larger as the number of (possible) readers. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 04:11, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
RCP is overloaded and checks only a fraction of changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:22, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
(cough) Orders, decorations, and medals of Turkey - though it's barely a start. GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:05, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
It's a rather moot point saying that it says something about the quality of a Wikipedia because an article doesn't exist there. Since I've been here full-time I have written articles about various Dutch subjects which don't have a corresponding article on the Dutch wiki and are often only mentioned in passing there (one example: 1999 Bovenkarspel legionellosis outbreak, which was the second largest legionellosis outbreak in history, with 32 deaths; it is only briefly mentioned in nl:Holland Flowers Festival and nl:Veteranenziekte). People have to be interested in subjects to create articles. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 19:01, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

On politically more problematic subjects there is also the problem that bias is not or not correctly tackled in NL; in some respects, this is absolutely right. To understand what I mean, compare for example Geert Wilders to nl:Geert Wilders or Party for Freedom to the equivalent Dutch article, more in particular some older versions such as [1]. It's surely not absolute nonsense what Victor50 writes, though it is of course highly generalizing as it has been put. The Wiki ghost (talk) 10:25, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's just all a bit smaller so you can expect these kind of problems, I don't understand the need to say that everything is way worse over there. Showing an old version means it has changed since then. But offcourse there are articles on the dutch wiki that are not good and could be way better. I believe these articles also exist on the English wiki althought they might be relatively in smaller numbers due to a much higher work force. But why do you want to close writing articles in Dutch, and why on earth is that discussed here, it seems a completely stupid plan to me. There are a lot of people who're not able to read English, and computer translations are improving but are still much worse then native articles. Another thing is that the abilty to read doesn't automaticly mean the abilty to write. I simply haven't written in English the last years because I believe that my articles would not be as good as when I would write them in Dutch. But simply stating that the dutch wiki is worse in handling problems doesn't seem fair to me if you don't have been involved on processes in both wiki's. Offcourse the dutch wiki can improve on neutrality, but according to the Category:NPOV disputes the same can be concluded for the English wiki. I don't understand the need of this discussion on this place, what is it going to improve? Giving critic in a place where it's not going to be read by the ones you want it to read. If you think the Dutch wiki has no chance of improving, then you can simply write articles on the English wiki, if you want to improve articles on the dutch wiki, you can simply go there and improve them. Everybody can decide for themselves what they prefer. I think there are quite a lot dutch natives, not writing on the smaller dutch wiki, but writing here. I don't see the problem given in this discussion as a specific Dutch wiki problem. I believe problems are pretty much the same, but due to a big difference in the number of editors their size and options to be tackled differ. Mvg, Basvb (talk) 10:53, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I cannot take your NL-coloured line of argument very serious. For instance try to compare "EN: Materialism" to "NL:Materialisme", and compare the discussion pages too. What would be the fun or use of ever trying to reach the EN-level if possible at all by sheer lack of capacity? What use is the NL version to someone who would like to really learn something on the subject? Isn't it just vanity and unwillingness to subject yourself to knowledgeable assesment to not work on a translation but try to write your own? --Victor50 (talk) 20:39, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above gets a bit messy and partly not very much to the point. However I sense not much disagreement on the fact that on "general" and non NL subjects the non-NL versions are in (far) more than 50% of the cases superior to the NL-versions. I guess this holds for a lot of other local versions. Also, from a standpoint of reliability, verification and moderation to keep track of just one language per article is much to be preferred. For practical and quality reasons for the vast majority of articles this should be the EN-version. I'll try to make a practical suggestion to make some start:

On each NL-page on a general or EN subject add some notification at the top directing to the EN-version further noting that a translation (kept updated) is to be preferred. On some very poorly written pages the contents could be replaced by a redirecting notification in somewhat harsher terms. Maybe some bot can be constructed that does this for some categories and could compare the two versions in length and number of citations. At the same time try to encourage translating and controlling, updating and discussing the quality of translation and taking part in the EN discussion in some way. I take it's understood that NL-EN version comparison is just an example and that there should be a lot of thought on how to get Wikipedia more concise over the different languages.

Sorry I didn't partake earlier but somehow the notification did not seem to work. --Victor50 (talk) 20:39, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Victor50, but why should anyone take anything you say seriously, given your own rather poor track record of contributions in any language? Jcwf (talk) 21:00, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Does this kind of remark represent any serious argument pro or against? I certainly value the efforts of all those involved. In fact my proposal is only to direct all those efforts to an optimum result. Does it really matter that my contribution takes this form in stead of editing articles? --Victor50 (talk) 12:55, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I often translate articles from Dutch Wikipedia but I always check them with sources I search for myself. I sometimes find factual errors in the articles. E.g. in the article Hotel Polen fire which I translated from nl:Brand in Hotel Polen, the latter contains several factual errors. It makes my work as translator more difficult but it improves the quality of the articles. I myself always click on the English Wikipedia link on Google if available when I search for a Wikipedia article as a reader as most of the times the English version is more fleshed out and better sourced (with exceptions like the ones mentioned above), which is also true for the German Wikipedia. But I disagree with the proposal, the Dutch Wikipedia should sort out things for themselves so if this is to be a policy it should be one there. On the other hand I do would like to see Dutch Wikipedians follow English Wikipedia guidelines when they translate to English and create articles here, I often tag articles about Dutch subjects as unsourced. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 03:35, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

(should be NL-policy) I disagree, to my knowledge all resources of Wikipedia are centrally managed and this is as it should be as getting to the truth (or somewhere near) is hard work and the discussion to get near should be centralized. I think it's not possible to donate specifically to the EN-version, wich I would certainly do if I had the opportunity.--Victor50 (talk) 12:55, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
The key thing that you have missed is that there is an endless supply of people who think they are so intelligent that if only they spend a few days looking at, reading about and thinking about Wikipedia, they can come up with some grand new scheme that will improve it dramatically, and that everybody will love. Yawn. Hans Adler 16:34, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Erh, what is exactly the problem here? I see a new user stating that reinventing the wheel in a different language is a bit odd. OK, that's a valid point but I don't see a problem. You are actually involving more people with the wonderful project that is Wikipedia, also the ones that are not able to read, and thus translate, English. Wkr, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fontes (talk • contribs) 21:44, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Quality

To be frank, i've read some very rude remarks about the work that has been done on the dutch wiki, and, frankly, i'm offended by some of them. Others, raising the point of quality and inline references are valid concerns. In many respects the norms on the dutch wiki aren't as strict as the german and english wiki's. There are, however, also much fewer possible contributors, simply because there's a lot less folks who speak the language. Simply put, we don't have the manpower to achieve stadards like on en- en de-wiki. The issue of quality has been raised quite a few times, and i've earned a reputation as an azijnpisser for pointing it out, but it has proven excruciatingly hard to achieve consensus. A cultural thing, i think. In the mean time, there's a lot of articles worth reading and on a range of subjects, the english wiki is lagging behind and progress is sometimes cumbersome. The initiation of the article Rudolf Olden, for instance, about a German human-rights lawyer in the pre-WWII era, was immediately greeted by a claim of non-notability, despite the presence of a bibliography, source and interwiki's to German, Polish, Latin and Dutch wiki's. Kleuske (talk) 20:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

At the time of the tagging requesting further sources to establish notability the only reference cited was to the preface of a German language book. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:03, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
The book, his book, that gave him notability in the first place and was mentioned in the text. The preface contains a personal history by a respected german historian. Have you actually _read_ it, so you can estimate it's reliability, or are you just shooting from the hip? Kleuske (talk) 09:12, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
In much the same "hip-shooting footnote-fetishism" a WP:POINT was added to the article last night. While it _looks_ really impressive to have shitloads of footnotes, and it looks even more intellectual to complain of a lack of them, It's got little or nothing to do with actual quality and usually merely impedes readability. Kleuske (talk) 09:17, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Practices are different here. On Dutch Wikipedia even some very long and on first glance well-researched articles that have not a single reference. How is one supposed to distinguish between WP:NOR (or WP:GOO on nlwp) and properly referenced encyclopedic content then? If you don't like the inline citations at least mention your sources so someone *might* create them. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 20:29, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
well I looked further at the article as you had drawn attention to it. Within the Milhist and Aviation projects which I frequent, such tagging is commonplace and there are project checklists for drawing attention to aspects of articles that need tackling. I know nothing about the subject but there are some out there that do and there are some that followup on referencing needed tags - so it made sense to me to flag it for attention. In the same line of thinking I have just added project tags for the Biography and Germany projects. GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:54, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
The nagging did cause me to revisit the article and lead me to find a number of interesting sources, in particular about his youth, motivations and time spent in the UK. Currently i'm reading "History of Liberty in Germany", (very interesting preface, biographically) and updating the dutch version and i'll translate it here later. Unless you want to take a stab, of course. Ah... Given the one rating the article received, there are people who think the FAZ and the man who housed Olden for five years are not reputable sources. I trust that wasn't you. Kleuske (talk) 19:23, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't recall rating it but the rating is "few reputable sources" not "no reputable sources".GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:18, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Restore edits from deleted articles?

I'd like to propose that a record of all the edits that contributed to a deleted article, and its talk page, are made publicly available. Is there a reason why they are not? Anyone thinking of recreating a similar article would benefit from its history, and hopefully not make the same mistakes. There may even be information that is suitable for other articles. --Iantresman (talk) 14:46, 10 December 2011 (UTC)


Edit histories (not content) and edit summaries were available for deleted pages up until about 2005 (?). This was turned off because of abuse - people were leaving abusive edit summaries, which remained visible after the pages themselves were removed.
As far as making deleted content visible, see Wikipedia:Soft deletion. The problem is that historically deletion has been used for two reasons:
a) Material not wanted by the Wikipedia community (the sort of thing that usually results in an article being deleted at AFD)
b) "Bad" content - attack pages which are offensive or defamatory, copyright violations, etc.
Restoring type a) is no problem if it can be used for useful purposes - so long as it's not done in a way which makes Wikipedia a permanent web host for the unwanted content, which would sort of defeat the point of having it at all! Many admins will selectively undelete content like this for you on request, or provide copies by email.
However, type b) is obviously a problem - we delete this stuff because we definitely want it gone, and not to be publicly available. As deletion currently doesn't distinguish between the two, we'd need to have a parallel "proper deletion" process, and find some way of auditing past deleted material to decide if it was suitable or not. Quite a technical challenge, even were it widely demanded! Shimgray | talk | 15:18, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
Yesh, not a sensible use of resources. We've enough problems dealing with BLP complaints to existing articles, without having to have someone deal with complaints about deleted materials. It is better to keep hard deleted, and if and when someone wants the material, then to judge whether or not it is problematic. Although, I'm happy with soft deletion being used on occasions, when an editor explicitly wishes access to the otherwise deleted material. It is easier on those few occasions to check for libel problems with the material. --Scott Mac 15:54, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
That said, soft deletion does implicitly happen a lot of the time - there's plenty of cases where a non-problematic but unwanted article is redirected to a different page, without copying any of the content over or deleting the history, leaving it removed from the live pages but still in history. Shimgray | talk | 15:58, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
(1) you don't have to deal with complains about deleted material, if you don't delete it in the first place. (2) I think the most AfD's fall into the type a) category, as I've found that attacks, copyright issues etc, are generally dealt with differently. In which case, I think it would be better if an AfD blanked an article and added a banner linking to the result of the AfD, unless there is good reason to delete specific information. I think a public record is more important. And if an article is deleted, I'd like to see an edit record, again giving a reason why, and a link to the decision process. It's all about public record, openness, transparency and accountability. --Iantresman (talk) 16:07, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
Actually, in this case it's more about not leaving around vandalism for people to show off as trophies or hosting copyright violations. --erachima talk 15:49, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
It was briefly possible to view deleted edit history in 2005. But it's not a good idea because there is plenty of junk in the deletion archives that should not be visible to ordinary users. Graham87 09:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
While I will admit that most of the stuff that is in the deletion heap is of dubious quality (especially most of the vandalism and about 95%-99% of the speedy deletion stuff), there are some real gems in that heap too. Where there has been a highly contentious AfD in particular that "failed" (aka was deleted), there are certainly some articles that are rather well written... just contentious or having some "problems" of various reasons that led to their deletion. These don't usually have problems of copyright violations or being "trophies" for vandalism, although if there was substantial "original research" or poorly sourced references (or none at all), they still don't meet Wikipedia standards. The real issue for articles of that nature is how to sort through the heap even if the content was available on a separate website.
There have been some efforts to try and sift through some of that stuff, posted by both admins trying to "rescue" an article or some very cynical "former editors" who have culled out some of these gems that have been run through the sausage mill of the AfD process and "failed". A good example of this can be found at Deletionpedia, and there are some other sites to look to as well. For myself, I think sites which do stuff like this is an excellent service to the readers of Wikipedia. --Robert Horning (talk) 09:11, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that we need to default to archiving and not hiding AfD deletions.  Admins do not have this perspective since to them deletions are not hidden.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:03, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Create a special status for project-level style guidelines

There is a discussion currently on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council talk page about the status of style guides developed by various projects. These pages contain style directives that are usually specific to particular projects, often arcane and technical, and are usually the result of discussion and consensus by project members. On the other hand, they are not guidelines sanctioned by the WP:PROPOSAL process, which means that they have the status of an essay - that is, they are mere recommendations, that editors are free to follow or ignore as they wish.

Several of us feel strongly that these style directives are more than recommendations; they are necessary to ensure consistency across articles. For example, the classical music project style page specifies how instrumentation of a symphony is to be presented. The Elements project guideline specifies the precise format and structure on an article about a chemical element. These directives need to be followed if the encyclopedia is to be consistent across specific families of articles.

The issue (of course) is that sometimes - rarely - style directives of a project conflict with those of another project, and then the poor editor caught in the middle has to decide what to do. An example of this is the dispute whether to use the {{Drugbox}} or {{Chembox}} format for drugs - which fall under both the Pharmaceuticals and Chemistry projects.

I believe these project-level style directives need to be sanctioned as something more than an essay, but something less than a guideline. I also think they should be standardized, and put on a project subpage with a standard name so they will be easily accessible.

I invite you all to join in the discussion at the council talk page so we can resolve this issue. Thanks, --Ravpapa (talk) 10:53, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm basically in agreement with most of this. But I think a spade should be called a spade. WikiProject guidelines have sometime been referred to as 'essays', but they are not in that form, i.e. they are not expressions of personal opinion written in continuous prose. Instead they are documents drafted by groups, typically as itemised lists. I'm in favour of calling them 'guidelines' because (1) that's exactly what they are, and (2) that's what we've always called them. (Some background: this issue originated in some undiscussed changes made to the Council guide page earlier this year, and the more recent debate here). --Kleinzach 01:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Role (WP:ESSAYS). What is begin talked about is how we can distinguish the difference between the advice/recommendation/style preference/project gudlines pages vs Wikipedia project wide guidelines. Meaning the difference between those guideline-advice type pages that have gone threw the WP:PROPOSAL process and those that have not. Should we have a fourth tier level of instructional type page as mentioned above (a new name-space perhaps)?. Should we have a more "committee type" system to mediate inter project disputes when in comes to theses project guideline pages that conflict. All that explained there seem to be not much of a willingness to change the status quo in any dramatic way.Moxy (talk) 02:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm in favour of project guidelines being Wiki guidelines by default. The only caveat is that occasionally a project will come up with guidelines designed by specialists who understand their jargon, but no-one else does. I'm thinking of the botanists who insist on naming all plants, even common ones, by their unintelligible Latin name, cutting right across WP:USEENGLISH and WP:COMMONNAME. --Bermicourt (talk) 07:09, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
That is going to be the hard nut to crack. Generally there are not problems with article layout types of information. When conflicts over those points do pop up, they are usually resolved with a discussion on a talk page. When there are problems, it is with advice that might be in conflict with major policies or key guidelines, or at least perceived to be in conflict. Besides your examples, there is WP:HOCKEY to use diacritics, WP:SCHOOLS and no need for meeting WP:GNG or WP:PORNBIO. So I guess I'm in favor of the style issues having a higher standing, but draw the line somewhere. Also consider how this applies to other areas. There are some projects that either do or did mandate the use of specific templates in all articles. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I definitely support a concerted effort to centralize style guidelines (whatever they are called). Perhaps a way to achieve it could be by starting a Wikipedia:WikiProject Style continuity. All the style guides and essays could be brought together under one roof, and willing volunteers could then go through them as a group (using discussed consensus), fixing them all.
Continuity is bound to be difficult to maintain on a site with millions of pages, edited by millions of people. Very surprisingly though, it really doesn't look that bad, considering. However, it is growing at an alarming rate, so maybe now would be a good time to bring everything together in one place, so it can be monitored more easily. fredgandt 12:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Some of these pages are way off some of our core principles like Wikipedia:Be bold and our moto "Anyone can edit". We need a way to make sure that these pages are not the opposite of community consensus and dont lead to conflicts (and if so how do we resolve it). Moxy (talk) 16:14, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
In the event of a conflict between a Project guideline and a general Wikipedia guideline, the general one should prevail. In an article which spans two articles, local consensus should be achieved on the talk page, with neither Project's guidelines assumed to take precedence. IAR and anyone can edit would still apply, if an edit is made which does not follow guidelines subsequent editors can reformat it to meet the guidelines. Nobody Ent (Gerardw) 21:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I think that there is already too much attampted assertion of project decision/rules/.guidelines/preferences over articles. Also consider that a particular article many have many different projects "claiming" it. North8000 (talk) 22:50, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I own all of them, and they should all be turquoise! fredgandt 22:56, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree with North8000 and strongly oppose the proposal to permit WikiProjects to establish "guidelines" without consulting the community at large.
Certainly, they're welcome to create pages advising editors on how to apply existing guidelines to specific subject areas (and I don't oppose coming up with a designation other than "essay"). They also are welcome to author potential new guidelines and present them to the Wikipedia community for consideration.
But as helpful as WikiProjects are (and believe me, I don't seek to downplay that fact), many already attempt to impose too much control over "their" articles. One more than one occasion, I've encountered so-called "guidelines" directly contradicting Wikipedia's normal practices. Upon questioning the WikiProjects responsible, I've been informed that there was "consensus" to treat "their" subjects differently. Invariably, this has turned out to refer to agreement among a handful of WikiProject members who briefly discussed the matter and never bothered to seek outside input.
So yeah, we can establish a new label, but we must maintain the distinction between a WikiProject's recommendation and Wikipedia-level consensus. —David Levy 23:56, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I (as the person primarily responsible for writing all of the guidelines and other pages that strongly encourage WikiProjects to write these pages, by the way), see several problems with providing any sort of official, blanket community endorsement to such pages. Most of them are based on three misconceptions:
  1. That WP:The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays is that one type always "outranks" the other, so if a WikiProject's advice is "merely" an essay, then it can be ignored at will.
    Anyone want to try ignoring WP:TE this month? You'll end up blocked. How about WP:Common sense, another "mere essay"? Do you think that's purely optional advice just because it doesn't say "guideline" or "policy" at the top? How about WP:BRD? Does that seem like something people dismiss as unimportant because it's an essay? Several of our policies link to more than half a dozen essays. Is it "demeaning" to call WP:ATA an essay rather than a guideline? And if "essay" is an acceptable label for these truly important pages, then why is the same label an insult when applied to a few sentences put together by a couple of editors at a WikiProject?
  2. That all WikiProjects are equal.
    If MILHIST puts together advice on how to handle some relevant page, I'm going to follow it. Why? They know more than I do about their content area, there are a lot of them working to make their advice the best possible, they produce excellent work, and their advice doesn't conflict with the community-wide advice (because they identify and excise such errors).
    Now let's contrast that with the "guideline" at WikiProject Cornwall: It was written by a single, sporadically active editor. Four years ago. With zero maintenance effort. On behalf of a "WikiProject" that posts less than two messages per month to its talk page, and most of those are from people who aren't even part of the project. I'm willing to believe that it is good and helpful advice, but are you really going to accept that one guy's advice as being anything more than the advice of one guy, just because he named the page "WP:WikiProject Cornwall/Guideline" rather than "WP:My personal opinions about Cornwall-related articles"? Do you really want to officially elevate this one person's opinion above any other person's opinion? There are hundreds of examples like this. Groups like MILHIST are the exception, not the rule.
  3. That "WikiProject" means something materially different from "group of editors". Why should two newbies who decide to call themselves a "WikiProject" get to bypass the WP:PROPOSAL process and have their advice (no matter how bad) accepted sight-unseen as being more than just the advice of two newbies, while a dozen experienced editors who don't choose to apply that label to themselves are expected to have the community double-check their work if they want to assert that other people should follow their advice?
    All it takes to start a WikiProject is creating a page. Any editor here can create a new WikiProject at any time. All it takes to actually be a bona fide WikiProject is finding one other like-minded person to join you. That's it. There are essentially no limits on creating WikiProjects—and consequently, there are no limits on ignorant or pointy editors writing "WikiProject advice pages".
As a point of context, Kleinzach has been involved in (and lost) a long and painful RFC about whether WikiProject Composers was entitled to declare that bios of composers were never permitted to include infoboxes. This is a good, productive WikiProject that others ought to emulate, and I actually agree with them that WP:DISINFOBOXes are not desirable. But their advice needs to remain their own advice, not something that's automatically endorsed by the whole community merely because the editors called themselves a WikiProject. The current system permits them to give their true advice without forcing their preference on everyone. If they want official, community-wide recognition, rather than a space in which to share their best advice, they can make a WP:PROPOSAL and (if their advice is good) get that recognition. Otherwise, they should be left alone, to make their advice but not to pretend that their advice is automatically better than the next person's advice merely because they're calling themselves a WikiProject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
You are citing an extreme case. There are not many WikiProjects with 2 newbies creating the sort of mayhem you describe if any. We need to base our policies on the mainstream situation. That's not to say there should be no scrutiny at all of individual project guidelines; perhaps there should be some sort of independent assessment as well. Can we not find a sensible middle course? --Bermicourt (talk) 00:31, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
You haven't ever watched the WikiProject proposals page for any length of time, have you? WikiProject creation by newbies or by single editors is unfortunately common. The tiny fraction of WikiProjects you have personal experience with is not the same thing as "the WikiProjects". In fact, since few of us deal with failed WikiProjects, most of us have a far more positive experience than the median WikiProject offers. I can give you plenty of examples of problems from perfectly average WikiProjects, if you want them. WikiProject Hospitals, for example, is essentially a one-man shop. His initial notability advice was that all hospitals were inherently notable no matter what. I happened to notice it and fixed it for him, but that's the advice you would have been buying.
We already have a perfectly good system of providing status in return for independent scrutiny. It's called making a WP:PROPOSAL. The members of WikiProjects who are pushing for this special status do not choose to make a proposal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
In larger WikiProjects, so-called "guidelines" have been created when three or four members participated in a tiny discussion and none of the others objected.
But even if all members of a sizable WikiProject discuss something for weeks or months and arrive at unanimous agreement, this is not a substitute for consensus within the Wikipedia community (which can differ for a variety of reasons).
As WhatamIdoing notes, if a WikiProject wishes to establish a new policy or guideline, it can propose it to the community at large (as is expected of everyone else). Why do you believe that it's necessary to bypass/compromise this step? —David Levy 01:08, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
The questions that I original proposed that brings us all here were - Should these Wikiproject advice pages use the title of "guidelines" like Wikipedia:Wikiproject Flowers/Guidelines or should they be re-titled as to avoid confusion between the two? Should they be in a category called Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects or moved to something like Category:Style recommendations of WikiProjects? Keeping in mind there are many projects that have there "guidelines/Manual of style" simply as a sub-section of main project pages. Moxy (talk) 06:03, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
To avoid confusion, the term "guideline" shouldn't be used to describe WikiProjects' recommendations (unless the Wikipedia community actually has accepted them as guidelines, in which case they shouldn't remain parts of WikiProjects). So yes, the pages and category should be renamed. —David Levy 06:20, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
That sounds reasonable. Nobody Ent (Gerardw) 11:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with others that editors should be able to readily distinguish project-specific recommendations from guidelines that have demonstrated more widespread acceptance that have better quality control (e.g., actively maintained, wide range of participants). older ≠ wiser 15:29, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Under no circumstances should projects' style advice get special status. While most projects are valuable, evidence shows that some (composers/ opera, US roads) will use their style advice to hammer through the persona preferences of a small clique of editors contrary to wider community consensus, or to avoid bothering to obtain such consensus. If the projects advice is popular and well-argued, the community will be happy to adopt it as part of the MoS. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:32, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I think this might need an RFC. I'm seeing a small number of editors here and all talking from the same side. It would be worthwhile to canvass a bit on both the smaller and larger WikiProject talk pages to see what they have to say about the subject, as this directly impacts their work. For some WikiProjects (MILHIST, VG off the top of my head), it seems backwards to call their style guidelines anything but guidelines, as they are generally accepted if not always agreed with (largely because they keep in mind the greater consensus of guidelines and policies "above" them). Did either of them go through the WP:PROPOSAL process? I don't think so (I could be wrong). Even if they had, would anyone but VG and MILHIST editors have been interested in commenting on that process? Not many others, if any.

Of course, the middle ground is that we segregate the style guidelines of a larger or more successful project from a smaller or more inactive project. This would raise some concern, I'm sure. I simply don't understand why it should be necessary to rename them, even if they haven't been through the process. In the end, the style guidelines are just guidelines, and can be ignored as necessary, or can be changed to "be in-line" with the greater community consensus. Changing them, whether they're guidelines or "recommendations", will probably take the same amount of time, and that seems the important part: how difficult they are to change.

Speaking to that point, what happens after they've gone through the PROPOSAL process? Even if the greater community does approve of it at the time, who's to say that will be the case a year from approval? Even the great[ly sized] MOS morphs quickly, and in certain sections, becomes unrecognizable to someone who has looked at it before. Is there some belief that this also doesn't happen on the WikiProject style pages? Does the MOS have greater scrutiny? Probably. But I would attribute that to the fact that it affects all 3.8 million pages, and not simply the 100k or 40k pages or even less you might find beneath MILHIST or VG (never mind BIO with it's even 1 million...).

So, I'd reiterate that there need to be more views on something like this. Raising it at VPP is a good first step, but there are more steps that should be taken before anything is done. I'm rather certain the WikiProjects (just as the states in the US) would feel rather prickly about having anyone cast down their "recommendations" from guideline status... --Izno (talk) 15:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

For some WikiProjects (MILHIST, VG off the top of my head), it seems backwards to call their style guidelines anything but guidelines, as they are generally accepted if not always agreed with (largely because they keep in mind the greater consensus of guidelines and policies "above" them).'
WikiProject Military history happens to be one of the WikiProjects to which I referred earlier; its members invented their own naming convention contrary to Wikipedia's normal style (preemptive disambiguation) and included it among their "MoS guidelines". When I pointed out the disparity, they responded by holding an internal vote confirming that the "guideline" would be retained.
This is why, for example, 18th Engineer Brigade redirects to 18th Engineer Brigade (United States). Heck, they had Women's Army Corps redirecting to Women's Army Corps (United States Army) for a while.
Did either of them go through the WP:PROPOSAL process? I don't think so (I could be wrong). Even if they had, would anyone but VG and MILHIST editors have been interested in commenting on that process? Not many others, if any.
It would depend on the recommendation. Some are based on specific knowledge of a subject area (in which case the community might opt to defer to a WikiProject's judgement and essentially rubber-stamp its proposal). Others, as in the example above, pertain to general style issues (and aren't necessarily consistent with Wikipedia's usual practices).
Of course, the middle ground is that we segregate the style guidelines of a larger or more successful project from a smaller or more inactive project.
No WikiProject, whether small or large, possesses special authority to dictate articles' content.
This would raise some concern, I'm sure. I simply don't understand why it should be necessary to rename them, even if they haven't been through the process.
Because there is significant confusion on this front (among WikiProject members and editors in general).
In the end, the style guidelines are just guidelines, and can be ignored as necessary, or can be changed to "be in-line" with the greater community consensus. Changing them, whether they're guidelines or "recommendations", will probably take the same amount of time, and that seems the important part: how difficult they are to change.
They're quite difficult to change when WikiProjects create them without the greater community's involvement, label them "MoS guidelines" and verify their legitimacy by voting amongst themselves (again without seeking input from the rest of the Wikipedia community).
Speaking to that point, what happens after they've gone through the PROPOSAL process? Even if the greater community does approve of it at the time, who's to say that will be the case a year from approval?
How is that different from any other proposal?
I'm rather certain the WikiProjects (just as the states in the US) would feel rather prickly about having anyone cast down their "recommendations" from guideline status...
That WikiProjects govern "their" articles is precisely the misconception that we need to dispel. —David Levy 20:50, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The difference between policies, guidelines and essays

Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Role
Should Wikiproject advice pages use the title of "guidelines" like Wikipedia:Wikiproject Flowers/Guidelines or should they be re-titled as to avoid confusion between the two? Should they be in a category called Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects or moved to something like Category:Style recommendations of WikiProjects? Should there be a clear difference in titles between guideline pages that have been approved by the WP:PROPOSAL process and those that have not. Should we have a fourth tier level of instructional type page for project recommendations (a new name-space perhaps)?.Moxy (talk) 16:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

  • It has been my belief so far that the page name wasn't causing enough confusion to justify the hassle of moving pages, but if I'm wrong, then we can do that.
    I oppose the creation of yet another category of advice page. According to the definition at WP:POLICY, these pages are essays (in the wikijargon, not in the dictionary definition that Kleinzach prefers). The policy defines essays like this: "Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or group of editors, for which widespread consensus has not been established." The "opinion or advice of a group of editors for which widespread consensus has not been established" is a perfectly accurate description of the pages we're talking about. As a result, I think that Kleinzach's changes to the templates (which try to hide the pages' status as essays) need to be reversed.
    Consistent with WP:POLICY#Naming, which directly discourages the use of words like "guideline" in page names, I don't think that we need to spam the word "essay" into the page names. A tag at the top should be sufficient to advertise its WP:LOCALCONSENSUS nature. If we really are having a problem with confusion, then I suggest that page moves be proposed to more-or-less standardized names on subpages in the WP:WikiProject Foo/ namespace. My recommendation is to discourage both "Guide" and "Guideline", and to encourage names like these:
    • /Article recommendations or /Advice (if they have one page or section on their main page containing all their advice)
    • /Style advice (if they have a page specifically about style issues)
    • /Content advice or /Sourcing advice (if they have a page specifically about content and sourcing issues)
    • /Notability (if they have a page specifically about notability issues).
      Concerns about shortcuts might be addressed with a suggestion that shortcuts include a "WP" at the start to represent "WikiProject", or "WPFOO" to represent its whole name, e.g., WP:WPADVICE or WP:WPFOOADVICE rather than WP:ADVICE. A number of WikiProjects follow that convention anyway, just for their own convenience.
      Some effort has already been made, on a strictly voluntary basis, to move these pages, and I believe that most WikiProjects have been receptive to it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

An aspect of this issue that no one has yet mentioned

I have spent most of my life as a professional editor in one capacity or another, and I don't even want to mention how many years that has been. In the course of my career, I have used most of the leading style guides of this world: McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Chicago, AP. In fact, these are all sitting right on my shelf as I type this.

The great depth of these style manuals notwithstanding, none of them has the scope of the Wikipedia style guidelines (including the project guidelines). None of them contains standards for naming chess pieces or typography for football players or how to present computer code in an article.

In other words, the work that Wikipedians have done in developing style standards for a tremendous range of subjects is unique, and is a huge potential asset to the world. Unfortunately, that asset is currently almost unusable, since there is no uniformity or indexing of all these style directives.

The concern of some editors here is that some of these project-level style directives are or might be frivolous, or contradictory. But surely they are talking about a small, small percentage of this total body of work. An indication of this is that the same three or four examples of contradictory guidelines keep popping up again and again. Is that because these are the only examples there are? The vast majority of style directives developed by projects are thoughtful and valuable.

I strongly urge that all these guidelines be indexed, organized, and reviewed (even if only by members of the projects involved), and sanctioned. Wrinkles can be worked out over time. But let's make this asset accessible to the rest of the world. --Ravpapa (talk) 19:05, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Dont think anyone is saying "The vast majority of style directives developed by projects are NOT thoughtful and NOT valuable". What is being asked is do they whole the same merit as those that have been scrutinized by the WP:PROPOSAL process. As of now or policy says they are different - yet they have the same title, thus misleading our editors as to there true nature be it correct information or not. If they do hold the same merit all is ok - if not should they be renamed to reflect the fact they are not officially sanctioned "guidelines" regardless of how informative they may be. I for one think the pages for the most part are great (I have also written a few) and believe they should all go threw the WP:PROPOSAL process, but until then how do our editors distinguish between the two kinds. Moxy (talk) 19:36, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I wouldn't make too much of the WP:PROPOSAL process. Most guidelines are approved by just a few people, and are regularly changed without any process other than someone editing them and no-one who happens to be watching them objecting. What matters far more is whether the would-be guidelines reflect what happens in practice.--Kotniski (talk) 20:01, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
An actual guideline's continued existence is subject to consensus within the Wikipedia community. If a controversial one slips though, the community can eliminate it.
Conversely, a WikiProject's "guidelines" rely solely on consensus among its members, who sometimes ensure that it "reflect[s] what happens in practice" by overruling others' objections and editing accordingly (citing the "guidelines" as justification). —David Levy 20:50, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
OTOH, it's my impression that the same could be said for much of the "actual" MOS. Anomie⚔ 04:52, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree, but that's a separate issue that the community is capable of addressing (as opposed to "guidelines" formally controlled by WikiProjects). —David Levy 05:02, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't think any subset of editors "formally control" anything (though admittedly having a page with "WikiProject XYZ" in its title is generally going to deter people without a specific interest in XYZ from participating in discussion relating to that page).--Kotniski (talk) 08:03, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
WikiProjects typically create, maintain and attempt to enforce such "guidelines" without consulting the Wikipedia community at large. They possess no special authority to dictate articles' content (a widespread belief to the contrary notwithstanding), but they effectively control the pages written as parts of their WikiProjects; realistically, for a substantive edit to stand, it must be performed in accordance with the WikiProject's standards and procedures.
In contrast, an actual style guideline might be written, maintained and enforced (i.e. informally controlled) mainly by a particular WikiProject's members, but it's sanctioned by the greater community (and subject to its oversight). —David Levy 18:54, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps this is what happens in theory, though really any page is maintained by whatever subset of editors choose to take an interest in it. (Though I suppose marking something as a guideline, or proposing doing so, attracts the interest of a broader set of editors - at least temporarily.)Kotniski (talk) 21:12, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
At least temporarily. An important result from the proposal process is that if the group's advice has some serious flaws, then it either the advice gets corrected (and most such changes do actually stick), or there's a record available to future editors indicating that the advice was considered and rejected by the community, and therefore can be discounted in the future. A mass-endorsement of anything written by anyone on a page including the word "WikiProject" in the title doesn't have that benefit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:09, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Can you clarify what "discounted" means in this context? Nobody Ent (Gerardw) 03:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Sure: to give an extreme example, it means that when WikiProject Rogue declares that you have to follow their advice to turn the text on the page green because they're a WikiProject and that means they OWN the article you've written, then you can look at the talk page, see that their advice was roundly criticized as being idiotic, and tell them that it appears to be a choice between their way or the community's way, and you refuse to violate the community's consensus. And you would get support for this, because most of us know how to find an obvious consensus when it's documented.
In more plausible scenarios, you would likely find a mix of good advice and not-so-ideal advice, and the discussions would help you figure out which pieces were deemed good (and so you should follow them) and which pieces might require more thought or really only apply to certain specific situations (and so you should think about them, and follow the advice if it's applicable and reject the advice if it's not). You should, in effect, keep the baby and throw out the bathwater. Maybe the "baby" is 90% of the page, or maybe it's 10%, but you should keep the good and ignore the rest.
By contrast, when WP:V tells you that direct quotations should be followed by an inline citation, you don't need to consider it. You need to take that advice at full face value. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
In the message to which you replied, I noted that a guideline might even be maintained mainly by a particular WikiProject's members. I see nothing inherently wrong with that. I object to the scenario in which a WikiProject creates and maintains a "guideline" without consulting the greater Wikipedia community. —David Levy 16:37, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

My view is that policies and guidelines should have different shortcuts to distinguish them from essays (which are often cited as if they were policies and unless one clicks on the link one does not see the difference). So we e.g. cite POL:V instead of WP:V and GUI:GNG instead of WP:GNG. Ideally we should have different namespaces for policies and guidelines. This was suggested last year but seems to have gone nowhere. SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 06:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

That would make sense if policies really were policies, guidelines really were guidelines, essays really were essays... But there isn't necessarily in practice a whole lot of difference between them. Often they're just pages which gained a particular label sometime in the past and no-one can be bothered going to the effort of gaining consensus to change it.--Kotniski (talk) 08:08, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Or if a policy always "trumped" a guideline, and a guideline always "trumped" an essay. But the fact is that it does not work that way. If your question is about whether to include an external link, the guideline at WP:EL trumps every other policy, guideline, and essay. If you want to know a good way to handle a minor content dispute, the essay at WP:BRD is going to be more useful to you than the policy at WP:DR. Our real hierarchy—which is nothing more than a rule of thumb with many, many exceptions—is that the specific trumps the general, not that policies trump guidelines (although several of the sourcing policies [and I believe only the sourcing policies] have explicitly structured themselves that way, largely because of the preferences of a single editor). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
I think I'm going to cite WP:TIRED. Which I conveniently wrote myself. Didn't get much sleep last night. ^^ SpeakFree (talk)(contribs) 20:25, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

As another trained editor, I like RavPapa's ideas about the WP style guidelines as a resource which could be "indexed, organized, reviewed". It is indeed a huge potential asset.

Ideally these technical guidelines should be incorporated into increasingly detailed MoS pages — an upward migration. In reality it's rarely happening. In my own field, a succession of music editors have described the process of making even small, uncontroversial changes to the MoS as 'banging your head against a brickwall', because of the residual control of these pages exercised by non-specialists who don't understand and can even resent technical information.

A good example of this has already been offered by a commenter above who argues with "botanists who insist on naming all plants . . . by their unintelligible Latin name . . ." — by extension rejecting the whole of scientific taxonomy! (Perhaps he only meant article titles, though common names can often be too local or little known to be viable even for these.) With attitudes like that — well, people with specialists knowledge will simply be out of here, let alone be writing guidelines! --Kleinzach 09:37, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Pls see WP:PROPOSAL if you believe your project guidelines are in order with the rest of the community. Thats said Wikipriojects are growing not decreasing. If the music projects your involved in are losing members perhaps you should look internally for a problem within the group? Because as a whole we are trying to encouraging more WikiProjects and get old ones up and running again Moxy (talk) 16:05, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Redux: The Council proposal

I hadn't realised the discussion was continuing here. (I thought it was at the council.) The substantive issue over there was about the three tag-banners ({{WikiProject style advice}}, {{Wikiproject notability essay}} and {{WikiProject content advice}}), which are currently recommended in the Advice page section of WikiProject Council/Guide.

I believe few editors are aware of this Council/Guide page. (The recommendation in question was added by an editor without any discussion [2].) This is the first time we've had an opportunity to discuss it. Anyway the talking continues here.

I'll comment on RavPapa's important point about WP style manuals/guidelines as a unique resource above. --Kleinzach 08:55, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Why do you keep posting this over and over again - Pls start reading the comments people post. Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Content changes. AS for views it's looked at about 50 times a day.
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Classical_music/Guidelines has been viewed 174 times in the last 30 days.
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide has been viewed 1725 times in the last 30 days - Moxy (talk) 15:28, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

A modest proposal

This page is supposed to be a place to make proposals, but so far we have only been kvetching. So here is a proposal: That we undertake a project to categorize, standardize, and evaluate all the project-level style guidelines. This project would have the following stages:

  1. Enlist a team. The most natural place to enlist volunteers would be at the WP:WikiProject Manual of Style. At least one of the members of that project is participating in this discussion.
  2. Develop a recommendation for standardized structure and format for a project style page. This would include: page naming conventions (perhaps a subpage of the project page?), recommended sections (for example, Style, Structure, Naming conventions, etc.).
  3. Develop a grading system for style pages. This might include the following grades: 0 (unhandled), 1 (Format standardized), 2 (Project reviewed), 3 (Community reviewed).
  4. Specify an indexing system (probably incorporating the style pages into the MOS directory, with an indication of their grades)
  5. Roll out the project, first to the Project Council, and then, through personal contacts to each of the projects.
  6. Ideally, WikiProject members would standardize and review their own directives, to reach grade 2. In those cases where the WikiProjects did not take the initiative, our project members would help out.
  7. Start working to push these project level standards through the community review process, to incorporate them into the WP:MOS.

I think a project of this sort addresses all the concerns that have been raised in this discussion. It would make the work of hundreds of Wikipedians accessible. And it would be a first step toward resolving the concerns of Moxy and Whatamidoing that there are rogue guidelines out there that evade community review.

Comments? Volunteers? --Ravpapa (talk) 13:19, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I actually like these idea. Lets see what others have to say WP:POLCON.Moxy (talk) 15:31, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Reluctant oppose. Much as I agree with the thrust of Ravpapa's argument, the proposal (as it stands) is impractical. It would invent another level of bureaucracy that would fail because (1) the enormity of its task and danger of becoming a time sink, (2) its top-down orientation, (3) the near impossibility of organising a grading system, and (4) overlap with WP:WikiProject Manual of Style. I'd prefer to see a much simpler system whereby projects can take the initiative in asking for their guidelines to be incorporated in the MoS, perhaps by asking for a simple, but formal, written review. --Kleinzach 03:44, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Reluctant oppose. I agree with Kleinzach. The proposal as it stands is likely to take a long time to come to fruition, indeed I wonder if its band of dedicated volunteers will ever catch up and keep up with the myriad project guidelines as they develop and change. Kleinzach's alternative places the onus on projects to prepare their guidelines iaw any standards/guidance and put them forward for a simple review and is more likely to be realised quickly IMHO. --Bermicourt (talk) 07:15, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose this is a big topdown project that would falter as soon it hits one of our many dormant projects. As for what would happen when such a team hit one of our smaller projects with a few editors working to improve an area of the pedia, I dread to think. But huge diplomacy would be needed if a group of volunteers turned up to do this to a project whose active members they outnumbered. If we were going to do such a project wide process then I would suggest doing it on something clearer and more appropriate for a cross project group - simplification or jargon busting would be helpful. Having someone visit a bunch of projects and check that at the very least the jargon they used in their templates was linked to articles that explained it might well be useful. ϢereSpielChequers 15:58, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Explaining it is better than renaming it

Renaming changes little. A WikiProject Recommendation can be as good or bad as a WikiProject Guideline - it's not what it is called, it is what it says that matters. We have explanatory templates such as {{WikiProject notability essay}} which gives people guidance (or recommendations) on how to assess the value of the page they are about to read. Some means to identify the advice as coming from a WikiProject rather than from the community as a whole is useful, though the actual name-code is less significant as the new name-code can carry the same weight as the old one. Calling a housing estate a farm doesn't make it a more pleasant place to live, nor does changing a school's name from Fleapit Comprehensive to Peacock College make the students behave any better. And, as has been pointed out above, some essays, such as WP:CYCLE and WP:BEANS are frequently cited as the content is respected, while others, such as WP:BURY and WP:BRAND are orphaned. I'd like us to encourage people to use good judgement, to assess, and to make their own independent decisions, rather than react blindly to name-codes. How many times have we seen people in discussions, such as AfD, shooting off an impressive list of shortcuts, as though that in itself were justification - yet when clicking on those guidelines the actual advice bears little, or even the opposite, of what the poster is asserting. SilkTork ✔Tea time 11:40, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

That has been my view for a long while, but it appears that the name itself is causing some confusion among some editors, particularly those who are newer or have a more rigid mindset.
(NB that the people who are reading more into the name than you would do not have the same views about the pages' status: some want them "downgraded" and some are horrified by the prospect of their advice being directly labeled as "advice of an editor or group of editors for which widespread consensus has not been established" (i.e., an essay according to the formal definition of the wikijargon term).) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:10, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
As SilkTork suggests we need common sense and plain English. There is little confusion about WikiProject guidelines at present. If we start calling them essays (or whatever else seems bureaucratically neat and authoritative) then there certainly will be. Anything that makes WP more complicated will just make WP decline even faster. --Kleinzach 00:25, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
There seems to have been a good deal of confusion over their status, including past efforts by your favorite WikiProject to pretend that its advice was equal to the community-wide advice that it contradicted. We have heard from other people in this discussion that they, too, think the labels are less than clear. And this is hardly surprising, because "a guideline that isn't actually a Guideline" is pretty confusing to the average person, just like a calling an NPOV-compliant article "neutral" when it dismisses their pet theory as complete hogwash is pretty confusing to the average person.
If we start calling them the "advice of an editor or group of editors for which widespread consensus has not been established", which is exactly what they are, there will be no confusion at all. Of course, that level of clarity might be less convenient for any WikiProject that wants to engage in article ownership, but that's not a behavior that any good editor really wants to enable or encourage. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Agree - "a guideline that isn't actually a Guideline" is pretty confusing to all, even long time editors. There also seems to be some confusion that they are not already considered "essays" by the community, thus are treated and quoted as policies from time to time. How can we make the distinctions clear? I suggested renaming the cat they are in for a start. Have the headers/title "policy and/or guideline" reserved for actual policy and guidelines like with the templates {{guideline}} and {{Policy}}. We have banners for projects advice pages like {{Wikiproject notability essay}} and {{WikiProject style advice}} that further explain the current status (community consensus) of Wikiproject advice pages and could be a great source of alleviating some confusion if Wikiprojects were willing to add them.Moxy (talk) 05:01, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Whatamidoing, I am impressed by the passion of your argument, but have yet to see any concrete evidence of its truth. In the course of this entire discussion, only two examples of project style directives that contradicted guidelines were given, and, in fact, in neither of those cases was there any real contradiction (Classical music's decision to eschew infoboxes, and the Pharma project to use the drug rather than the chemical infobox). Yet you talk about this as though it is a widespread phenomenon. Could you please give four or five examples of project style decisions that are counter to the MOS? Thanks, --Ravpapa (talk) 07:20, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

You appear to have overlooked my example (pertaining to WikiProject Military history), for which I provided a link to the relevant discussion.
I encountered another example at WikiProject Anime and manga, which created an "MoS guideline" stating that certain information is not "notable in English" and should be confined to other Wikipedias (because segregating information is "the purpose of having separate language wikis"). The "guideline", invoked to justify mass content removals and reversions, apparently was created as a result of this discussion (which was cited as evidence of "overwhelming consensus"). The greater Wikipedia community, of course, wasn't consulted. —David Levy 08:07, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Now I'm really confused. Both the WikiProject Military history style guideline and the Manga/anime style guide are part of the MOS and the alleged contradictions that you found so offensive are now official. The discussions you cite relate to discrepancies within the MOS, not between the MOS and project guidelines.
Do you have any other, better examples? --Ravpapa (talk) 08:40, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Firstly, the page was located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide when the linked discussion occurred. Its text was determined and enforced by WikiProject Military history. As you can see, when I objected to a particular rule, the WikiProject responded by affirming its "MoS guideline" status via an internal vote. All of this was done without consulting the Wikipedia community at large. What occurred afterward is immaterial to the example.
Secondly, that page subsequently was moved to the MoS as a result of this general discussion/poll regarding the naming structure (in which the page's "guideline" standing wasn't addressed), not via the WP:PROPOSAL process.
Thirdly, WikiProject Anime and manga's "guideline" page already had a "Manual of Style" title when the linked discussion occurred. That's where the WikiProject created it (again, without consulting the greater community).
This illustrates the problem. Even some WikiProjects believe that their "guidelines" are parts of the MoS. —David Levy 10:27, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
So, are you saying is that the fact that a project guideline is an official part of the MOS does not make it any different from a project guideline that isn't. That whole sections of the MOS do not represent the view of the "greater community"? If that is so, what is the difference between the MOS and project-level guidelines that are not part of the MOS? --Ravpapa (talk) 10:50, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm saying that the lines have been badly blurred, to the extent that many editors don't understand the distinction.
Some WikiProjects believe that they possess the authority to create an MoS-level guideline without consulting the rest of the Wikipedia community. They often refer to one as part of the MoS, regardless of whether "Manual of Style" appears in its name. As you can see in the linked WikiProject Military history discussion (which occurred when the title Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide was in use), the page was described as "our current MoS guidelines", with the contents thereof determined by "our project members" (meaning members of the WikiProject).
Some WikiProjects realize that their advice isn't part of the MoS, but their use of the term "guideline" (or similar) accidentally promotes confusion among other editors.
In theory, a page's presence in the MoS is supposed to reflect community consensus, but some pages have been inserted there by WikiProjects that haven't bothered to seek it or by other editors who didn't recognize the distinction. This, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that the advice contained therein is bad or contradictory; it means that it hasn't been properly evaluated.
The solution is simple and clear-cut: remove the "guideline" and "MoS" labels (and anything similar) from all pages for which non-local consensus hasn't been established. Tag them in a manner clearly and non-disparagingly indicating their nature. Encourage WikiProjects and other groups of editors to go through the WP:PROPOSAL process, thereby enabling the Wikipedia community to determine which pages should be included in the MoS and what changes should be made. —David Levy 11:47, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Then I suggest that you begin with the MOS itself. Make a list of those sections of the MOS which have not gone through the WP:PROPOSAL process, and recommend that they be removed from the MOS. Then you will be in a position to make a real distinction between those with community approval and those without. No point picking on the project style guides that are not included in the MOS, when, as you point out, many of those that are included are, in your opinion, of the same degraded status. --Ravpapa (talk) 12:05, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
This isn't a one-person endeavor. I support the proposal to formally establish a specific designation other than "guideline" (whether it's "essay", "advice page", "recommendation page" or something else).
After we've decided what designation to use (even if we end up settling on "style guide", "guideline" or something similar, which I obviously oppose), we can go about determining the pages to which the label properly applies. I don't anticipate that this will occur overnight. —David Levy 12:34, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Just for the record, I should say that, if you make such a proposal, I will oppose it. Your example of the Anime style guideline is an example of why I oppose it. The original discussion where the project decided not to include details of non-English translations of manga, included five participants. The discussion where you strenuously objected to this directive - the discussion which led to the change in the guideline and which, you believe, represents the consensus of the wider community - included four participants - you and three others who were members of the Anime project and who had participated in the original discussion. So the only thing that made this more limited discussion one of the "wider community" was your participation. --Ravpapa (talk) 12:05, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
You appear to have misunderstood. Neither discussion occurred at the community level. I don't assert that the latter one established consensus against the rule. I'm saying that consensus for it wasn't sought (let alone established) in the first place. The matter was never properly addressed.
My opinion that this particular idea was bad is immaterial. Perhaps the community would embrace it. It hasn't been asked. —David Levy 12:34, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Apparently I have misunderstood. And still misunderstand. The discussion about the Manga guideline took place on the talk page of the MOS guideline. When, then, does a discussion on the talk page of an official guideline constitute wider community participation and when does it not? --Ravpapa (talk) 12:56, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Simply labeling a page "guideline" doesn't make it one in any meaningful sense (apart from the likelihood that it will be perceived as one). That's the basis of this discussion.
As you pointed out, the talk page in question was utilized almost exclusively by a particular WikiProject's members. (I was the lone exception to participate in that exchange.) This is understandable, given the fact that the WikiProject created the "official guideline" on its own.
A community-wide discussion occurs on a page frequented by a reasonable cross-section of Wikipedia editors and/or is advertised in such a forum, hopefully resulting in a significantly larger turnout than four or five people. —David Levy 13:24, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
But how, then, can I tell if I am participating in a discussion that counts or one that doesn't count? How do I identify which talk pages are for the "wider community" and which are just for the local community?
I hope you understand what I'm getting at. You seem to be suggesting that there is some "wider community" that makes binding decisions on Wikipedia. Other discussions don't count. But there seems to be no formal (or even informal) way of identifying which discussions are which. Some talk pages yes, others no.
Until I raised this RFC on this page, I had never posted to this page. I have, on the other hand, been active in discussions on policy matters at several projects. Does this mean I am not part of the "wider community" and my opinions - until expressed on this page - don't count?
Your whole idea of what is the wider community and when that gang are included or not included in a discussion has me very confused. --Ravpapa (talk) 13:42, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
All editors in good standing are members of the wider community (whose opinions count). Nothing that I've written is intended to denigrate anyone.
It isn't the page title that determines whether a discussion occurs on the community level; it's the participants.
A discussion among WikiProject members who haven't solicited outside feedback isn't a community-wide discussion, even if the talk page happens to have "Manual of Style" in its name.
Likewise, a discussion drawing a large cross-section of Wikipedians is a community-wide discussion, even if the talk page happens to have "WikiProject" in its name.
Discussions can be advertised via pages such as this one, Wikipedia:Requests for comment and Template:Centralized discussion. This is very different from advertising a discussion on a page used primarily by a particular WikiProject's members.
Please see Wikipedia:Consensus for a thorough explanation of how consensus is established at Wikipedia. —David Levy 14:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

So am I correct in summarizing your argument like this?

  • Decisions about style must be discussed in forums including a diversity of editors - the "wider community".
  • Many documented decisions about style have not been discussed by a diverse forum, and therefore cannot be considered anything more than recommendations.
  • There is no correlation between unsanctioned style recommendations and style directives that are included in the MOS. Some project-specific guidelines within the MOS have never been discussed and are therefore mere recommendations, while some project-specific guidelines that are not part of the MOS have in fact been discussed by the "wider community" and should therefore be considered community sanctioned.
  • There is really no way for the uninitiated editor to tell which is which. So some group of informed editors should go through all the guidelines - whether or not part of the MOS - and mark those that have not been widely discussed as recommendations only.
  • Style decisions made by subject matter experts (i.e., project participants) on the presentation of technical information are considered mere recommendations, if non-subject matter experts have not been invited to participate in the discussions. This is true even if the decisions have been extensively discussed by the subject matter experts themselves.

Is that right? --Ravpapa (talk) 20:59, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Decisions about style must be discussed in forums including a diversity of editors - the "wider community".
Not necessarily. The Manual of Style is intended to reflect consensus within the Wikipedia community at large, but not every style decision must be documented there. In particular, many style recommendations are simply subject area-specific applications of broader MoS decisions. It's sensible for editors active in a particular subject area to apply the MoS in a manner that makes sense to them. They needn't consult the wider community beforehand, though they must be receptive of any good-faith objections that arise. This is an area in which WikiProjects and their style recommendation pages are highly helpful.
Problems arise when WikiProjects (or other editor subgroups) assert that their recommendations are MoS guidelines and cannot be overruled within "their articles".
There is no correlation between unsanctioned style recommendations and style directives that are included in the MOS.
As noted above, many (if not most) WikiProject-level style recommendations are intended to serve as subject area-specific applications of broader MoS decisions. And I wouldn't use the term "unsanctioned", as the community condones and encourages WikiProjects' efforts to compile such materials.
MoS guidelines and WikiProject recommendations are related. They simply aren't one and the same. That's why we need to label the distinction more clearly. This doesn't mean that WikiProject recommendations are invalid and should be dismissed.
There is really no way for the uninitiated editor to tell which is which. So some group of informed editors should go through all the guidelines - whether or not part of the MOS - and mark those that have not been widely discussed as recommendations only.
I don't know whether the situation calls for something so drastic. It might suffice to simply address objections as they arise. Many (if not most) issues probably could be resolved by editing the pages (instead of removing the "Manual of Style" label). This is a matter for the community to decide, and I don't advocate that it be taken lightly. Certainly, no sweeping changes should be made without careful consideration.
Style decisions made by subject matter experts (i.e., project participants) on the presentation of technical information are considered mere recommendations, if non-subject matter experts have not been invited to participate in the discussions. This is true even if the decisions have been extensively discussed by the subject matter experts themselves.
Firstly, it cannot be assumed that "project participant" = "subject matter expert". WikiProjects often comprise aficionados (whose passion for a subject doesn't necessarily imbue expertise).
Secondly, many of the style decisions in question have little or nothing to do with knowledge of the subject areas. They often merely reflect a desire among a small group of editors to handle something in a manner different from the rest of the Wikipedia community.
In some instances, there are valid reasons for the deviations (and the community is likely to extend its approval). In other instances, there aren't. I recall one case in which a WikiProject insisted that it possessed the authority to dictate that "its" articles contain infoboxes with styling/coloration different from those used in the rest of Wikipedia. The rationale was that they found the default design "dull" and wanted theirs to be prettier. As trivial as this sounds, countless hours were wasted on edit wars and arguments.
As noted above, when a style decision legitmately does rely on expertise, the community generally is inclined to defer to a WikiProject's judgement, essentially rubber-stamping its proposal (provided that's presented in a cogent manner and contains no glaring flaws). So you needn't worry about expert views being blindly shot down by the uninformed masses. —David Levy 23:00, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

RFC on coordinates in highway articles

There is currently a discussion taking place at WT:HWY regarding the potential use of coordinates in highway articles. Your input is welcomed. --Rschen7754 01:32, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Sea change in the relative value of civility vs utility

As I follow ANI, it seems to me that the value of civility (or the bad side effects of incivility) become more important. Specifically, users with long histories of great usefulness to Wikipedia but with equally long histories of incivility consume more discussion (recently, Malleus Fatuorum, Delta).

Does anyone else see a sea change here? In the early days of Wikipedia, building content and making order were highest priorities Now, with millions of articles and possibly hundreds of millions of editors, I believe that civility becomes more important. Opinions, please! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmcw37 (talk • contribs)

In my opinion, the core Wikipedia policies that we should focus on most of all should be, and have always been, verifiability and reliable sources. We have a lot of articles, but many of them are seriously lacking in that department. From a scholarly perspective, they would never hold water. Civility can take a backseat to some extent if the ends justify the means. Where I would draw the line is personal attacks, and Malleus Fatuorum and Delta, while blunt, haven't crossed that line.--WaltCip (talk) 01:44, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
CIVILITY means far more than No Personal Attacks. Civility means learning to tolerate English Variations. Which means expecting to hear "fucking stupid policy" or "this has cunted the quality of our FRINGE articles" occasionally. It also means restricting your own language—from my experience as an editor who comes from an English that uses "cunt" so often and creatively that I experience wikipedia as socially limiting, we do not have a problem with editors from more emphatically expressive Englishes letting themselves run free. Civility means coming to discussions prepared to participate fully. This means acculturation to the policy of wikipedia and the nature of policy formation. It means humility rather than arrogance when an editor is in ignorance. It means accepting that an editor calling you on faulty argumentation and hypocrisy isn't a personal attack—it is probably a civility failure on your part for not arguing without resorting to callous rhetorical techniques. Civility means accepting that you've gone into "I don't hear that" behaviour, apologising, and letting the consensus form. Civility also means accepting that an entire element of wikipedia's policy systems is an abject failure that results in the promotion of 13 year old Randies and Randettes who can't write prose, can't write fact, can't write opinion, can't cite, can't read, and can't gnome properly to positions of authority.
So sure there's been a sea change: content editors are increasingly irritated with the failure of the administrator system to conduct itself civilly. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Civility means respecting each other and using language consistent with that. Swearing, calling people "stupid" and criticising their ability is neither civil nor the hallmark of a mature, quality encyclopaedia. Civility should be much more important here than it currently is, but the recent debate that supported swearing in discussions showed that, sadly, there are many who are more interested in being allowed to say just what they like regardless of the impact and impression it makes, than in working constructively with others in a mutually respectful way to make this a great resource. --Bermicourt (talk) 08:08, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Bermicourt: civility means treating people with respect, and one part of that is choosing language that will be received by the listener (not by your friends or by a gaggle of teenage boys) as a sign that you are being respectful.
It's hardly surprising that some of our power users are tired of dealing with WP:Randy in Boise and other less-capable and less-experienced people. But it's unfortunate that so many of us, especially those of us who were treated kindly back when we were equally incapable newbies, and who would likely not be here today if we had been treated disrespectfully, are permitting this rudeness to pass unremarked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
I think civility is very important indeed, I think though a lot of the incivility on the part of productive editors is because policies are not enforced in any sort of timely way. About the only thing that will get rid of a disruptive POV pusher is if they can be got to indulge in incivility and in an incivility war the unproductive and disruptive one will get removed. Otherwise they can go through mediation and RfC and AN/I etc etc through the dispute resolution process to their hearts content and it has no teeth and anyone trying to stop them tends to burn out. Dmcq (talk) 01:14, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. If we had less cause for frustration, we would be more civil. Being right might not be helpful in a dispute, but being rude might drive your opponent away. I believe that editors sometimes choose rudeness because it is a more practical solution to a dispute than the alternatives. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:17, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
What an important point you have have brought up! Wp:civility has become just another another weapon for nasty people to use against others rather than for its intended purposes. This points to the same underlying problem which fuels most Wikipedia problems. Policies, guidelines,and practices which were written with the main spirit in mind (with no consideration for potential mis-use or unintended consequences) worked fine 5 years ago but fail us now as they are easily mis-used. It continues to strike me as ironic that a place that tries to be so high-minded is actually such a vicious place, which empowers the nastiest people (provided that they have learned the wiki-system) to run amok. The persistent nastiest things that happen in Wikipedia have been wrought by Wikipedia. Fixing it will require fundamental changes here, not hand-wringing about the nasty people. I'm not so sure that Wikipedia is collectively capable of understanding the underlying issues and understanding and and making those needed changes, despite the presence of many individuals so-capable. But hope springs eternal. North8000 (talk) 01:30, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
(ec) Another problem is selective enforcement. When what is obviously the same person/sock/IP shows up over the course of 2 or 3 years and insists that Obama was not born in the US, that there was no Armenian genocide, that Genesis is not a myth, that Falun Gong is the Truth, and gets to call you a liberal moron, a godless atheist, a Communist pig, and you're told at ANI or elsewhere that "it's a newbie, be patient" — you will eventualy lose it. You are then told "how dare you? experienced editor, shame in you". Some of these "newbies" then even have the hutzpe to link to WP:BITE. That's never what that link was meant to be for. People like that need to be whipped into shape straight away, or they need to be shown the door. Not 5 months later, not 5 weeks later — immediately. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 01:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

An important element of civility is accepting that other people are different. For example, as a German I am not used to sexuality-related swearing. It does exist, but it is so unusual that I very, very rarely hear it in real life, whereas the German words for "shit" and "dung" are very common. When I lived in England I was initially a bit shocked but learned to accept the fact that "fuck" and "cunt" are extremely common there, about as common as "shit" and "dung" in Germany. A bit surprising initially, but after a few months you stop thinking about the actual meaning of these words and how incongruously they are being used. Then I started editing Wikipedia and was initially shocked how freely the word "dick" is being used here. This is something that would not be remotely acceptable in any culture I have lived in. Yet here it's perfectly normal to tell someone "don't be a dick". See User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 66#Wikipedia:Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you for a related discussion that went nowhere, and see WT:Don't be a dick/Archive 1 for why WP:Don't be a dick and its redirect from WP:DICK still exist and create the impression that it's OK to refer to others as "dicks", whereas calling someone a "cunt" tends to lead to a quick block.

In other words, swearing in American English is fine, even when combined with a personal attack, whereas comparable swearing in British English gets people blocked.

If an international project such as Wikipedia is to be successful, it requires multi-cultural tolerance. A European editor who observes the bizarre overuse of the word "dick" on this project will inevitably draw the conclusion that this much stronger swear word than "fuck" and "cunt" is acceptable, and as a consequence, that "fuck" and "cunt" are also acceptable. It appears that this is a misunderstanding, and that the actual rule is that swearing is only acceptable if done according to the rules of American English.

We are not going to solve the superficial civility problem of swear words as long as Wikipedia operates with this double standard.

The other problem is that of real, rather than just superficial, incivility. It occurs whenever an experienced editor reverts a newbie's reasonable edit per WP:BRD without explanation. It occurs whenever an editor in a dispute insists on communicating only by edit summaries long after the other side has started a discussion on the talk page. It occurs whenever an editor engages in persistent WP:IDHT behaviour. It occurs whenever an admin blocks an editor without sufficient reason or based on a double standard. (Actually, blocking is the wiki equivalent of violence, so this is much worse than ordinary incivility.) And it occurs whenever editors engage in mobbing.

Mobbing in Wikipedia is systemic. Our standards and practices support mobbing against honest and prolific editors while protecting the really disruptive. The community generally uses the following objective indicators to measure an editor's conduct:

  • number of blocks per year
  • number of ANI reports per year and extent of the disruption caused.

Here is why this is extremely unfair:

  1. The disruption caused by an ANI report is maximal when the community is divided on whether the behaviour was acceptable or not. In other words, once a number of editors think that someone's behaviour is unacceptable, it is routinely held against that editor if a lot of other editors think it is actually acceptable.
  2. Once a number of editors have decided that an editor is a problem, both numbers will go up automatically because they will look for reasons to report the editor, and admins block the user even though they know this will be followed by an unblock.
  3. The number of disruptive situations that an editor causes should normally be low, but nobody can guarantee it's zero. It depends on the editor, but it is also roughly proportional to the editor's level of activity. By not dividing the number of blocks and disruptions by a measure of activity, we are creating an extreme bias against prolific editors.

Some editors understand this and try to take activity into account informally. One problem with this approach, perhaps the main problem, is that level of activity is also a measure of prestige. Therefore taking it into account can create the impression of special treatment of prestigious users. Especially in the case of users who have a lot of prestige due to the high quality of their work, this appears to be a major cause of envy-based attack.

The canard that Malleus Fatuorum and Giano get special treatment in a positive way keeps being repeated, although it couldn't be more false. I once had a lot of trouble with an editor who was persistently extremely aggressive over several months, going as far as making extreme personal attacks against BLP subjects. Nobody was willing to do about this editor, because he wasn't sufficiently active and so not many other editors were affected by the problem and there were few ANI reports. (This problem is essentially solved now, in spite of Wikipedia's complete failure. Apparently the editor got a detox treatment.) Or consider this recent Arbcom candidate. I am not sure why the editor is here, but it's clearly not for encyclopedia-building as I understand it. 5 net blocks in 6 years doesn't sound so bad until you realise that the user has a total of < 4,500 edits, many of which were related to RfA, Arbcom candidacy and an MfD for the user's inappropriate user page. For comparison, Malleus Fatuorum has had roughly 7 net blocks in 5 1/2 years, which must be divided by > 120,000 edits.

Yet for some reason it's Giano and Malleus who are supposed to be profiting from an unfair privilege. That reason is obvious for anyone who wants to see it: Mobbing against some of our best encyclopedia-builders by those who envy them their social prestige.

We are not going to solve our real incivility problem as long as we allow mobbing against some of our most productive editors by an envious crowd. Hans Adler 07:01, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

A side query on that business of canvassing and mobbing. It is usual isn't it that if a query about an article is raised on a noticeboard that other editors of the article be notified on the article's talk page? Is there any guidance about this? Just I've had a bad experience with this sort of thing (not that I see myself as particularly productive). Dmcq (talk) 12:57, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't know what the rules say, but it seems to be reasonable to notify interested parties of a discussion e.g. on a project page, provided one doesn't lobby them one way or t'other. --Bermicourt (talk) 13:43, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
It's a typical choice, but it's not required, and in some circumstances it may be inappropriate. One reason that it's a typical behavior is not actually a desirable one: an unfortunate number of trips to ANI or related noticeboards begin with threats on the article talk page to "report" the other editors if they don't agree to do things "my" way. So some of the "notification" looks a lot more like "I'm going to tattle to the teacher!" than an invitation to participate in a discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Hans wrote a good analysis. The whole problem could be — maybe not completely solved, but — dramatically mitigated if we all came to one simple realization: Just because you're new here doesn't mean you get to claim ignorance of rules when calling people cunts or fuckwits or whatever other stuff; neither are accusations of atheism, socialist agendas, or some such acceptable. It's the kinda stuff your parents or whoever else should've taught you. I'm suspecting that most of those people would never dare walk into someone's home or confront a complete stranger in the street in such a fashion. If you don't get that, you need to be kicked out, straight away. If it is indeed your RL modus operandi, than you don't have any business being here, either. Where I disagree with Hans is the culture-specific claim; it doesn't matter which word is considered "stronger". The bottom line is that, at least in the US, when you deal with somebody you just met, you use none-of-the-above. I'm suspecting it's the same in Britain, and elsewhere in the world.
If someone I've never met and I've never heard of walks up to me out of the blue and says "You are a liberal atheist with an agenda to support the socialist empire", my reaction is "fuck you". On wikipedia, I will get reprimanded or blocked while the stranger's words will be examined in an understanding and inquisitive manner to find out where the grain of truth might be and how this point of view can be thoughtfully incorporated into the corresponding article. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 18:06, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

It may seem overly optimistic, but I think in many cases the best thing to do is ignore the uncivil behavior. Mind you I don't mean ignore the person or what the person is saying, just the behavior. If you proceed like the person didn't say anything bad and keep your tone civil, they might just take on your tone. If they are seeking attention and you acknowledge only their civil comments, they may seek to be civil to gain attention. If they are trying to bait you to win an argument and you ignore the bait, the tactic fails and they might drop it. A reason people use uncivil behavior is because it works for them. Create an environment where it doesn't work and they have no reason to be uncivil. Just to be clear, telling someone "I'm ignoring your lack of civility" is not ignoring it. I know this won't work in all circumstances to change behavior. For some people it's just part of their life. Also, if you ignore said behavior, someone else is likely to react to it. But where possible, we might give it a try. I personally have seen it work. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 23:06, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Fine and well except the OP was talking about long term contributors who are uncivil. Dmcq (talk) 09:21, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Seb az86556 just above my post mentioned new people. Sorry if you feel I've gone off-topic. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 06:42, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
In re Seb's comment that "when you deal with somebody you just met, you use none-of-the-above":
This applies to far more than new editors; this applies to people who have been editing for years, but you personally don't know well. Decent people don't use offensive language when talking to workers at the grocery store, even if they've seen those same workers every week for years and years. This is not a rule that applies only to people who are new to you or new to the job. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
@ Hans Adler. The idea that blocks are "roughly proportional to the editor's level of activity" is easily tested, just look at the editors who like Malleus are at or near the top of wp:EDITS. The pattern there is that most of our most active editors have clean blocklogs, I' just looked at the four with 500,000 to 600,000 edits. Two have clean blocklogs, and the other two are effectively clean, one block reverted the same minute by the blocking admin and the other a self block. ScottyWong did some research a few months ago on the 1,000 most active editors, most had completely clean block logs and the majority of those who had ever been blocked were admins who'd accidentally blocked themselves. Whether you think that vested contributors should be given immunity, a little extra rope, equal treatment or even expected to know the rules and no longer be making newbie mistakes; vested contributors do exist. Personally I'm OK with giving a little extra rope to those who've contributed a lot, the occasional mistake or blow up by an otherwise civil and useful editor merely proves they are human. But the evidence is that a very small number of our prolific editors need an awful lot more rope than is normal. ϢereSpielChequers 13:31, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
It is reasonable to assume that competent editors who have had ill-considered blocks inflicted on them will be more likely to leave than editors who haven't. What matters more is what happens to the editors who add the real content to Wikipedia, rather than just the editors who rake up huge number of minor (and "safe") edits. The above analysis throws no light on what really goes on here. --Epipelagic (talk) 07:24, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
My analysis was merely testing Hans Adler's hypothesis that blocks are "roughly proportional to the editor's level of activity", I used edit count, but others could run a similar analysis using other metrics. I've just checked the block logs of three FA writers I've dealt with and who are among the 200 most active editors, that's too small a sample to to be definitive but all three logs were clean. Someone could run a similar analysis of "unsafe" edits if one could define what "safe" and "unsafe" were. I suspect that most of my typo fixing and categorisation would fall into the safe category as much as adding referenced reliably sourced information to uncontentious articles does - for me the Death anomalies are amongst my "safest" edits. "Unsafe" would obviously include the people who try and hold the ring on various contentious topical BLPs, (I have my moth moments and have done stints at Marilyn Manson, Russell Brand and another person where we had an editor enquiring about their security arrangements). Other "unsafe" editing would of course include those who edit controversial articles such as Abortion and the ones involving various Scientific, Political, Religious or Nationalistic disputes. As for ill considered blocks, I suspect that the ones where the blocking admin promptly reverts probably don't cause a problem, otherwise they wouldn't be so common amongst our most active editors. Other than that probably depends on one's definition of ill considered blocking. I rather think that ill considered blocks are a classic example of an irregular English verb - I/we do brave blocks, you do controversial blocks, he/she/they do ill considered blocks. ϢereSpielChequers 16:01, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

The major problem with an extreme focus on civility is that many people use complaints about civility problems in a one-sided way to find a reason to try to block editors whose edits they don't like. Administrators then often don't look into the situation as fully as they should, and if they would they would discover a history of WP:Gaming the system to cover WP:Civil POV pushing and WP:OWN problems by the people making the complaints. Many editors, when faced with an inability to justify their own edits by various policies instead focus on hounding editors to make them get frustrated. Civility problems should only be looked at after actual editing behavior is examined. Someone who is following policies and advancing the product but who gets angry from being attacked by people who are not and not getting the support from others they have earned should be supported so they can calm down and get a better attitude about the project. Civility issues can be fixed. POV-pushing, spamming, socking, etc. generally cannot. We need to focus on the ones causing the most damage and get rid of them. A polite POV-pusher/wikilawyer/etc. is just as bad as an uncivil one: worse, even, in that they are more stealthy. DreamGuy (talk) 16:54, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

There's way more to"civility" than swearing. Using terms that belittle, demean, and humiliate other editors is uncivil, whether it involves cusswords or not. Calling someone "a moron" is pretty much the same as calling them a "fucking moron". And the same as calling them a "pompous twat", "sycophantic arse-licker", "hysterical child", "patronising old windbag" and all the rest. It's not the swearing in and of itself which is uncivil in any of these terms. It's the name-calling which is a violation of WP:CIVIL. It's a question of whether someone's attitude, not their vocabulary, is uncivil. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 17:15, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
What he said. --Jayron32 06:49, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Civility is crucial for a productve working environment. Civility is a requirement for a volunteer run project, lest there be no volunteers. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 09:14, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

You are talking about the superficial stuff which most people can brush off and which tend to go away. What makes Wikipedia such a viccous place (and it is a vicious place) is a confluence of factors, but the notable one here is clever and skillful MISUSE of policies and guidelines to CONDUCT warfare. These problems do NOT get solved, CAN'T be brushed off (because they have impacts on what the person is doing) and an unsolvable problem is the worst possible scenario. North8000 (talk) 11:41, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
And I think more timely action to block and eventually ban editors when they flout the content policies would help rather than them all going into the content dispute process which has no real teeth in most cases. Dmcq (talk) 17:11, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Order needs to be imposed by fellow editors. We editors need to speak up at the moment that incivility occurs. If some few Veteran Editors are given free-rein to be boorish and vulgar and attacking, other Veteran editors should implement their right to act as peers for editors that are part of a silent majority. We should not tolerate predators. In spite of the excuses given, some editors are predatory. They make trouble. There is no viable logical defense for boorish behavior. We are creating a new culture and community not implementing and continuing the nonsense of ancient ones that exist under a tent of often claimed "cultural and tempermental differences". Buster Seven Talk 18:06, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
North, I don't agree with your claims. "Most people can brush off" insulting behavior only if "most people" in your world are white males. There's good scholarly research out there on the disproportionate effect that this behavior (both "cussing" and name-calling) has on non-white people and women. If we want an editor base that represents the whole world, we need to have less of the behavior that drives away these under-represented groups. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:17, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Agree w/ Editor WhatamIdoing. In fact I think a basic assumption ALL editors should make is that we are ALWAYS in mixed company, there are always ladies present.Buster Seven Talk 18:51, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, of course you are right. I try to be gender blind and in this case I guess I got fully blind. :-). But I still think that the folks that conduct warfare by cleverly mis-using policies are more destructive / contribute more to making Wikipedia a vicious place because they never get reined in, creating a situation where there is no recourse / hope for their victims. North8000 (talk) 11:34, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Incivil vested contributors and their apologists are far from being our only difficult problem, they may well not be our worst problem. But there is no reason why dealing with this particular problem should stop us also dealing with other problems. If anything successfully fixing one difficult problem may give the community the confidence to tackle some of our other difficult problems. ϢereSpielChequers 13:30, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
You're right. I guess I just saw this as an opportunity to bring up the bigger nastiness problem which is related. Sincerly, North8000 (talk) 14:38, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
I think a direct head on approach to this is wrong. It strikes me as being like seeing a place the Mississippi is overflowing and building a bigger wall there. It causes more problems than it solves. There is a reason quite often that some experienced editors use incivility. The reasons need to be dealt with. Dmcq (talk) 17:31, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
I think a standard like; "Please consider that ladies are present. Discourteous behavior will not be tolerated even if it is not directed toward them" lessens the flow into the Mississippi and no bigger wall is needed.Buster Seven Talk 17:50, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure that helps with basic problems and personally I don't care if an editor is a man or a woman or a talking dog. Dmcq (talk) 17:56, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Imagine ladies all around you...Would you curse or continue to swear if asked to stop? I guarantee it helps with the basic problem of incivility toward editors in your presence! It's not that he swore. It's that he refused to stop when asked.Buster Seven Talk 18:09, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:POLA is now part of policy

There's also a more developed thread about this on WP:AN. Let's try to keep the discussion in one place. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 22:56, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

See [3]. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 14:41, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Offensive material is a guideline. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:40, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
See User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 128#Policy vs. guideline. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 20:28, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

YYYY in LGBT rights

Hey Guys and Gals,

I just noticed that we seem to have a large depository of "Year in LGBT rights" articles (e.g. 1997 in LGBT rights). At first glance, these struck me as potential WP:OR/WP:SYNTH material, being primarily propagated by a single user (i.e. User:Davodd).

After a little research, I noticed that we have lots of pages like this. Stuff like 1997 in film seems reasonable, but stuff like 1997 in archaeology seems a little more questionable.

"Year in LGBT rights" seems particularly questionable as I don't see equivalent "Year in Civil rights" or "Year in Women's Rights".

My question is; is there a specific policy that addresses these "Year in" articles..... NickCT (talk) 17:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how "Year in LGBT rights" articles are automatically WP:OR/WP:SYNTH material, either because of the nature of the subject or because they are primarily created by one editor. However, if you have specific content concerns, I would like to hear them. If 1997 in film seems reasonable, then why isn't 1997 in LGBT rights? As for being questionable due to a lack of other articles on similar topics, I don't think we go around questioning/deleting something like 1997 in Canada simply because we don't have 1997 in Russia, so I am not sure why we would do that here. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:02, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
@Skeezix1000 - Well, I'm just guessing, but I imagine someone has written an article about films that came out in 1997. Every year, some publication puts out an article saying "here are the best films of this year". In my mind, the existence of articles titled "Best film of 1997" means that "1997 in Film" passes WP:GNG, b/c 1997 in film gets "significant and direct coverage" in RSs. I doubt any RSs write articles which specifically and directly deal with advances/events in LGBT rights in any given year.
To be honest, stuff like 1997 in Canada also makes me a little uneasy. But less so than LGBT, b/c I'm still guessing one could probably find significant and direct coverage of events in Canada in 1997.
To pose a counter question Skeezix1000, would you think 1997 in Irish Folk Dancing would be a legitimate article? If not, why not? NickCT (talk) 19:01, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
I would approach it as a timeline broken out into individual years. If a timeline as an article is too long, it would have to be split up into smaller articles. Here the assumption is made that there will be a need for individual years for the timeline. The things to look at is are the individual entries cited and notable enough for mention and should the articles be combined into decades. It would be a lot of work to go through entry be entry to determine notability, but over time people will come across these and remove them. Combining into decades should be considered when the article seem complete, to avoid combining and then later splitting up. The policies and guidelines are WP:TIMELINE, MOS:LIST, WP:LSC (Lists selection criteria), WP:Notability, etc.Richard-of-Earth (talk) 20:40, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
What makes a timeline for "LGBT Rights" worthwhile? Why doesn't Civil rights movement have a timeline? NickCT (talk) 21:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Your original question was what policies apply, I answered that. (But there could be other policy.) Do you always question answers? If I answer this, do I just get another question? I guess I'll find out. The underlying answer is I don't know. LGBT Rights is a major controversy of modern society that has developed over time. Hence a time line is needed to show that development. However maybe each little change isn't notable enough to be mentioned. If you start removing elements from each article and it becomes evident there isn't enough to justify year by year articles, then they should be merged into broader articles or perhaps Timeline of LGBT history. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 22:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Why doesn't Civil rights movement have a timeline? No-one has done one yet. Never a good argument against another article. I'm comfortable with YYYY in LGBT rights, since I'm pretty sure some notable stuff has happened in LGBT rights in every year for which there is an article. I'd leave them as they are and concentrate on adding well referenced content to them. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:06, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Exactly. Nick, if you want a "XXXX in women's rights", then get started.
I'd be surprised if LGBT-focused publications didn't do typical end-of-year or end-of-decade retrospectives that summarize what happened during each year, much like the "top 10 local news stories of the year" that my local newspaper inflicts on my at this time each year. I assume that my ignorance of such sources is merely because I've never bothered to look for them, not because they haven't been published. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps we need YYYY in billionaire convictions too? Seems more and more as if they've lost the right to impugnity. There'd be Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Raj Rajaratnam, George Soros, Keji Osano, Joe Hunt, Jeffrey Epstein, Carlos Lehder Rivas, Hisham Talaat Mustafa, Juan Ramon Matta, Alice Walton, Lee Kun Hee, Conrad Black, Silvio Berlusconi, Alan Bond, Oscar Wyatt, Henry Samueli just for starters :-) LeadSongDog come howl! 22:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
I'd suggest you start with something more modest such as List of convicted billionaires. I'm not sure why Soros is in your list, to pick but one. Perhaps something I missed. If you were meaning to argue against the LGBT, umm, well, a straw man argument generally fails. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:51, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, when I started to comment it was tongue in cheek, but when I searched, a lot turned up. Re Soros, this, and others. Could add Martha Stewart, Sadam Hussein, ... I suppose we'd eventually add some from Trials_and_judicial_hearings_following_the_2011_Egyptian_revolution#Mubarak_family this list, but those trials are ongoing. LeadSongDog come howl! 23:06, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Richard-of-Earth - Thanks for the policy sights. I appreciated those, but I think those policies really cover "how to make a timeline" rather than "when to make a timeline". Frankly, I still think "YYYY in LGBT rights" combines material from multiple sources to conclude that some given year was notable for LGBT rights, which is basically the definition of synth. I'm a little disturbed that no one here finds the practice off-putting. It's like you think YYYY in billionaire convictions would actually be a legitimate article. NickCT (talk) 23:30, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm. A timeline is a list. WP:Listcruft is an essay that mentions when not to make a list. I think the key point made is "In general, a 'list of X' should only be created if X itself is a legitimate encyclopedic topic that already has its own article." So yes, most of your examples could have timeline articles if there was enough notable elements to warrant it. And with enough notable elements for each year "YYYY in" articles can be warranted. Maybe a "YYYY in" article is a indiscriminate collection of information and that would be cause for deletion. But the deletion discussion could result in just merging the articles into a larger timeline with non-notable data removed. I hope this helps and your welcome. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 10:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
@Richard-of-Earth - Well thanks Richard. I appreciate the learned cites to policy. I'm still a little unsettled by "In general, a 'list of X' .......... has its own article." b/c 1) It's just an essay. So who knows how much weight it carries, 2)It's seems like an awfully low bar. By that rational, we could have millions of "YYYY in" articles. How about 1982 in Political Gaffes? I mean, where do we stop?
The low number of page views on these articles, and the fact they are maintained by a small set of contributors really makes me question the legitimacy of these articles.
I guess there aren't many deletionists/exclusionists hanging around who want take arms against this kind of thing. I'd like to start going after these kinds of article, but am sorta afraid of the backlash. NickCT (talk) 13:45, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
It seems edits are way down this week in general, not just here. I'd guess that many editors also have real lives, which tend to be busy this time of year. There's wp:NODEADLINE. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:18, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
@NickCT. A currently small set of contributors may make articles more vulnerable to deletion, but it doesn't currently justify their deletion. Nor does a currently low number of page views. If anyone were to try and delete articles on such grounds they would have probably have people explain to them why we have policies as to when things should and should not be deleted. If you want to open up whole slews of articles to deletionists then I'd suggest proposing a policy change first rather than taking articles to AFD as if such a policy change had happened. But may I suggest that instead you think through the implications of either change. Would they be more useful to the pedia than wp:Delete random article? Or more likely to get consensus? Remember in the longterm a large proportion of our articles will fall out of fashion ether among readers, editors or both, and in a Pedia that is trying to cover all the worlds knowledge there will always be a majority of articles that are viewed less than those which are currently topical. ϢereSpielChequers 13:56, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
I think you may have missed the point of my comments. I wouldn't for a second suggest that a low number of contributors and low page views is grounds for deletion. What I'd said, was that I suspected the pages in question were WP:OR/WP:SYNTH and the low contributors/page view seem to re-enforce that impression. NickCT (talk) 23:45, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for that reassurance. I think the test for Original Research is if you are suspicious of something can you go and verify it? My expectation of most of those articles about in year is that a trip to the right library/archive will find sources from magazines and journals summing up the year gone by. ϢereSpielChequers 09:46, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't see a problem with 1997 in political gaffes or 1997 in Irish folk dancing if there were enough important political gaffes and events in Irish folk dancing to merit them. Currently there isn't even an article on political gaffes. There is an article on Irish dance, but no timeline of it. I don't imagine there's too much change going on in Irish folk dancing that warrants a year-by-year listing of events. The issue of LGBT rights, on the other hand, affects more people, and important legislation and events concerning LGBT people occur quite frequently.
My only reservation would be one of NPOV rather than WP:SYNTH. It does seem that anti-LGBT legislation is a bit underrepresented in these articles, although I'm not familiar with this area. In any case, that's not a reason to get rid of the articles. Leonxlin (talk) 19:45, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
IMO these fall less into the "encyclopedia" part of Wikipedia and more into the "almanac" part, which tends to gather and list minor events by year. Like any list, they don't get a free pass on verifiability, they have to have sources to back them up, but the limited context means it might contain things that articles on the topics may not bother with, just as 1394 mentions wars that War does not. Dcoetzee 10:28, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Request for comment at Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard

Request for comment at Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard#Removal of sources on notability grounds at Mindell Penn is made.  Unscintillating (talk) 11:06, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Bot edits marked as minor

Not certain this is the best pump for this, but here goes:

Some bot edits are marked as minor when the result of the edit was far from minor. (Not picking on anyone here) MiszaBot II (for example) will archive 50000 bytes, and call that edit minor. Since we can already screen to hide bot edits and/or minor edits separately in our view of our watchlist changes, there seems to be no need for a bot edit that is definitely not minor to be marked as such (since it is already marked as a bot edit).

This may seem like a finicky point, but what's the point of guidelines if even the bots don't follow them? Minor edits should only be marked as such if the result is arguably slight. A punctuation correction, or a spelling correction; not whole swathes of a page being removed, should be considered minor.

Should bot-masters be advised to only mark edits that have little effect on the page content (adding a language link, or a category, or dating a template) as minor? fredgandt 07:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

An other definition (from the lead of help:minor edit): "A minor edit is one that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute." I would argue automatic archiving as done by miszabot falls under that category. In fact every bot task should be completely non-controversial, else we shouldn't use a bot to do it. Yoenit (talk) 12:43, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm certainly not going to argue with your source. I guess this boils down to interpretation. Mine is clearly wrong. It just seems a little bizarre to see (as earlier) nearly 60kb removed from a page, and for that action to be tagged minor. No worries either way. I like bots. fredgandt 13:32, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Particularly when archiving user talk, MiszaBot sets the minor flag so as to not trigger a new orange banner. –xenotalk 13:33, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Could you explain what that means please? fredgandt 13:36, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
When someone edits your talk page, if the minor edit flag is not set you will see the orange 'YOU HAVE NEW MESSAGES' banner. If the edit is flagged as minor, you will not be notified with the orange banner. Syrthiss (talk) 13:42, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
To be precise, it's the combination of bot+minor that will suppress the new messages banner. (A regular editor checking 'minor' will still trigger a message.) –xenotalk 13:45, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
To be slightly more precise, it's the nominornewtalk right that is given as part of the bot group combined with marking the edit as minor that will suppress the new messages banner. I don't know why anyone would, but it would be possible to give that right to some other group or remove it from the bot group. It doesn't matter whether the edit is marked as 'bot' or not. Anomie⚔ 15:31, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I realized this imprecision as I saved it, thought about correcting myself, but figured someone else would anyway. ;p –xenotalk 15:54, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Seems to me that the minor tag is being used to mean things it doesn't really mean. Perhaps some new tags might be useful. Then the minor tag could be used less ambiguously. By the way, why are we whispering? fredgandt 16:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Ah ha! Right, yes, thank you. I was trying to think what banners there could be. I failed. In my defence, I haven't had a cuppa for more than an hour. rectifying now ;-) fredgandt 13:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
There's a userbox for that. ;> –xenotalk 13:52, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Aaaggghhh! (tag:Repeating characters) Tea! Only tea! Actually tea and ciggies, but I haven't worked out how to drink ciggies yet. fredgandt 14:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Liquid Smoking[4] ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 23:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Adopted/adapted thanks. fredgandt 14:13, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Nice =) –xenotalk 14:15, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Can declined CSDs be PRODded?

Can someone clarify what the policy on this is? Since PROD tags may be removed for more or less any reason, shouldn't a Speedy decline therefore constitute a PROD objection, and the matter therefore have to go to XfD? Thanks. It Is Me Here t / c 16:48, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Nope. Speedy deletions are usually declined because the article does not meet the deliberately narrow criterion. You can PROD an article for any reason you want. Of course anyone can object to a PROD for any reason or no reason, leaving AFD as the only remaining alternative. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:59, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for being slow, but are you saying that declined Speedies can be PRODded or that they cannot be PRODded? Could the wording of the relevant policy pages be updated to make the issue clearer in either case? It Is Me Here t / c 17:41, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
They can be PRODed and I think the policy is clear. Remember, PROD is just an alternative for AFD, so it can always be used if AFD can be used and when WP:PROD does not say otherwise. Of course it depends on the case whether it should be. For example, if the CSD was declined because the article does not fall in the narrow scope of the criteria for speedy deletion, then PROD might be useful (for example, if an article has a claim of importance sufficient to fail A7 but has no sources and/or that claim is not sufficient to pass WP:N). On the other hand, if the speedy was declined because the declining user thinks the article should be kept, then it's valid to assume that they would also have objected to a PROD as well (for example if an A7 is declined because the declining user thinks the subject is notable). Regards SoWhy 18:16, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Thank you :) It Is Me Here t / c 18:22, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

revenue generation - search and add ons

Instead of just asking for donations, i think the minimum we can do is have a few well placed Google custom searches so the site is not littered with ads but we still get revenue. Could be at the end of the page.

It will be especially good for wikipedia as we have fewer servers so that little money from searches will go along way too.

Also can include it in the official wikipedia add on for desktop browsers (firefox, chrome at least have add ons)

and apps for the various mobiles. am sure there are developers out there who can help with that (for free).

For a proof of concept I can help - but am no good at good UI. Tgkprog (talk) 18:01, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Advertising. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:29, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

No Support for BCE

It's a new year, 2012 AD. Seeing articles that use BC and BCE or whatever, make me ill. They also add confusion to trying to understand the topics. Calendars are changed by organized religions, sometimes or sometimes by governments -- not by editorial policies or intellectual meddling. There is no merit to this change; it changes nothing.

I like Wikipedia but seeing this over and over again stops me from wanting to support it in any way.

If you want to start a new calendar do so. Maybe today is the first day of Argon 12. But it is not 2012 CE - a meaningless word change that still -- as best as I can tell -- references the same moment in time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Citizenbfk (talk • contribs) 19:52, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:ERA makes clear that both AD/BC and CE/BCE are acceptable on Wikipedia, and no preference is given to either, but consistency should be maintained within each article. This appears to be a compromise that was hammered out through a lot of discussion. I believe this has been the guideline for several years, but I am not sure exactly how long it has been there. You may not like it, but by definition a compromise does not make everybody completely happy. Neutron (talk) 20:25, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
I've just reverted this editor for making a mass change on an article that's been BCE/CE, and take a look at this old edit from last February [5]. Dougweller (talk) 21:11, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Just so it's absolutely clear, "this editor" referred to by Dougweller is Citizenbfk, not me.  :) Neutron (talk) 00:57, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Definitely agree with that revert. I fail to see any Christian connection of the mesoamerican religions so the original authors choice should be respected. As Neutron says when there are compromises some people will be unhappy. Bucking compromises makes even more people unhappy. I don't think this is a case of the needs of the one outweight the needs of the many and no I'm not going to use stardates. Dmcq (talk) 11:21, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

citizenbfk replies: It is not neutral to change the dating system of the Western world. I find it very unnecessary and an obvious challenge to Christianity. Maybe this is felt needed by those in other religions or atheist? Wikipedia should not be part of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Citizenbfk (talk • contribs) 14:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Nobody here is changing the dating system of the Western world. (Which CE/BCE is a part of, not that it matters whether they are part of the Western, Eastern, Southern or wherever world.) We have a Manual of Style on Wikipedia, and WP:ERA is part of it. We need guidelines like this so we don't have complete chaos. Neutron (talk) 23:54, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Downsampling image files

I started a discussion on the issue of whether image downsampling should be encouraged as a means of improving image quality. Please share your thoughts. Gidip (talk) 20:23, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Sourcing non-free images

What is the policy for sourcing non-free images? There is a template {{bsr}} that links to Wikipedia:Citing sources#Images, which isn't a valid link. I understand that we would want to link to sources for free images, to aid in verification and to promote whatever free-minded entity released a useful photo for everyone to use. Why would we want to link to the source of a non-free image? Specifically I am talking about reproductions of two-dimensional artwork, like album covers or photos.

For an example, I searched forever for a cover to a specific video game that wasn't pixelated and low-quality. When I finally found it, the site was offering a free download of the copyrighted program. Obviously there is no benefit for us to link to this site, and a negative benefit for the copyright holder.

So, instead of trying to link to the source of a specific version of a file of an image, why not link to the official website of the work (most albums and games have their own website), or the website of the copyright holder? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 00:30, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

The source should be provided in cases where there may be unclear questions of the source's original. Album and game covers, for example, really don't need it as long as we're assumed the game came from that company. (The publisher being the copyright owner). On the other hand, if we're using a scanned photo from a book, naming the book would help to determine if/when the copyright may apply or expires. --MASEM (t) 00:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Books are still a licensed use of the image, so that's not quite what I mean. I'm talking about finding the copyrighted image online, from a source that is not the copyright holder or licensee. What if the uploader found the scanned image of the book on the internet? You wouldn't want a link to that web site on WP, it'd be better to say that it is a scan of the image from a book and leave it at that. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 01:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Why are you copying a blatant copyvio in the first place?
Well, never mind. One possible solution is to provide a non-working link (e.g., "example.com/whatever", without the http:// parts that make the link clickable) so people know where you got it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Every single use of non-free images on Wikipedia is a blatant copyvio, that is why they are labeled non-free. We are not allowed to use them, "fair use" is only a defense, it is never a permission. There is no law that says we can use these images, simply laws that protect us from prosecution. So if we are blatantly violating copyright with thousands of locally hosted images, why does it matter who was violating that copyright first? What benefit is it to anybody to link to the source? Editors already know that non-free images are not free, so what are they going to learn at the source of the image? What is the possible, conceivable benefit?
It is my feeling that if images are found at an official source, direct links should be provided there. If they are found at a secondary source (review site, Amazon, fan page, etc.), they should still link to the official source, or as closely as possible. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 23:41, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
No, fair use is not a violation of copyright. It is a use of copyrighted material—and one that is defined in law as not being a copyvio. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Let me be more specific. "Source" as I understand it with NFC policy is the uploader's best attempt to identify the copyright owner and publication of the work in question. This allows any other user to verify the copyright status, etc. As an example, take the case of a photo where I know it exists, framed in some museum , but the only viable 2D picture I can get is a scan from a book. The "source" is the photo, its photographer, and date of publication, but I would also include the info on the book itself to show where I got it. What happens more often is that we have the book that publishes the photo, but no information on the photo's original photographer or date of publication itself. In such cases, including the book (or perhaps a URL to a website) is the best "source" for that image.
Now, flip it to cover art. Particularly for contemporary works, it is much less unlikely that the original publisher and date of publication of the cover art will be unknown. Irregardless of where we take the cover art image, we know it originated from a specific publisher on a specific date. Adding the URL where you got the image helps, but far less in the case of the photos from above. In other words, as long as you are fairly certain that an image you found is the box art for the work, it doesn't matter how you got it, as the source is still the publisher. Note that in NFCC, the only place where sourcing comes up is #4 specifically about previous publication (and #2 to a degree, but not much). So as long as you are identifying the best know point of first publication and by whom, you've met the sourcing requirements per NFCC. --MASEM (t) 00:09, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Gotcha. That sounds good, except A) we don't appear to have that in policy, and B) that isn't how that is being enforced (for example, the template I mentioned above). Am I just not finding our policy on this? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 08:41, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Main Wikipedia page

I think the main Wikipedia page is a little misleading. The English Wikipedia doesn't have over three million "articles", we're not even close. We have over 250 thousand articles in mainspace. The rest are all user pages, talk pages, and templates, which should hardly qualify as articles. I think the various other language wikis should all be listed in order by mainspace pages, which would give the order of en (English) 251,979, ru (Russian) 166,548, zh (Chinese) 118,671, he (Hebrew) 93,829, pt (Portugese) 88,054, de (German) 78,077, fr (French) 77,806, es (Spanish) 53,553, it (italian) 39,071, pl (Polish) 22,588 according to http://toolserver.org/~phe/statistics.php Is this forum the right place to discuss this? Banaticus (talk) 11:00, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can see that page you pointed at gives number of articles that have been used in producing wikibooks, not the total number of articles. Dmcq (talk) 11:25, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
According to Special:Statistics, we have 6,918,557 "content pages" compared to 61,943,916 "pages". Since the latter is defined as "all pages in the wiki, including talk pages, redirects, etc." it may be assumed that "content pages" excludes talk pages, redirects, etc. This then is a count of actual articles, so the statement of "over three million" is accurate, if undergenerous. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:38, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Interesting side note, the number of completely unsourced articles on enWikipedia is 250 thousand. The project Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles is looking to reduce that to zero... JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 15:44, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Actually, that toolserver link is for statistics about different Wikisources, not Wikipedias. Jafeluv (talk) 11:51, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
You're right. I mixed up Wikisource and Wikipedia. My mistake, thanks. :) Banaticus (talk) 23:11, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Bold Revert Discuss

Next to WP:POINT, I figure WP:BRD is the most mis-quoted policy/guideline/essay page on wikipedia. People often quote it to mean the exact opposite of what it means!

  1. Discuss, Discuss, Discuss is not productive. Don't do that!
  2. Bold, Bold, Bold is productive. Do that!
  3. In Bold, Revert, Discuss; "Discuss" doesn't mean Discuss the topic, your feelings, or the unseasonably cool weather in hell this year. It means: hold a focused discussion on how to get back to being Bold! (and conclude that discussion as quickly as practical)

More detail: Wikipedia_talk:BOLD,_revert,_discuss_cycle#This_seems_overly_complicated

--Kim Bruning (talk) 14:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

You tagged on to a discussion from February of 2011. I'd suggest starting a new discussion on that page instead, though I disagree with your premise. (Addendum): I've archived the old discussions on that page (from 2008 – 2010), so feel free to start a new discussion there and link it here. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 21:47, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
You (correctly, imho :) left that discussion in-tact. I disagree on starting a new discussion, when the old one is just fine. That'd be silly bureaucratism! --Kim Bruning (talk) 23:15, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Hm, apparently I didn't archive the 2011 stuff like I meant to. Regardless, it's not "silly bureaucratism," it's trying to keep discussions on-topic and relevant. It also means discussions start at the bottom of the page, where people look for them, rather than constantly rehashing old topics.
As to your topic, I disagree. BRD was meant to deal with a problem, namely edit-warring. The point is to stop reverting, and start discussing why there is a disagreement, rather than getting into a pointless revert-war. "Bold" isn't the point, stopping a revert-war is. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 23:23, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, the page needs some editing again. The point I was originally trying to get across is that you're trying to find the right people to talk to by exploiting a property of the consensus system (to wit: the procedures used when reverting, which are documented in other places (currently the page seems to redundantly rehash some aspects of those procedures, this could be trimmed)).
The point of starting the discussion is to get to a situation where everyone trusts each other enough again to be able to resume regular editing.
You're supposed to get around to making that new edit as quickly as possible (though no quicker than possible, of course). Because having everyone edit in good faith happens to be what a wiki is all about. ;-)
--Kim Bruning (talk) 00:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
This is all valid observation, though only up to a point, I think - there are some situations (a minority, but still) where things have to be hashed out between multiple editors on the talk page, and further editing on the contentious point (particularly editing simply in order to find out who reverts you) would be considered unhelpful and even disruptive. (Though on the other hand, an innovative edit might be just what it takes to break the impasse.) This is why I would like to deal with all these points - boldness, reverting, (not) edit warring, discussion, consensus,... - all together on one or two pages; because having separate pages for each of them makes them seem like separate topics, when in fact (as we can see from the amount of stuff that currently gets duplicated) they are all interconnected and essentially inseparable aspects of one, not particularly complex, "process".--Kotniski (talk) 07:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
One of the older charts of the consensus process. Note the short loop on the right which is also shown on Wikipedia:Consensus, and the long loop on the left, which is exploited by WP:BRD
You mean something like this? ->
Now, PRECISELY at the point, in such a minority of situations, when you have to hash out things between multiple editors on the talk page, your objective is still, remains, and must only be to *get back to making an edit*. (although the route might be tortuous, and involve un-ruffling feathers, philosophical discussions, mediation, and/or drawing people a picture. )
And yes you have to do some things which appear slightly unhelpful, because they are unintuitive. And yes people might accuse you of WP:POINTyness. (But WP:POINT only applies if you are causing a netto disruption. If it's a disruption, but at the end of the day people are editing more prodcutively than they were before, then it wasn't a disruption ;-) )
Hence the warning, and need for diplomacy when applying this particular process. ;-)
Why is making an edit the objective? Well, because that's the mission. at the end of the day, we are wiki pedia. A wiki (a place where anyone can edit), to create an encyclopedia.
Especially when things get really really complex (and on wikipedia, they can get really complex really fast), you have to keep your eyes on the objective you started the day, week, or month with (which was to make that now-not-so-WP:BOLD edit. ;-) ) , else you're REALLY going to get lost.
Hmm, in the end I guess it doesn't matter what process you use precisely, as long as you objectively, solidly, work towards making that edit, step by step. BRD is one process which I've gotten to work rather often. Other people might have other approaches that also work. :-)
--Kim Bruning (talk) 15:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
You're starting from a false premise. "Making an edit" is not the goal of Wikipedia. Sometimes, the article needs to stay as-is. Don't edit for the sake of editing. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 23:25, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I think Kim is speaking from the point of view of an editor who wants to change something. (If you don't want to change something, then the obvious course of action is to do nothing - I don't think we need an advice page to tell people that...)--Kotniski (talk) 10:03, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I've seen several editors stating that WP:BRD is an essay and not policy. Far as I'm concerned, if a bold edit (i.e. one that hasn't been agreed on the talk page first) is reverted, that edit doesn't have consensus and should be discussed on the talk page before being reinstated. At the very least that would be common courtesy. Anyone know why is BRD not policy? Daicaregos (talk) 16:27, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

You need to consider the community involvement in the article, when considering WP:BOLD, making a comments on talk page about editing a specific article is only helpful if anyone is watching the talk page. Bold does not apply where there is an ongoing discussion about some part of an article. If you see something that needs fixed be bold and fix it, if a discussion is started by the bold edit, contribute to the discussion. An uninvolved editor though is under no obligation to check for discussion before making a change. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:42, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
In a way, BRD is policy; it just happens to be described on the policy page called WP:Consensus. Part of the reason why I would like to combine all these disparate pages into a one-stop shop.--Kotniski (talk) 17:00, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
BRD is not an officially recognized policy because (AFAIK) nobody has ever made a WP:PROPOSAL that it be so declared and thereby established that there is a community consensus for calling it a policy.
I don't think that such a consensus will be found. Although BRD is a popular and often effective process, there are times when it is inappropriate (e.g., you aren't able to make a bold edit, so you can't start the BRD cycle). There are also an unfortunate number of people who have invoked BRD as a tool for POV pushing (e.g., "You aren't allowed to change the article because it violates BRD"). In the hands of an experienced, good-faith editor, BRD is a valuable process. In other circumstances, it is difficult. IMO we are better off keeping it as a "strictly optional" approach. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:53, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
If you check my history, you'll find that I feel that PROPOSALs is what you do to kill something, not to promote it.(this is also why WP:ATT failed: someone decided to run a vote on it, oops!)
Even then though, BRD is itself not policy, it's just a further clarification and application of Wikipedia:Consensus. So BRD is not a policy, but you'd better be aware that everything in there is policy. ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

A lot of people here are saying "if you make a bold edit that gets reverted, you need to discuss" ... errr.... sort of. You do need to discuss as quickly as possible. But at the same time: once/if you're discussing, you need to get to the point where you can make a bold edit as quickly as possible!

If you want some deep background: It's all part of a set of feedback loops. The faster the loop runs, the more quickly you converge on consensus, and the quicker the article gains in quality and becomes more reliable. If you run the loop too slow, you might never converge on consensus.

And that brings us to the other thing: When working on consensus; you're supposed to converge on a particular point, not revert back and forth, or make greater and greater changes. Try to answer an edit with another edit.

Which brings us to a third thing, which is that making edits to the page is an essential part of the consensus process. That's how the software is set up (with watchlists and diffs and everything). Make maximal use of the software, by incorporating editing in your consensus gathering. --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:29, 12 January 2012 (UTC) These are all short points, but I could give an entire lecture on each, if I wanted ;-)

I get the feeling that if these are the points that you want to emphasize, you might be better choosing another title for your essay (WP:Discussion is a waste of time or something). With it being called (or at least abbreviated) BRD, it's natural that people assume it means that after a revert (R), the remainder of the process must consist purely of discussion (D), which actually seems to be the viewpoint that you're arguing against.--Kotniski (talk) 08:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Of course discussion is not a waste of time, but it's not the end of the process either. It's a *cyclic* process. You're supposed to go back to editing!
In practice: If you look at edit history+talk on a particular wiki-page, one very typical pattern you'll see is a bit like this: bold->bold->bold->bold->revert->discuss->bold->revert->discuss->bold->bold->bold->bold->bold->revert->discuss->bold->revert->discuss->bold->bold->bold->bold->bold
But all that is not even the point of the essay on the BRD page.
I guess we could retitle the page to something like "A note on how to exploit aspects of the consensus process to mediate, moderate and repair itself" , or so. The idea of the essay on BRD is when a page starts to look like bold->revert->revert->revert->discuss->discuss->discuss->discuss->discuss->discuss.... (aka, things are a bit b0rked), you can fix things!
At the same time, I recognize that there is very little description of the short and long cycles anywhere at all, and we might want to write more about those.  :-)
--Kim Bruning (talk) 21:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Online private donation history

Suggestion: allow a logged-in user to see their donation history, privately.

(I accidentally donated twice recently ... which is fine ... but not ...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki ctlow (talk • contribs) 14:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Policy regarding simple pages emotional discussions

A passing comment regarding policy. A quick look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Conditional statement (logic) reveals a clear case of "policy failure" which needs some remedy. I am not sure what the remedy may be, but wish there was a "fire engine" to call to come out and put out that type of fire.

The topic which is the subject of the debate is pretty simple and a "basic issue" in logic. The discussion is emotional and free of logic. There should be a way to ask the two people involved to step aside and let others fix this simple page. I will not touch that page while the fire rages, and there is no point in discussing the issues in that emotional environment. This situation needs a better policy for it is a basic topic. History2007 (talk) 06:34, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Growth by forking

One thing that has bothered me for some time is that we're experiencing a proliferation of "cheap" text - text is just copied from one article to another, such as this, while other text that may provide more information grows at a much smaller rate. Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia is silent on this. To me, there are several problems with this:

  1. Readability: Texts become TLDR.
  2. Cost of redundancy: We, as a community, need to care for twice the number of text in different locations.
  3. Hidden forks: If one occurrence gets changed, and the change is a good one, then it is likely that it gets missed in the other copy, since there is nothing in the article that informs of that other occurrence. (If the change is a bad one, then it's probably a wash since the likelihood for it to occur may decrease at a similar rate as the rate for it to be caught.)
  4. Maintenance: Even if some editor notices it, it will require some time from that editor to assess how similar the occurrences are, and what part of the change should be carried over.

Am I the only one seeing that as a problem? — Sebastian 23:00, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

To alleviate some of this, I wonder if a mechanism using Transclusion can be put in place to bring fragments from one article to another when appropriate, yet maintain it in one place. On the other hand, I think it is important to use a summary section in a "parent" article and point for the rest in the {{main}} article. Inevitably, some information will always be repeated among related articles who reference each other. This always should happen since you never know where in the graph of articles the WP users start to read. It is not an easy problem, but ultimately it is a balancing act. Of course, copy-pasting large chunks of test among articles is not a good idea. There are also some suggested procedures for splitting. Also, it should be technically feasible to have bots who look for duplicated chunks of text across multiple articles. --Codrin.B (talk) 15:42, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Years ago I tried transcluding something that was palpably relevant in the same phraseology to two articles, only to get shot down (although there was some success with an even earlier proposal of mine involving road junctions I'm not sure if this is still used). This is however done a little with television episode listings, using "onlyinclude". I have to say it is a clumsy mechanism, and even if it were not, the problem of maintaining synchrony and applicability at the same time is vexed, in general. Rich Farmbrough, 16:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC).

Tagging

Is there any policy regarding fly-by tagging? I've observed a couple of anon IPs (same range, probably same person) zipping through a load of articles throwing in unref'd and cn's, sometimes carelessly, as they are often tagging leads and infoboxes where the main body will be cited instead. Not sure how to proceed? Ma®©usBritish [chat] 19:43, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Referred to ANI - reply no longer required. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [chat] 23:25, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
If the tags are correct, what's the problem? The Mark of the Beast (talk) 23:02, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

For large contributors

i believe that large contributors would be greatly appreciative of a program on their computer which self help learning environment which teaches you about things you are interested in from wikipedia by reading articles to you and asking what you are interested in learning more about and whatnot. i would if i were to contribute like to receive something out of it a mass produced downloadable wikipedia tool program would be REALLY cool though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.206.239.45 (talk • contribs)

There are screen reader programs.
There are also a number of places where you can find similar articles, look at the "See also" section, any navigational boxes at the bottom of the article, and the categories right at the foot of the page. Of course you can click on any of the links in an article to find more information.
There are also versions of Wikipedia you can download, for example Wikipedia CD Selection, and Wikireader. Rich Farmbrough, 21:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC).
As well as Wikipedia:Spoken articles -DJSasso (talk) 21:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Latitude and Longitude coordinates

Most articles now have the map coordinates of a relevant location in the upper right. Usually, a couple of clicks on that link will take you to a detailed Google satellite map of the location. The problem: when studying landing spots of my recent trip to Antarctica, I find these links sometimes miss the mark by miles. Example: Almirante Brown Antarctic Base. The cited location of 64°51' S, 62°54' W, or 64.85° S, 62.9° W, is three and a half miles northwest of the Google satellite map location where the buildings are located: 64.895° S, 62.870° W. You would have a difficult time finding the buildings using the cited location. I went ahead and fixed the link, but I wonder if the Google coordinate system is always reliable, especially at extreme latitudes.

Thanks for any comments. HowardMorland (talk) 21:54, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

This isn't really a policy issue. If the problem is not with the coordinates on the article (and I get the distinct impression that you've checked and fixed them), it's likely to be with the way that calculations are applied to those coordinates. Strictly speaking, you should bring the matter up at the discussiontalk page for the template which performs those calculations. The template used in the External links section of Almirante Brown Antarctic Base is {{coord}} (for which the discussiontalk page is Template talk:Coord), but that template is not necessarily buggy in itself - it could be a bug in one of the external mapping services. I think the best place to ask is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates where there are specialists in such matters. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:03, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates § Latitude and Longitude coordinates
Yes the source for most of these coordinates is usually accurate to within about a minute or sometimes two, but that is quite a distance away. The Antarctic data comes form a different database, I believe, but is probably to a similar accuracy. Rich Farmbrough, 21:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC).
Rich, this discussion is continuing elsewhere. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Mass transferring of files to commons by bot

At first I was not bothered by the process. However, it has become disruptive, it is being done with a complete lack of judgment and no human error checking, and it is not productive to me, the uploader, in any way. Recently, bots have started massively transferring files to Commons. This is often done abruptly and the images are then deleted from wiki. Unfortunately the bots tag EVERYTHING. Every single file, unless you manually add a template to block bots, will be tagged. This is disruptive, and a waste of my time to keep my eye out for vagrant bots.

I want this to stop. Files should be transferred manually by a human who has used their brain to determine that the file indeed serves a purpose on Commons.

I upload my files here. I do not care for commons and the flaming blockades shoved in front of photographers kind enough to offer their material. I do not want my files transferred. I do not want my watchlist to suddenly be missing the items I'm tracking because of some drive to propagate the lesser used site with material. I do not want to be chasing files that are clearly for use on wikiprojects, because the system blocks files being uploaded here with the same name as a commons file. The lack of a csd author on Commons means it takes whatever arbitrary length of time deletion discussions there last.

This bot transferring is not being down correctly, and it should never have begun in the first place. Takes me back to the days of BetaCommandBot. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 14:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm guessing you're talking about BotMultichill (talk · contribs)? I raised the issue on their talk page but they seem to care about moving them all rather then getting it right the first time. I'm not going to be helping cleaning up the mess on Commons. But if you freely upload photographs onto Wikipedia, you must expect that it will be transferred to Wikimedia Commons. Bidgee (talk) 14:51, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
In my case it was User:Fbot, but essentially the same things seem to fly with that one as well. Normally I expect my photos to be transferred if I don't tag them with {{keep local}}, but some files are just blatantly meant for wikipedia alone, such as this one. Some human discretion is needed. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 15:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
"Why is this one not appropriate for Commons? It is licensed appropriately, and while it is not used on any Wikipedia pages, the "Description = A map showing the current status of The Ontario roads WikiProject, indicating the highest status article by county." indicates it would probably be appropriate for use on other language wiki's. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 15:59, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
I was going to say the same thing, that file looks perfectly acceptable for moving to commons. All images that meet commons standards should eventually move there. There really shouldn't be any images that meet commons standards that aren't moved. -DJSasso (talk) 16:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Occasionally Fair Use is appropriate on a wiki, though very seldom on Commons. Other then these I agree no reason to keep on Wikipedia if it can be hosted on Commons. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:21, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Commons do not accept fair use images under any circumstances. All images on commons must be free use. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:42, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Note that {{keep local}} doesn't prevent the copying to commons, but to prevent the deletion of the en.wiki version. As soon as you have put that CC license on the work, copying to commons can be done by anyone (as long as attribution is provided); that's the whole point of the CC license. --MASEM (t) 16:11, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Here are my image uploads to English Wikipedia. Although all of them have commons-compatible licenses (they are CC-BY-SA 3.0), I am certain that none of them are useful anywhere other than on en.wp, because they are used on discussion pages to illustrate a problem, which is why I uploaded them here. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:42, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't really see why you think those images are useless outside of en.wiki. One identifies a feature on a horizontal scrollbar: couldn't that be useful for anyone trying to explain the concept of a scrollbar? Another shows what a diff looks like. Couldn't that be useful to anyone running MediaWiki software and trying to write a Help:Diff kind of page? I think you are underestimating the value of the images you have created. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
There's a difference between screenshots posted to illustrate a problem and images uploaded to illustrate a subject. One is often copy-pasted into Paint and saved as a low-quality jpeg. The other is designed to illustrate the subject effectively. Only the latter is meant for community use; the former to help with a specific discussion. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 21:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree with your doubt that anyone besides WP:ONRD would find File:ONRD status by division.svg useful. But there are some users who think that every single image that can possibly be moved to Commons should be, even images where any use anywhere outside of enwiki or discussions of enwiki is extremely unlikely. Some of these same users like to claim that a free image is "orphaned" when it would meet the WP:CSD#F5 criteria were it non-free, leading to ridiculousness like Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2012 January 9#File:Unicode 2400 Chrome Ubuntu.png. But it seems pointless to try to argue with them. I just place {{KeepLocal}} on such images so we won't be harmed if Commons decides to agree with us and deletes them without warning (I, for one, don't trust claims that Commons would never delete something that was in use on another project).
If they transfer an image to Commons and F8 it that you would rather be kept here, go ahead and request undeletion so {{KeepLocal}} can be placed on it. And if they refuse or ignore you, feel free to ask me. Anomie⚔ 17:58, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Thank you :) - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 21:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I sympathize. When I first started uploading images here, I was only interested in contributing to Wikipedia. I didn't want to have to learn and keep tabs on a watchlist on a whole other site for images that I added to articles here. Took me at least a couple years to get over that, and to see the benefit of not only having a database of images far larger than those currently in use in articles, but also of me being the one to upload them to Commons instead of a bot.

Do you know what would be nice? A unified cross-project watchlist. postdlf (talk) 16:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Yep, that would certainly be a nice feature. It's actually been requested since 2005. Meanwhile there are some external tools ([6], [7]) that can be used to maintain a crosswiki watchlist. Jafeluv (talk) 12:24, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Would it be useful if the Wikipedia Upload file page, had an option to upload a file to either Wikipedia or Commons, with a short guideline? What makes a file suitable for Wikipedia or Commons? --Iantresman (talk) 12:46, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Generally speaking, images should be uploaded to commons, unless they fall outside their project scope. Fair-use images are among the images prohibited at Commons, and these should be uploaded to Wikipedia instead. Copyrighted images for which the fair use criteria do not apply cannot be uploaded to either Commons or Wikipedia. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:24, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
As a side note, some images that I uploaded to Commons were intended for use in a single en-WP article, but you might be surprised at who finds images in Commons useful. I will admit to feeling a bit of a thrill to see my name credited on a photo in the online Britannica. :) If you don't want images you create available outside of en-WP, don't upload them. -- Donald Albury 15:46, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Interpretation of Template:MultiLicenseWithCC-BySA-Any

This template sounds confusing and contradictory to me. Is it actually possible to simultaneously license edits as both "Non-Commercial Share-Alike" and "Share-Alike" at the same time? They don't seem to be compatible licenses. Does someone know more about the history of this template and how it is intended to be used? --HappyCamper 07:02, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

The multi-license templates are telling people "If you want to use this image, pick one or more of the following licenses". The most common combination is BY-SA and BY-NC: if you want to use the image in a non-commercial manner, you only need to give the creator credit, but if you want to use it in a commercial manner, you need to license your work under the BY-SA license as well. --Carnildo (talk) 00:59, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Quickly undone?

How can {{test2}} claim that, "Such edits are considered vandalism and quickly undone." when such nonsense can stick with impunity for nearly a year?! Président (talk) 22:52, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the question is. Could you be more explicit and explain better please. Dmcq (talk) 23:10, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
It's a polite fiction. In reality, unless vandalism is obvious enough to be caught by bots or filters, it usually stays live for a few months. Kilopi (talk) 23:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
As far as I can see you are saying the template {{test2}} is wrong because nonsense is not quickly reverted. Nonsense is defined as words or language having no meaning or conveying no intelligible idea. Nonsense is normally reverted quickly. The edit you referred to was deliberate vandalism which looked meaningful.It could have been caught if the persons who reverted other vandalisms by this user had checked the user contributions but unfortunately they didn't. Articles which are not looked at often can get vandalised this way and the vandalism not be noticed for some time, that is an unfortunate problem which is hard to deal with properly, there have been proposals for various remedies here like the above #Locking pages unlikely to change and if you can come up with a good idea about it please share it here. Dmcq (talk) 23:24, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
I'll try to think of something, but a European born in 1893 serving… in the Civil War looks more a like a dead giveaway than something meaningful. 05:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Président (talk • contribs)
Of course the wording of the template should simply be changed. We have no business telling lies. If people are given to think their test edits will be quickly undone, it might make them think that such edits won't actually do any harm (and thus encourage them to make such edits, which is the reverse of what the template is expected to achieve).--Kotniski (talk) 10:07, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
That template was inapplicable to this problem. This was not a nonsense or test edit or even your usual obvious vandalism. It was a deliberate corruption of Wikipedia such that people unfamiliar with the subject would not immediately know there was a problem. By all means spend time revising it if you wish but please don't try making it apply to the wrong cases. Dmcq (talk) 12:45, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
It would seem to me that when the template is used correctly, the vandalism is removed quickly... Jeepday (talk) 13:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Actually this is why I keep examples of long-standing vandalism on my user page. It is true that most vandalism is quickly fixed, it is also true that because of the open nature if editing it is almost impossible to point to vandalism (and several other problems) since as soon as they are pointed out (in a reasonably public way) they are fixed. This creates a slightly rose-tinted view of how well we are doing. Rich Farmbrough, 21:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC).

Notability Policy

New here, so please excuse if this is not the proper place to discuss concerns about Notability and related policies. Seeing as how every biography will face this question, what should be done when there seems to be so much room for interpretation on Notability? A recent deletion discussion came to "no Concensus." It was a heated debate. Both sides of the issue were quoting a lot of the same policies, interpreting them very differently. It wasn't just one or two; there were many who felt strongly that certain policies supported their opposite sides of the debate. I'm sure it is a huge process to rewrite Policies, but shouldn't this have a further look? Possibly, subcategories of Biographies need to be better defined and their notability requirements then made more clear? An important outcome of clarifying guidelines would be less time arguing and more time editing. Thanks. Petersontinam (talk) 21:30, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

First, notability is (and likely never will be) policy. It's a guideline, meaning that there's more interpretation and, at times WP:IAR-applications of it. It will always be subjective depending on the topic, the people you ask, and, in some cases, whether it's raining outside. You will likely never get the same answer twice regarding a topic's notability.
But as for using notability, if there is discussions that are split and come to "no consensus" on whether the topic is notable, we generally retain the article on that person; deletion is a very last resort, so unless consensus clearly supports that, we don't delete articles where the opinions on its notability are divided. A topic that is retained by "no consensus" can be challenged later, but editors are discouraged from doing this so blatantly after such a conclusion. --MASEM (t) 22:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Thank you so much for your response. I understand how you are clarifying to me that notability is a guideline, and not a policy. I guess that in the discussion I was referencing, that particular word was mentioned so often it seemed the the only important gauge. Also, thank you for explaing further about "no concensus." Petersontinam (talk) 22:37, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
It should be noted that Wikipedia:Verifiability is a policy, and anything that fails Wikipedia:Notability probably fails WP:V (there are of course exceptions). JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 15:55, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
The exceptions are two: occasionally, a subject will pass WP:V but still fail Notability (="fail to qualify for its own, separate, standalone article") either because it is prohibited by WP:NOT (another major policy) or because it fails to meet the approval of editorial judgment (=editors decide that the subject is best off WP:MERGEd into some larger article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:06, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure I'd agree with that analysis, I think that their scope and requirements are different. WP:ver says that all material must be verifiable, wp:notability requires that the subject receive a certain type of coverage in sources. North8000 (talk) 21:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
If you can't find sufficient sources to meet WP:V it makes it difficult to meet WP:N, there are no absolutes. As the requirements for WP:V sources are rather stringent. In general if an article fails one it will fail the other. In cases where it only fails one, the out come would be different, content that is notable but not verifiable should be removed (i.e. WP:BLP), while content that is verifiable but not notable, may be merged into an article on a notable parent topic. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 17:51, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
For notability more than just verifiability is required. The subject has to be discussed in some detail in a secondary source. Secondary sources where a third party talk about the subject are what gives notability. Dmcq (talk) 21:15, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
North, I think you might want to read what I wrote again, because I believe that you do actually agree with it. For example: the fact that the atomic number of Mercury (element) is 80 is absolutely WP:Verifiable to hundreds of excellent, third-party, secondary sources. But we're not going to have an article called The atomic number of Mercury, are we? Why not? Because an article on such a narrow subject offends our editorial judgment. Clearing WP:V is necessary but not sufficient for a subject to be WP:Notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:09, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
  • If it were possible to write up a bright-line rule for notability, I think we would have managed to do it by now. What we have is a speedy deletion criterion for articles that fail to even claim notability. For everything else we discuss it. I know it may seem like a pain sometimes, but there is just no way to codify specifically where the bar of notability lies. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:20, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Nor should we. There are certain subjects that we simply (and rightly, in my view) have decided we should cover so long as they are verifiable (named populated places, nationally-elected officials, species...) regardless of whether it can be demonstrated up front that they pass GNG, whether you characterize that as an assumption that the topic eventually will satisfy GNG; that its coverage in census records, election records, etc., effectively satisfies GNG, or whether you simply accept the honest fact that GNG is a guideline that is at best a rough proxy for ensuring that insignificant and unverifiable subjects are excluded and does not always dictate a desired result. postdlf (talk) 19:20, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Regarding the speedy deletion comment made earlier if that is a reference to WP:A7 that covers articles without a claim of importance and it is clearly listed that it is a lower bar than notability.--70.24.206.51 (talk) 04:03, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
yes, indeed. We have consistently avoided listing notability in this criterion in order to avoid just this confusion. Many, many , things of of some reasonable plausible importance are less than notable, and will need to be deleted via Prod or AfD, or at least merged. About half our deleted articles are so obviously unsuitable that they can be safely deleted by Seedy, but the other half require a community decision. Notability can be so subjective that no single admin should be judging it without a chance of community input. But some things, like the classical examples here of corner groceries or bands that have never recorded a record, can be judged by any person who understands our policies. DGG ( talk ) 09:19, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Child pornography

Please be aware that this very serious issue is now being addressed at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Child_Pornography at this time. KCBlackHole (talk) 04:04, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Why not ask your question here, rather than make people follow a link in order to see it? SMP0328. (talk) 04:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
The user above has now deleted the thread they started above from Wikimedia Commons. Dcoetzee 06:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
SMP, the answer to your question is that centralized discussions are more efficient. Also, when the decision needs to be made a Commons, then comments given at en.wikipedia are ignored, so commenting here would just be a waste of your time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:27, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Commons user-made interviews as sources; Dappa Kali

This is partly with reference to the NYT article When Knowledge Isn’t Written, Does It Still Count?

As I understand it, User:Aprabhala, who is on the Wikimedia Advisory Board [8], conducted an interview with a school teacher concerning Dappa Kali and uploaded it to the Commons at [9]. The interview is now used as a source in the article.

From what I understand, this is part of Wikimedia efforts to help expand the pool of contributors to Wikipedia. This is very exciting and interesting. Are interviews made and uploaded by Wikimedia Advisory Board members considered reliable sources? Are interviews made and uploaded by any Wikimedia users considered reliable sources? Does it depend on other factors?--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 10:48, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know interviews are considered Self-published sources, provided there is no (reasonable) doubt about the authenticity of the interview. Exceptional claims require exceptional sources is also important here. Yoenit (talk) 11:09, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Advisory board membership of the Wikimedia Foundation wouldn't change the reliability of the source, just as being a Foundation employee doesn't mean you get any special right to override community decisions... —Tom Morris (talk) 01:59, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
Interviews are not self-published. When Barbara Walters interviewed Monica Lewinksy on 20/20, that interview was published by ABC News, not by either the people participating in the interview.
It's true that an interview could be self-published, just like any other media, but the fact that it is an interview is irrelevant. What's far more relevant here is that this "source" is a user contribution to a WMF project, which is never an acceptable source. You cannot cite stuff editors added to other Wikipedia articles as reliable sources, and you cannot cite stuff those same editors added to Commons as reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:36, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
The claim that we could not use the interviewee's statements just because it was a Wikipedia contributor who did the recording or because it was uploaded to Commons is ridiculous. Whether the interviewee writes down their statements or is recorded discussing them, WP:SPS gives guidance on how to use it absent a "reliable source" like ABC News deciding to vouch for it by publishing it. Anomie⚔ 18:02, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Locking pages unlikely to change

What do you think about being able to lock pages that are unlikely to change for example an article on a sports tournament that mostly consists of a table of results. If it is considered more or less complete it could be locked to avoid vandalism and edits could be suggested through the talk page where they can be considered by the community. --178.208.207.204 (talk) 11:20, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is never complete, not even single articles. The protection policy forbids pre-emptive protection. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:35, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
The question was what do we think, not what does policy say at the moment. (I'm quite supportive of the idea, and have said so in previous discussions concerning similar suggestions. It will probably only happen - if at all - if people at Board level finally wake up to the fact that they're hosting 21st-century humankind's de facto principal source of knowledge, rather than a gaming website.)--Kotniski (talk) 16:13, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
An article may be "complete", but that doesn't mean it can't be expanded even further. A simple list with the results of a sports tournament may be expanded with background info, rearranged as needed, and perhaps nominated for featured list. Besides, there are edits made from time to time which are not related to the article itself but to the structure built around them: add, remove or replace photos, categories, templates, links to other articles (or fix them when they point to DABs or to the wrong article), interwikis, links to other wikimedia projects, etc. Cambalachero (talk) 17:40, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Yep, per what has already been said. Also, protecting a page is not something we actually want to do, it is something we do only in response to a demonstrable problem. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Again, you're just stating what the position is at the moment. It might well be beneficial to do it in anticipation of a possible problem, when there's no particular reason to suppose there will be much constructive editing going on in the near future. And of course locking a page doesn't mean it's finally complete - just means that making further changes will involve a little more hassle (and the page can always be unlocked again if that seems appropriate).--Kotniski (talk) 10:49, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with citing current position as an argument if one thinks it is the best option. The question was what do we think, and I personally think the position at the moment should remain. In this case, I cannot invent another argument, just because my argument is already documented. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:27, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
But saying "this is the case" is no argument for the position that this "should" be the case.--Kotniski (talk) 12:53, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Anyone is supposed to be able to edit any page at any moment, we only lock pages when forced to, and we unlock as soon as possible:

  • It is one of basic principles of the project since the start. It's part of Wikipedia:Editing policy since it was first drafted in October 2001 "It is very nice when someone adds a complete, well-written, final draft of an article to Wikipedia. This should never be discouraged. However, one great advantage of the Wiki system is that incomplete, poorly written first drafts of articles can evolve into polished, presentable masterpieces through the process of collaborative editing. If this does give our system an advantage over other systems of producing similar end-products, then it would be very wise and desirable to encourage this process as much as possible. [more stuff follows]", Larry Sanger copy edited this text later in February 2002. And meta:Protected_pages_considered_harmful exists since January 2003.
  • It is one of the main reasons that it became "21st-century humankind's de facto principal source of knowledge" in the first place. I was going to cite Jimbo or some scholar study, but, hey, we already say it ourselves in Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_is_so_great#Editing.
  • Wikipedia is a wiki, and What is a wiki explains "A wiki is a collection of interlinked web pages, each of which can be visited and edited by anyone at anytime." since its creation in May 2002. The original definition of a wiki includes the editing of any page as part of its philosophical content: "Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. (...) Like many simple concepts, "open editing" has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit any page in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by nontechnical users."[10].
  • Cambalachero already cited some reasons for not protecting pages, there are some more reasons at Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Protect_featured_articles.

If we change that practice, Wikipedia will stop being a wiki, and we will have removed one of the reasons that made it successful in the first place. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:11, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Weeell.. of course if we locked down every page, then it would stop being a wiki, but that's not the proposal. And if you look at Sanger's words, you'll see he refers to masterpieces and end-products. Which implies that there is a stage at which we can consider an article to be an "end product" - and once that stage is reached, there's no longer any reason to maintain the processes that allowed it to become an end product. (And of course the decision is always reversible, so it's not such a big deal - we already have thousands of pages protected for other reasons.)--Kotniski (talk) 12:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Observational Comment - This is an interesting theory, and my first gut reaction was, Whoa, we don't preemptively protect pages, thats against policy. Yet my second reaction was, Why not protect pages that have no reasonable reason to change in the near future? Its a simple question. Yes we can quote policy and guidelines and act lick we are so smart for be able to do so, or we can have a rationale intelligent discussion that could lead to some real thought and perhaps some useful change. Yes no article is complete, but that is why we have edit requests. perhaps we should test this idea out on a few articles for a few months and look to see if it works or not. Perhaps on a few older olympic events. Articles very unlikely to have anything constructive added. The alternative with some of these sporting event articles, is that some of them are on very few editors "watchlists", and as such, have higher potential to not be corrected when incorrect information is added. So, in reality, this discussion is about changing the current guidelines on page protection.--JOJ Hutton 14:05, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
@Kotniski & Hutton. I wasn't quoting policy, I was quoting the basic philosophy of this project: a quick-changing website where anyone can change any page, without asking for any permission. Above, user Cambalachero has given a list of why it's a bad idea to protect pages. So, a) let's not imply that I was simply quoting existing policy b) let's not pretend that these changes can be done without seriously undermining one of the main success factors for the project.
If someone wants a more "serious" encyclopedia, where articles with no vandalism or editwarring problems can be "frozen" and you have to ask for permission to administrators, then that someone is better served by funding his own project with his own rules. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:31, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
What I have discovered is that Wikipedia is over 10 years old. Some policies and guidelines that may have worked in the past, sometimes need to be reevaluated from time to time, to evolve with the changing needs of the project. Yes Wikipedia is and should be an open project. That has helped Wikipedia grow, but there comes a point where Wikipedia grows beyond itself, and sometimes we need to evaluate our understanding of the policies in order for us to grow with it. We have tested new guidelines and policies in the past. See no reason why a small, controlled test of this proposal could not be tried on a limited number of articles. Any collateral damage will be small and confined. Anyone needing to make constructive edits on these limited number of pages, can easily ask for an edit request.
We need to let our consciousness of Wikipedia evolve with the project. Without that, we may as well give up and find something else better to do.--JOJ Hutton 15:04, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, we need to be open-minded, and adapt to take account of how Wikipedia has changed (it is no longer a fledgling project or just a bit of fun for a few people). Simply describing what's happened in the past and refusing to accept the possibility that it might be useful to make a few changes at this stage is hardly the way to make Wikipedia better. Again, locking down pages doesn't exclude the possibility of making changes; and the number that would be locked would only ever be a small percentage of the total, so WP would remain an open project. We need to think about how to maximize value and accuracy, without worrying exclusively about preserving any particular "rules of the game" - it's not a game any more.--Kotniski (talk) 17:46, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Locking even a small percentage of the pages for this reason would mean that we are no longer an open wiki page. For such a radical change to the project I would like see good examples of articles where this would be useful. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:39, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't see any fundamental difference between locking pages for this reason and locking pages for the reasons we already apply. Protected pages - of whatever category - are not "open wiki"; the remaining 99.99% of pages still are. The objective of being a reliable information resource should take precedence over conforming to some abstract ideal of what an "open wiki" is - particularly when we know that we depart from that ideal already. (I don't personally know any examples of articles that would definitely benefit from such protection, but I would expect any article eventually to reach that stage - Sanger's "end-product" stage - and surely some already have.)--Kotniski (talk) 13:41, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
(You should expect to see some counterexamples of small forgotten articles that have improved slowly over time due to hit-and-run edits by IPs, edits that wouldn't be done if they had to ask permission in the talk page. Maybe there is a subset of articles somewhere where this could be actually useful. We already protect high-traffic templates because they have their own problems.) --Enric Naval (talk) 19:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

If a page is unlikely to change, it doesn't need to be locked. If a page is old and doesn't hold much interest, the vandalism load will be low. If we are wrong and the page did need to change, then locking was the wrong move. Under what set of circumstances would locking slow-changing pages be the right thing to do? --Kim Bruning (talk) 12:09, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

The vandalism load will be low, but on the other hand, there's fewer eyes watching and patrolling it, so vandalism on it may be easier and last longer. --Golbez (talk) 13:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Why do you believe that an excellent "finished" article would be underwatched? Our FAs generally have an enormous number of people watching them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Not every article can grow up to be an FA. Plenty of articles can't reach that level, yet are complete and full of facts and figures that could by subtly altered and not be noticed. --Golbez (talk) 19:22, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Subtle changes need not be incorrect. What criteria can we use that determines "complete, will never change"? Can you point to an article - any one you like - and state that it is complete and so must be pre-emptively protected? --Redrose64 (talk) 19:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
It's clear I'm not talking about valid changes. I'm talking about someone wandering by and changing the windspeed on an obscure hurricane from 1953 from 145 mph to 135 mph. Something like that. How do we prevent subvandalism on pages where we may not have knowledgeable people watching like a hawk? --Golbez (talk) 15:11, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Locking a page doesn't have to mean "will never change"; it just means that we think it's reached a stage where the costs of keeping the page open for immediate public editing are greater than the benefits. The costs being that the page is harmed by spurious edits (and/or good editors' time is wasted looking out for and reversing such edits); the benefits being that improvements are still made by anyone who perceives the need (and/or good editors' time is saved by not having to deal with talk-page requests for changes). It's a judgement we already make when protecting pages (especially much-used templates and things like that). And if it turns out we got the judgement wrong (i.e. people are pointing out lots of genuine improvements they would like to make) then it's very easily reversible.--Kotniski (talk) 07:07, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Reducing orphaned fair use file deletion dates to 5 days

Currently, orphaned fair use images can be deleted 7 days after the date they were tagged as such. I'm proposing this be reduced to 5 days. Many fair use images which are no longer used in articles are not added again within the 7 days, and hang around when they could be deleted. Being able to delete them after 5 days would reduce some of the time these types of files hang around. Cloudbound (talk) 17:42, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

It also reduces the amount of time that someone who doesn't log in every day has the opportunity to correct. What does shaving the two days off do? There are categories that list the articles after 7 days so that they pop up on an admins radar, so its not as if someone is waiting patiently for 2 more days to go by to hit that delete button. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ τ ¢ 17:53, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. No explanation of why this is beneficial is presented in the proposal. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:12, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
This would be unfair to editors who only have time to spend here on weekends or whenever their day off might be. Seven days/one week is a more appropriate time cycle. Martin Morin (talk) 18:19, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Surely deleting them straight away would be even better -- no backlog, no hassle? The reason not to do that is to give editors time to deal with them. And 7 days is the right choice, mainly because of weekends. 12:31, 15 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by H3llkn0wz (talk • contribs)
Yes there's no real panic to delete orphaned fair use files, since their only use is on their own page, where they would be if they weren't orphaned. Rich Farmbrough, 21:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC).
For much of the same reason I'd like to see the time extended... if only to give a chance for some editors a chance to respond and noting there is no specific reason for the seven day wait. The only think keeping it at seven days is strictly precedent, and that most things on Wikipedia tend to happen in a seven day window. There isn't much I can do about that as it seems to be ingrained into the Wikipedia editor/contributor culture as an unwritten (or written ad-hoc in many different places) rule. Pushing for a shorter period of time is certainly something I would fight against. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:51, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Some editors (not myself) are in full-time employment, have families or other commitments. As a result, they may be able to spare one day at weekends for Wikipedia, or just one evening per week. Any interval less than seven days risks excluding these contributors unfairly. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Opinion on blackout

No actual proposal. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:37, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

As a consumer, I am truly turned off by the self-righteousness displayed by the Wikimedia Foundation with yesterday's blackout. We, your readers, are consumers, not the government. You are punishing the wrong people. Repeat--You are punishing the wrong people.

This is like beating the family dog with a wet newspaper after your house is burglarized. Shouldn't you be going after the burglar?

Wikipedia, when used properly, is a scholarly research tool. It is thoroughly footnoted and attributed. You can download thirty- and forty-year-old article pages from past issues of Baseball Digest on Google.com--something that I agree represents threats against copywritten material--but at least you could pull up legitimately unprotected material on Google yesterday. T-h-e-y were not punishing their users for Uncle Sam going too far in protecting copyrighted material.

I propose a "blackout" of our own. Let's boycott Wikipedia for a week--or more. Fewer hits. Also, let's cut off our donations to Wikipedia. So you're going to retaliate against us by charging a dollar for each page we want to read? Okay, now you're shooting yourself in the foot because you won't be able to make money.

This is not about copyrighted material, ladies and gentlemen. These ares Days of Rage tactics your foundation is employing--smashing innocent people's car windows in protest against "the war." Does it occur to you that the people you are punishing might actually be on y-o-u-r side?

My father, who has never owned a computer, told me yesterday about the blackout, "just go to the library and look up a book." I think I will. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.159.229.32 (talk) 15:48, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

That sounds an excellent argument for regular blackouts. If we could get people looking up things in books for just one day a year instead of going to Wikipedia, I'd be in favour a regular annual "no Wikipedia" day. (Gives the editors a well-deserved breather too.)--Kotniski (talk) 16:09, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Books. Imagine that. From reading that rant, one would think that its author believes that the Wiki community thinks of books as competition. Wyvern t (talk) 16:25, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
And for a complementary view: https://www.xkcd.com/843/ Anomie⚔ 16:32, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
  • The poster is missing the point, the whole idea was to show everyone what it would be like if Wikipedia was gone, and to urge them not to let that happen and to contact their elected representatives. And it worked, thirty percent of congress' web pages crashed from the high traffic, switchboards on Capitol Hill were jammed with all the incoming calls, and support fot he bills went up in smoke. And now, a mere one day later, WP is back for all to use, free of charge. There was no "punishment" nobody's poodle was beaten, nobody's car windows were smashed, the doors were just closed for a day. The fact that it upset people is evidence that they don't want to live without it and don't want it shut down by the government. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
    • I think the poster gets a little ahead of themselves suggesting that Wikipedia would charge money. Into everyone's life a little activism must fall when survival is at stake. The poster has every right to express their opinion or boycott. Those types of rights must always be defended. Speaking up in a powerful way against legislation that is terribly flawed is a right I am grateful for and many other countries literally jail you (or worse) for. Don't agree? You can surf that, and quickly find examples. Wikipedia's intention was to bring awareness and it did. Petersontinam (talk) 22:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I think conversely, we need to have significant notification (Sad Jimbo Banner anyone?) that a no-service day is being discussed for the near future during the discussion so everyone is aware of what's going on. Further it needs to be a life shattering reason to invoke a no-service day. Now that we have one case on the books of WP deciding to shut the doors there's nothing to prevent the doors being shuttered for other reasons (Juvenile Cat Disease) that are not as important. Hasteur (talk) 16:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Opinion on Blackout; Failures of Application of Law - Government and Citizen Response to SOPA and PIPA Intitatives

Wikipedia is not a soapbox
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

RESPONSE TO POLITICAL BIAS. WHERE is the ACCESS to CONTRIBUTE TO WIKI's Wikipedia to edit what WIKI says about itself, and what the GENERAL PUBLIC has to say in response to WIKI's MOVEMENT?!!!! ? NO EDITING TOOL? How can we continue to trust WIKI, when it seems you are SPECIFICALY MANIPULATING internet resources to support your claim, instead of institutions of law...granted I GEATLY APPRECIATE your efforts to retain the freedom of knowledge, but he MEANS in which you have chosen are questionable; you have facilitated contact to our representatives in an influential manner, by taking a political stance and using "Users" to perpetuate your efforts. WIKIPEDIA alone has manipulated information on the internet against the SAME EXACT CLAIMS that WIKI SEEMs to be opposing? I received this letter from Senator Akaka in response to sending him a letter of my concerns, as you requested. Now I am ASKING FOR A RESPONSE FROM WIKI!

It has made me reconsider the validity of what Wiki claims...I want more investigation into what the bills REALLY MEAN by the attending legislators (and where is the ACTUAL BILL ON WIKI?) For wiki to take control of the existing internet pulse, is also in itself a manipulation of humanity, technology and 'rights/"

WHERE is the line drawn, and MORE IMPORTANTLY, "WHO' can be trusted to DRAW that LINE, most importantly in regards to OUR AMERICAN CONSTITUIONAL RIGHTS?

I have already seen Rule of Law fail MISERABLY in Hawaii on county, state and federal levels, including the COMPLETE VIOLATION of BOTH my US Constitutional rights, as well as my BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. This exact problem has failed my trust in BOTH my government, AND by entities PROCLAIMING to "protect my "rights"!!!!

I am VERY suspicious of underlying intent after having LOST MY RIGHTS ALREADY (failure to implement existing laws), that NEITHER SIDE may not be proceeding in an unbiased manner from idealist platforms in efforts to further their OWN INTERESTS, on BOTH SIDES OF THE ISSUE, including the MANIPULATION OF LAW FOR THEIR OWN ENDS!!!

Copy of Letter from Senator Daniel Ikaka, sent in response to SOPA and PIPA Intiatives (minus my personal information):

Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). H.R. 3261 was introduced by Representative Lamar Smith on October 26, 2011. SOPA would give the Justice Department legal tools to try to stop foreign websites from selling copyrighted material to U.S. consumers. The bill also would set obligations for third parties that are notified of court orders, such as directing Internet service providers to take actions to block the infringing website. Copyright holders would be provided similar, although more limited, legal tools. The House Judiciary Committee held two markup meetings in December 2011 and considered more than 60 amendments. The committee is expected to resume consideration of the bill soon after Congress returns from recess. You may be interested to know that the Senate is scheduled to begin consideration of related legislation, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act of 2011 (S. 968), on January 24, 2012. The bill was introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on May 12, 2011, and favorably reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 26, 2011. I support the bill's intent of ensuring the protection of intellectual property. However, in doing so we must ensure that we do not hinder the free-flow of information or stifle innovation. Rest assured I will keep your concerns in mind should the Senate consider H.R. 3261 or related legislation. Mahalo again for — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.234.85.246 (talk) 17:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Common names policy

Is WP:COMMONNAME — a Wikipedia policy — fit for purpose or just a source of disagreements?

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Common_names. I'd appreciate opinions about improving the policy. Thank you. --Kleinzach 02:18, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia no longer marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Small time frame before deletion starts again?

Please set aside deletionist, inclusionist, and all other similar viewpoints for this question: I have asked, and there is no policy regarding a frame of time that an article has before being proposed for deletion after it has already been through the process. There are opinions, etiquette guesses, and semi-guidelines...and it is a different answer when you ask a different person.

I think it is disruptive to end up with a "proposed for deletion" tag literally two weeks after an intense debate. I feel that another debate that soon couldn't possibly have different opinions than the first one, and it would be a pointless waste of people's time to hit the "battlefield again." I would hope that when there has been a contentious deletion discussion, with a remarkable amount of opinions and policy expressed, that a closer might have the right to assess the situation as needing a certain amount of time before it is up for deletion. It doesn't make any sense to me at all that anyone coould believe that notability, which turns out to be as subjective as it gets, could change drastically in a month or two. Other deletion reasons that are not subjective seem pretty drama-free...if it needs sourcing, verifiability, copyright dalliances, etc...those votes are clear and remedies either happen or don't.

I propose a time frame of two or three months, where an article is somehow protected from deletion tags (especially from users who seem to have deletion of an article as their only purpose here) when a previous deletion discussion has been closed and proclaimed no concensus. Obviously, after a certain amount of time, if there are strong believers that the article is not encyclopedic, anyone would be able to nominate it for deletion again citing appropriate policy and take it from there. If there was some kind of Policy in place for this situation, it could save everyone valuable time. Thoughts? Petersontinam (talk) 02:09, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

If you want people to set aside "deletionist" and "inclusionist" viewpoints, you should probably remove the battlefield rhetoric from your own post. --Carnildo (talk) 02:45, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
It was not written in battlefield rhetoric. The reason I wrote deletionist and inclusionist is because of reading 12 paragraphs about people discussing the Rescue Squad and how those terms seem to define the conversation. I was looking for opinions that would not look at deletion policy from either of those points of view. I wanted to point out that I thought it was a terrible waste of time to go through a deletion discussion very soon after it just happened. I used the word "battlefield" when I described a deletion discussion because when it is heated, it is 7 days of people debating hotly for their opinion. Frankly, I am new here and am already getting tired of every single word being twisted or ripped apart by someone who just likes to argue and cannot see the words for how they were written...like you just did! This is just not worth the time and frustration to dare put a suggestion forward to the experienced editors, because you will surely be told you are wrong within a second or two. I have a lot of care for my tone when I write...99% of the time...but take a look around you and tell me with a straight face that all these pages are filled with people taking care with their tones in discussion. You couldn't just add an opinion...you had to accuse me of "battleground rhetoric" without even reading carefully what I had put forward. You couldn't resist to take me down a notch. Well, that is the last straw. Why would anyone subject themselves to this day after day? You can all sit and argue over every little word, punctuation, "hidden" meanings, and tone until your heads fall off. If you thought what I suggested was stupid, you could have said it was stupid...instead of saying that I somehow worded it wrong. This is just too much. Oh and when you start to tell me to chill out, forget it. I'm already gone. Petersontinam (talk) 03:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
(ec) This is a perennial proposal, Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Numerical rules for deletion, rejected as instruction creep. Fast repeat nominations are not all that common, and for the ones where it is clearly done in bad faith, or completely against consensus they are usually close fairly quickly, for the rest, if it is true that a second debate will have the same result then nothing is lost, if not then clearly the second debate was necessary for consensus to be truly found--Jac16888 Talk 03:08, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
The question of how long an interval should be left between one proposal for deletion and another overlooks one fundamental point: per WP:PROD, any given article may only be proposed for deletion once. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:14, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
(I'm assuming writer was using 'propose' to mean 'nominate' and possibly was trying to refer to all XFD instead of a particular one like AFD, though it stopped me for a minute the first time I read it.) RJFJR (talk) 20:24, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

In my mind it works this way. Anybody can PRO-D an article (assuming it hasn't been PRO-Ded) before. If the prod gets removed there's nothing to prevent the original proposer from going directly to AfD. If the article gets turned down for "It can be improved instead of deleted" there's a 2 to 3 month timer (in my mind) for those who used that reasoning for keeping to follow through with the improvements that would save the article. On the other hand articles that are well reasoned probably have a much longer (1/2 year or more) time for it to be challanged again. I probably end up more on the delete side of the equation as the articles typically are significantly below what I would consider standards to make me take action in nominating the article at AfD. Hasteur (talk) 20:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe the article in question in isBen Breedlove, and the second AfD was removed soon after it was added. Angryapathy (talk) 22:15, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't see the point of this discussion. We have WP:DRV. One possible outcome of a DRV debate is to determine if there were sufficient problems in the closing of the discussion to warrant another round of AfD. While DRV is normally used to challenge the closer's rationale to delete an article, I see no reason why it couldn't be used to challenge the closer's rationale to keep it. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:00, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
it has been so used many times, but normally it is very much simpler just to wait a reasonable time, and start another AfD. The most that will usually happen at deletion review of a keep is that it will be changed to non-consensus or relisted. The only real reason to use del rev is if you think the admin has made such a bad error that attention should be drawn to it--and even then, in my experience, it is usually not worth the trouble id what you really want to do is get the article deleted, orr unless you think the article so harmful that it must be immediately deleted. DGG ( talk ) 01:11, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is free content no longer marked as a policy

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is free content (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a policy. It was previously marked as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposal regarding Article Rescue Squad

{Moved from AN/I by Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:08, 16 January 2012 (UTC))
Note: A request for comment has been placed to receive community input. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:57, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

An issue with an individual editor is better resoved by dealing with that editor and not taking an entire project to task. However, perception IS everything, and as much as there has been some really good work performed by its members in actually improving articles, the ARS refrained from setting up a hierarchy to oversee itself or guide its members. Lacking guidence, we thus have repeated ANIs about over-active members and MFDs about templates and their usage.

But "perception" IS definitely addressable. As the editors who were part of its original inception and design have gone on to other pursuits, it seems that NA1K has single-handedly and in good faith tried to tweak the project page for many months.[11] And while I have avoided editing the project page, I think by being a bit bold and making the project page itself more formal and neutral will be of help in underscoring to its members that they should be proactive in improvements.

I dislike suggesting the setting up a hierarchy, but ARS essentially lacks guidence. I think serious consideration should be given toward there being at ARS, just as with other projects, coordinators who help set a moderate and constructive tone. See Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron#Proposal for ARS Project page redesign. I request and will respect input toward my proposal, but feel a bit of personal boldness in setting a more sturctured and moderate ARS will be of value to continued improvement of the encyclopedia. Opinions? Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 23:36, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Change the name. Perception is an issue, but "rescue" creates a certain mentality. How about Article Improvement Team? That said, there seems to be genuine concern above that more than one member seems to be simply going to articles and saying keep without improving the article or by making trivial improvements that don't address the issues. Despite the utopian view of AfD that we like to pretend to have, most admins do seem to just do a head count and 3 or 4 people could sway a lot of AfDs like that.--Crossmr (talk) 00:41, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
A name change is something I had been myself considering. Revamping the ARS will need to entail the creation of a hierarchy (ouch!) of those willing to accept the responsibility of leading through example. Won't happen overnight, no... but definitely do-able, and well worth the effort.
I disagree that improper closes are performed by "most admins"... as an improper close is a matter for WP:DRV, and any admin who repeatedly closes AFDs improperly has their edits under close scrutiny and placed their admin tools at risk. Remember, WP:ANI is not only for non-admin-related issues... admins can be brought to task here just as can any other editor. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 02:05, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
ARS members do a lot of good and the ARS is a good thing in itself. The point at which group needed co-ordination, or at that very least a plan to get things back on track has been, gone and disappeared from the rear-view mirror. At times in the past the group's message board has looked like an open house for those with a grievance due to some deletion process or another to come and have a whinge. Sometimes a romanticized view is presented of the ARS being a small group of battered soldiers huddling in a trench, valiantly guarding WP's content against a huge army of 'deletionists' who would tear it to ribbons. See comments on the rescue tag's deletion discussion for a couple of examples. It's not that the ARS necessarily encourages or even shares these views, but these are voices which shout loud and this paranoid and hostile vision is presented to potential members of the squadron. It isn't helped by the Squadron's underselling of itself, even in the limited area of my own interest I see numerous editors who would be of benefit to the ARS and perform the same tasks Squadron members do, but aren't being invited to join. Having members who specialize in different subjects and who agree to watch them would take the weight off other members and (hopefully) reduce the feeling that everyone has to check everything or else we'll lose perfectly good content every day. Wikipedians with good access to sources would also be a boon, as they could be approached if more readily accessible sources are not available. New blood, efficient deletion patrol, less feeling of backs against the wall. It's always been doable but someone has to roll their sleeves up. I wish you all the best. Someoneanother 12:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
You keep saying "it's just this one editor" but that just plain isn't true. First of all, I have repeatedly mentioned another editor, Dream, who similarly pushes an agenda blatantly and I notice you have repeatedly defended retaining the rambling anti-deletionist screed that is Dream's userpage. Second, one can look and see that North is far from the only editor who has used the ARS as a canvassing group for inclusionists. In fact, on the inclusionist wikiproject, one of the suggestions for how to help the cause is to join the Article Rescue Squadron and sends people directly to articles that have been tagged. That wasn't even placed by a member of ARS from what I can tell, it was just someone in the inclusionist project.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 19:27, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
• The rescue template was never used for "canvassing" by myself. It was adding a ten-character template to an article, in accordance with instructions for use of the template as they existed. Northamerica1000(talk) 04:38, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, to be clear, this ANI began by you describing your interactions with one editor and his use of a rescue template, included your discussion of three keeps at an AFD that appeared to be drive-bys responding to the rescue tag, your concerns that their not following instruction on the ARS page gave their "per NA1k" keeps an appearance of a template being "canvassing", went on to impune an entire project of 400 members based upon your interactions with NA1K, used Dream Focus and his user page as an example of "inclusionist agenda-warrior behavior", and then based upon your opening statements, your summary suggested that "the only feasible way to stop this kind of activity without getting rid of the group altogether is to explicitly restrict anyone in this group from getting involved in AfDs and limiting them explicitly by policy to only editing the article itself when it is nominated for deletion."
I do not see a topic-ban preventing 400 editors from involving themselves in AFD discussions simply because they are members of a project wishing to improve content for the project, as particuarly useful nor as a method to improve Wikipedia. If you have issues with the behavior of one or two or three or four editors, mount ANIs or RFCs against them. But an blanket ban of an entire project based upon perceived issues with less than 2 percent of that project?? Massive overkill. Your desired outcome as stated in your opening, is to topic-ban 400 editors when perhaps 380 or 390 of them have never had dealings with you. Wrong queue.
My proposal as above was brought forth as a means to address perceived issues through education and guidence in a project lacking that guidence. If you do not think issues can be addressed through education and guidence, fine... and thank you for your underscoring your issues with a minority. But I am seeking input from editors who might feel as I do that your solution to topic-ban 400 editors is perhaps a bit of overkill. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 20:40, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
As I said before, my suggestion was to serve as an alternative to disbanding the group altogether. The way you quote my comment about Dream's behavior is as telling as your past arguments against deleting Dream's userpage. I sincerely doubt anyone objective could look over the exhaustive rhetoric on Dream's page and not come away with the same impression I got. Both North and Dream have sought to entrench that agenda-warrior mentality explicitly in the group itself. You keep implying this is isolated, but it really isn't. North and Dream seem to be two of the editors most regularly involved in the wikiproject's activities. Quite a large number of those 400 editors are inactive, with most of the remainder being less active than North and Dream. Their actions are inevitable given this group's existence, the way it draws attention specifically to articles facing deletion, and its freedom to be involved in voting on AfDs.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 22:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
• Note: The link above with an abbreviation of my user name was essentially a simple copy/and paste of information that I didn't personally originally write, but performed some minor copy editing upon, from Meta.wikimedia.org. At the time I felt the information may have been helpful to a WikiProject. I'm personally neither an "inclusionist" or a "deletionist", or any other kind of "-ist"; I'm an editor and contributor. Northamerica1000(talk) 09:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but I do not believe that a proposed topic ban of 400 editors could ever be considered a reasonable "alternative". And such a proposal would essentially disband the ARS project... in application if not in fact... as a project-wide ban preventing 400 editors from being able to offer their opinion (either good or bad) at AFD, simply because they were a member of any project, would act against policy by not allowing them to participate in the building of consensus... and would discourage membership in a project which ostensibly exists to improve the encyclopdia. We do not assume bad faith toward all 400 because of the actions of two.
Your repeatedly returning to two editors as if they were entirely representative of or responsible for the other 398, might be a reason to address those two if deemed neccessary, but never to punish 398 others. And with respects, your stating "Their actions are inevitable given this group's existence" is a strawman... as ANY editor, inclusionist or delitionist, will edit however they edit no matter what projects exist or not on Wikipedia and despite membership or not in those projects. We do not curse the sky because of a rainy day. My own hopefully more reasonable proposal seeks to address the problem of ARS lacking guidence without the collateral damage of punishing 398 other editors, active or no.
Back to my proposal... do you have input on how to revamp the ARS though education and guidence? Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 01:24, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that you presume the problem is isolated and fail to recognize it as symptomatic. Sure, the editors will continue to act as they please, but the nature of the project has always been to direct people to an article so that they may "rescue" it from deletion. As long as the project exists with that tag and members are able to comment on tagged AfDs, it will continue to be used as a canvassing tool for inclusionists. You keep touting the idea of the WikiProject and ignoring the reality. It clearly facilitates activities that are contrary to the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia in a uniquely disruptive manner. Honestly, I think there is no real way to revamp the group that does not involve severe policing. Saying "you can't tag the article" will be meaningless because it is likely someone else will tag it instead. By suggesting it is a problem with this or that editor and they should be dealt with individually you are essentially suggesting that your fellow admins play a game of whack-a-mole rather than going to the source of the problem.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:14, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
As any tag can be misused by any editor, it becomes a matter of education. We do not sanction 400 for the actions of 2 or 3. Period. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 21:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
If you want an idea, I think one good step would be to eliminate the tag and bar anyone for promoting a specific article for rescue. They can look at the list of all AfDs and judge for themselves if something is notable then act accordingly.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:16, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
The template and its use is being discussed elsewhere. Seeking improvement of ANY weak article is fully encouraged by the guidelines set for improving this encyclopedia. As for expecting editors to rumage through hundreds or thousands of AFDs, sure.. thay may do so... but as MANY completely unsavable articles are sent to AFD, this tag it is to be used only those whose clock is ticking at AFD, and is to be placed only when an editor feels in good faith that it actually might be savable before that clock ticks to zero. Proper use is a mater of education. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 21:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Another idea would be to introduce a delsort that would specifically note where an article's notability is being contested by nominating editor so members don't get involved in WP:NOT disputes.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 07:19, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
The delsort option is a quite decent idea... and is already among my own suggestions for revamping, guidence, and education as offered at Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 21:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Rename and revamp the project Many if not most ARS members do good work improving articles. The problems arising here stem from the perception that ARS tagging of articles results in votestacking at AfD, so why not change the project's focus to article improvement generally, rather than specifically fighting for inclusionism at AfD?

  • Rename ARS as "Article Improvement Squadron" or something similar.
  • Prominantly link the project page to Wikipedia:Contribution Team/Backlogs and Wikipedia:Reward board.
  • Change the much-discussed {{Rescue}} tag to a request for project members to improve the article (rather than "save" it from AfD), move it to the article talkpage as a standard Wikiproject template, and don't limit it to articles which are up for deletion.

Implementing these three changes would encourage the editors at ARS to continue their work without fostering the battleground mentality that seems to be poisoning the well. Yunshui 雲‍水 11:53, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

  • Support revamping the project I'm not sure a rename will help, but I'm not opposed to it. Here are some ideas I really do support though:
    • I like the idea above about prominantly linking to project improvement pages. Perhaps even sorting by topic so ARS members who have particular interests can find decaying topics easier.
    • Perhaps the creation of a "Someone is considering nominating this topic for deletion" that would go on the article's talk page instead of a "rescue" template. I would use such a tag and give it about a week before nominating something for deletion. This would give ARS sufficient time to improve an article before it was nominated.
    • Also another template option, include a |reason= option in the {{rescue}} template so ARS members can explain exactly what (other) improvements need to be made to an article by other ARS members (or regular editors)
    • Some kind of project-mentoring program for editors who show signs of competence issues who misuse the tags, use poor sources, or who only !vote keep in AFDs
    • Some kind of hierarchy to coordinate all of this effort and standardize responses to calls for help and who can accept criticism from outside of the project
    • Revamp the project's main page. I'm not opposed to this section about avoiding article deletion, but reasons like "It can be discouraging for an editor to have their article deleted" and "t can be frustrating for a reader to come to Wikipedia for information" are not in compliance with Wikipedia guidelines.
    • I like your hall of fame page, but what would really be nice is to see "rescued" articles reaching GA or FA status.
    • A link to Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources added to your instructions
    • Effort by the project to address concerns by outside of the project. Acceptance that the concerns are valid even if they are misconceptions. Effort shown to improve the image of the project.
  • I hope some of these suggestions would be taken into consideration. I'm not opposed to the entire project, I'm frustrated by the mentality and attitude of some of the members. Honestly, I feel like we're in a military tribunal, Jack Nicholson is on the stand (a leading member of the ARS) and Tom Cruise wants to know the truth about whether ARS sees Wikipedia as a battlefield. It's almost as if some ARS members revel in the fact that it feels like a battlefield but won't admit to it because they know it's wrong. I feel like one of them is just itching to say "You can't handle the truth!!!" Anyway, that's how I feel, take it or leave it.--v/r - TP 14:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
    • I don't think there is a need for a rescue template at all. Having something to categorize articles in need of verification on the subject's notability would seem to best. There is a BLP rescue project that particularly focuses on referencing BLPs whether they are facing deletion or not so I think that kind of model would be good. Also, I think the group should specifically mention deletion as a possible action with an article if all efforts to establish notability have been exhausted.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
      • You have offered your template opinion repeatedly. The template and how proper educaton can improve its utility is being discussed elsewhere. THIS discussion is about improving a project that seeks to serve the encyclopedia so it may serve better, and not about tacitly disbanding that project. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 21:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Lots of articles that need improvement are fairly safe from deletion, so I don't think that a name change is appropriate. Also lots of people improve articles, including people who rarely touch articles at risk of deletion. But there will always be a need to educate newish editors that rescuing articles from deletion is best done by actually improving them. I'm not volunteering for the task, but would be delighted to see someone step into that particular breach. I think the Article Rescue Squadron newsletter was useful in that and would welcome its return. ϢereSpielChequers 17:56, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
  • ARS has always been an area that naturally draws in the most extreme inclusionists along with the more numerous well meaning users who actually improve articles. The extremists give the whole project a bad name, and nobody involved ever seems to call them out on it, so I agree that co-ordination would be a good thing. We've all seen the tactics used, ref bombing an article with every mention ever in any print medium no matter how trivial, excessive badgering of other AFD participants, carbon-copy !votes, the same two or three ARS members voting "keep" in practically every single deletion discussion, the rescue tag being applied to hopelessly non-notable subjects, etc. All this leads to the perception of a badly broken wikiproject that needs a serious overhaul. I like a lot of the ideas expressed above, it's a start anywhay. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:56, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I personally have never had a problem with ARS. But I see conflicts with the project coming up so many times at ANI and elsewhere, more than any other Wikiproject that I'm aware of, that a change might be a good thing. I think the proposed changes above might be a good idea. -- Atama頭 17:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
  • My thoughts on the matter are at User talk:Jclemens#Content Rehabilitation Project. As someone who's observed the issues for three years, I've got a pretty clear vision of how to do the work without the problems that have led us to this point--primarily by incorporating the criticisms of ARS detractors. Jclemens (talk) 09:15, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
  • It looks to me like there are a handful of editors using rescue tags to attract keep votes or responding to them in that way, rather than a fundamental problem with the project. 'Rescuing' articles at AfD will always be necessary while we have a significant number of editors who judge subjects as 'non-notable' purely on the state of the article, with little or no effort to research the subject more widely, some of whom seem to get very annoyed when others prevent the article from getting deleted, even when it becomes clear that it should be kept. Rescuing should involve finding policy/guideline-based arguments for keeping, not just voting. Both extremes need to be dealt with, and it's unfortunate that poor AfD nominations rarely seem to result in action against the editors responsible. Personally, I take no notice of rescue tags as as I look over all AfDs every day anyway, and make my own mind up whether an article can be (and is worth) rescuing, and often those with rescue tags on are not. Looking over the ARS project page, it still looks fine to me in what it says, so if it comes down to a few editors who are problematic, better to deal with those editors.--Michig (talk) 09:37, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
  • One practical measure that may address the concerns would be to add a template in AfD's where the article has been 'rescue' tagged to make it clear that some editors may have contributed to the discussion in response to the rescue tag, and to prompt the closer to pay particular attention to the arguments put forward rather than the number of editors favouring keep/delete. Perhaps such AfDs should also be deemed unsuitable for non-admin closure. --Michig (talk) 10:21, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Moot now that the Rescue template has been deleted.--Michig (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
  • The easiest way to restore life to this project is to shift focus away from voting at AfD's and restore focus to improving articles. There are many ARS members (but certainly not all) who are very active at contributing AfD votes, but not very active at improving articles. In my opinion, ARS members should strongly refrain from voting in AfD's that have been rescue tagged (although, with rescue tagging no longer possible, it's uncertain what that actually means anymore). They should improve the article (and perhaps post a note at the AfD that they have done so), and let those improvements speak for themselves. Awhile ago, I created two proposals (1 2) for reforming the ARS, and while I freely admit that they are far from perfect, they might at least serve as a jumping off point. —SW— confabulate 15:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Focus should be on demonstrating that articles should be kept when that is appropriate. This can either be through improving the article sufficiently or by demonstrating in the AfD discussion that the article should be kept, with reference to notability guidelines. AfD is not for cleanup, taking articles to AfD to get them cleaned up is disruptive, and no editor should feel that they have to do major work on an article before pointing out the subject's notability in an AfD discussion.--Michig (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't know the ARS from a hole in the ground or get involved in the inclusionist/deletionist stuff, but one course of action seems fairly obvious. Those who think the ARS should change how they go about their business should join the project in sufficient numbers that they can move the project in a better direction. These projects are open to everyone, right? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:10, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Haven't read this entire discussion, but Boris' comment is one of the most astute. When the template existed, its fair to say you can't have 10 different groups putting templates on AfDs, e.g., "This article tagged by the Article Rescue Squadron for Rescue", "This article tagged by the Inclusionist Zealot Army for Improvement and Serial Keep !Voting," or even the "Article Deletion Squadron has flagged this article for obliteration", which is the AfD template :-), etc. Without the template, any group can identify AfD articles for improvement among themselves and transparently on their group page and work on them. Any editor who simply votes "keep meets GNG" without any substance is going to be discounted, whether its one of the alleged few offending ARS members, some other random group trying to defend their article like at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Canadian Gun Nutz or anyone else.--Milowent • hasspoken 20:49, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Have any members of the WikiProject Article rescue squadron actually been notified about this proposal? I added a request for comment to this discussion, and added a notification to the ARS talk page. I haven't notified anyone personally about this proposal, though. Northamerica1000(talk) 04:35, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
  • It is inappropriate for people here to be trying to change what happens at ARS from the outside. Instead, as suggested by Short Brigade Harvester Boris people should be joining the squadron and helping to improve articles or presenting ideas about template wording to project members at the project pages. And if a team of people votes to keep articles for no reason, then administrators can ignore them due to weak reasoning. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:50, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
For me, there is a fairly simple solution, though perhaps this is the wrong venue: deletion decisions must be made by what an article currently says. That is, my main anger at the ARS (although, as noted above, it's not necessarily all of them) is their act of going to an AfD tagged article, especially those tagged for notability concerns, finding some additional references, and posting them on the AfD. Then they fall back on the idea that notability is judged based on what is theoretically available, not what is currently in the article. In other words, they haven't done anything to actually improve the article whatsoever. Then, presumably the AfD is closed as "keep", the AfD itself is closed and hidden away. Readers don't get a better article. Normal editors may be completely unaware that a simple solution to the article's current problem exists. And on the AfD itself, it always felt like the ARS (though here I specifically thinking of Dream Focus) where taunting other editors and admins, in that Dream Focus literally refused to add information to the articles directly. Thus, all that would need to be done is for the admin to be allowed to decide based upon the state of the article at the time the decision is being closed. Any article with potential sources not currently in the article could be userified into the user who found the sources. And, when you think about it, this is no different than real life--you can't expect a publisher to publish the book you "think" you could write--they're going to make their decision based primarily on the draft you've already written. In short, I guess what I'm saying is that if ARS were essentially forced to actually rescue the article (because just commenting at the AfD won't be enough anymore), then their existence would be unproblematic. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:35, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Well said, I have seen the exact scenario you describe play out dozens of times. The more extreme ARS activists see AFD as a battle to be won and often seem to care very little about actually improving articles. That is the heart of the problem here. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:52, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
One of the ways of rescuing articles is by opposing inappropriate deletion attempts, those based on ignorance or defiance of policy. Any article can always be improved, but there are about 25% of the articles proposed for AfD that are either satisfactory enough as they stand , and for which the arguments for deletion need only be refuted, or suitable for some remedy other than deletion to be followed. (No disagreement though that about 25% of the articles there need improvement if they are to be kept, 25% need such drastic improvement that they are very unlikely to get if they are to be kept at all, and another 25% are inherently unkeepable no matter what is said or done--estimates of the proportions may vary, but all three classes do exist). DGG ( talk ) 05:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
IMO, it is generally a better idea to put the sources on the AfD, not the article.  For one thing, you can't assume that a closing admin will notice that the article has had a reference added.  Second, your work will survive on the AfD even if the article is deleted.  Third, I've known people that have removed references added to an article that help to establish notability.  Since establishing notability does not require articles to be improved, I suspect that it has always been an incorrect idea to put a rescue template on an article nominated for lack of notability.  Improving an article during an AfD has another negative consequence, VIPs that see articles being improved because they have been nominated might think, well, I guess AfD nominations are a good thing, they are a way to improve articles.  Unscintillating (talk) 06:16, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
If you do that, people will object also, that you haven't fixed the actual article. I normally put the sources I find in both, though its quicker adding them to the AfD initially. DGG ( talk ) 15:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Do agree that we have a problem with bad AfD nominations?  Unscintillating (talk) 01:23, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Which is exactly the problem! You're acting like the goal is to "save" the article. What the heck is the point of saving the article only to have it be in the same state, with no demonstration of notability? How does that serve the reader? I don't mind the idea of also adding the info to the AfD, though often a "I just added 3 sources, all of which meet WP:RS and discuss the article in detail, so this appears to pass WP:GNG now" will likely suffice. This is the exact problem I want to stop: this notion that the goal of "rescuing" an article means to save it from deletion, when the goal of everything we do on Wikipedia should be to directly or indirectly improve articles (or the processes needed to work on those articles). And why shouldn't AfD be for improving articles? If I do a WP:BEFORE check, and, to the best of my ability, find no sources, and then nom for deletion...if somebody who searches better, or who has access to more sources than me, or knows a second language finds sources, then I'm happy. The process worked exactly as its supposed to. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Its a bit late at night to follow everything there, but any AfD nomination that does not result in a deletion is an inefficient process.  By definition, AfD does not exist to improve articles.  Unscintillating (talk) 06:36, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
It's not inefficient if no other process up until that point succeeded in solving the problem. And you concern isn't really relevant anyway, because no process in the real world produces 100% successful results. Any process involving human judgment is certain to encounter cases where reasonable people, looking at the same data under the same rules have different interpretations. And finally, I can't think of anything less efficient than someone adding information only to an Afd and not to the article--now you did all that work and the encyclopedia isn't any better. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:11, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Qwyrxian, the attitude you have expressed just above must have been meant ironically, for it is the exact opposite of WP:Deletion policy. Deletion is the last resort, for those articles that cannot be improved or otherwise dealt with. If you mean it serious, this expresses the reason why the ARS was formed and was needed; people would rather delete than allow for improvement, Improvement can occur any time: the criterion for deletion is unsourceable, not unsourced, and sourcing or other improvements can occur any later time, as long as the AfD makes it clear that sourcing or improvement is possible. If serious, you're advocating we remove what we cannot immediately fix. Fixing an article cannot be done with automated tools, and takes hours of work and some serious thought. Deleting takes a few seconds, can be done with automated tools, and takes neither work nor thinking.No wonder some people prefer deletion. There is only one problem: deletion of what can be fixed does not improve the encyclopedia. As essentially everything does need some fixing, it rather tends to destroy it. It's a form of very primitive triage: either cure by immediate action, or kill it. Who would voluntarily go into action with a army that eliminated the wounded? -- and the people who desert Wikipedia when their article is challenged are realistic in understanding that--if such attitudes prevail. DGG ( talk ) 15:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
No, no irony intended. This is where I fundamentally disagree, and I am fairly certain it comes from the fact that I'm a fairly "new" member of Wikipedia--that is, I started within the last 2 years. For me, when I look at Wikipedia, I look at it as a work that already has millions of articles. I look at it as a work in progress, but not as one in its infancy--that means that we need to be looking far more towards pruning than towards unchecked expansion (although this varies by area--I freely admit we need some serious expanding in those areas disadvantaged by systemic bias). Someone once said that the internet already contains the majority of the information collected on Wikipedia. Our value is that we sort and prioritize that information in a concise form while providing the necessary references for those who need more details. In that sense, I honestly believe that our value is decreased by every single article...heck, every single piece of information that we have that is not adequately verified (not verifiable). This is what makes me an immediatist. Our value is also decreased by every single article we have that's verified but that doesn't meet some sort of minimum standard for "importance" (what we call "notability"). I don't want us to be a place that, for example, collects all of the miniscule details about television shows that their fan-made wikis contain. I don't want us to have an article on every numbered extra-terrestrial rock. I want us to be, for lack of a better word, an encyclopedia. And while I no longer see myself that way, this is why some people would probably call me a deletionist. Instead, I would call myself what I am, by title: an editor. Editors edit. Editing is a combination of fixing what can be fixed now, and cutting that which can't be fixed now (leaving open the possibility that the next iteration of the publishing cycle can fix it). Look, all I'm really trying to say about the Afd process is this: if you have information that can improve an article, for the heaven's sake, fix it. Don't put it on a soon-to-be-ignored page in the Wikipedia namespace. And what I'm trying to say about the ARS is this: I am absolutely in love with the idea of an organized WikiProject whose goal is to repair articles that are currently in a state where deletion is a reasonable option (just like I love a Guild whose goal is to handle all of the copy-editing that many people don't like or can't do, and I like a team that helps exchange resources that are behind paywalls). I am absolutely opposed to the existence of a WikiProject that only cares about the number of articles not deleted, and doesn't seem (at least for some members) to give a damn about the articles themselves. Maybe I'm being unfair, and only remembering interactions with the more extreme members. If so, maybe the solution is as stated above: it's not that the ARS needs outside sanctioning, its that they need to do a better job of sanctioning their own members. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:27, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
I have made a vague proposal at WT:N related to my earlier suggestion that we stop making AfD decisions based on what can be verified and start making them based on what is verified in the article. As it's a continuation of this discussion, and I've received both positive and negative responses here, I believe that notifying this discussion is acceptable and not violating WP:CANVAS. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
(EC) We have deletionists and inclusionists who joined the project at various stages of its development, I doubt if the editors who started in the last two years are generally more deletionist than others. Though the very new probably include a higher proportion of firebrands for all conceivable wiki philosophies. I have no qualms having people here who would like to change policy - whether it is moving from verifiable to verified or various other proposals I've seen to make it easier or harder to delete articles. But we do have a problem when some people behave as if their favoured policy change had actually happened. Whether we move to Pure Wiki deletion or we make "unsourced" a speedy deletion category it is important that we do so in a consistent clear and measured way; If some people operate a more deletionist policy than we have published then you can guarantee that a proportion of our contributors will be bitten.
As for the point about sources being quoted in an AFD and not then put into an article, surely the onus should be on the nominator? If you propose an article for deletion on grounds of notability you are basically saying "hi, I've not been able to find sources for this" If the response is along the lines of "Here is the twelfth hit from Google, she won xxxxxxx" then isn't it rather remiss of the nominator not to make sure that goes in the article? ϢereSpielChequers 16:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Except I'm not going to add a source to an article in a language I can't read, or that I can't access because it's behind a paywall. I have no problem with someone else adding such sources, and will almost always WP:AGF that the sources say what the person claims they say, but I'm not going to take responsibility for the edit myself. Also, and this was particularly a problem for DF, sometimes the person just says, "I found these five sources, (list), and they seem to be enough to meet WP:GNG. Well, I shouldn't now have to go through all of the sources, figure out what information is useful in them, and essentially rewrite the article. If it's simple, sure, I can add a source, but my experience is that often it is not. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:29, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

For people at both sides who like me were following this proposal, you may be interested in viewing the deletion review for the Rescue tag which is ongoing. Diego (talk) 21:49, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Further Proposal

I have been giving some thought to how to address what is seen by the ARS as the unacceptable loss of editors work by deletion, I have a proposal to make. It is rather a fundamental one, but I think just tinkering at the edges here probably is not going to be enough.

Lets change AfD procedure, for those articles that are nominated on grounds of notability, where there is consensus that the article meets our inclusion criteria, we obviously keep, for the rest, lets only delete outright those articles that have unanimous (or near unanimous) support for deletion for the articles in the middle (currently closed as either no consensus or consensus to delete with good faith claims of notability) move to a development name space, where the article can be worked on before hopefully eventual return to main space. The main space page vacated by the move could then have a soft redirect with a message along the lines of "We are currently working on an article for this subject, please help us to created it at ......". The development name space would have to procedures to make sure that articles were not abandoned forever, and the issue of noindex would need to be considered.

I am happy to add more details to my proposal if others feel that this could be a workable solution. Comment please Mtking (edits) 06:08, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

We have the WP:Article Incubator. The problem is, that's practically a graveyard. But if we did start sending more articles there, I would not support a soft redirect. We're a work in progress, but if consensus is in favor of deleting something, it should be deleted, not just hidden behind one extra click. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:29, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
I would be very unwilling to add yet additional complexity to the procedures. As it is , people find it confusing (I don't, but I've been a regular there for a long time now). This very well intentioned proposal will result in bad results in every possible direction. For articles that must be deleted, except for the obvious which might better have gone as WP:PROD, near-unanimous support for deletion tends to reflect not the quality of the article, but the lack of interest. Nor, except for a few is there generally unanimous support for keeping, unless it was a remarkably ill-considered nomination. This would throw most of the material from AfD straight into limbo, from which it would not emerge. It would certainly make it possible for a small group of dedicated people, like some think the ARS to be, and some think the less-formally-organizeddeletion nominators to be, to both remove most articles from mainspace, and keep most articles from being deleted.
The better solution, and one which people of almost all inclinations have supported, is to make full use of the entire range of alternatives to deletion that already exist. I agree with Qwyrxian that the last thing we need is soft redirects to unsatisfactory articles. Better to have hard redirects, to supportable merged content. DGG ( talk ) 15:07, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Count me as another supporter of middle ground between keep and delete. For AFDs that don't end in consensus, the best way to preserve the content (and the search term) is often a merge to a larger topic. One of the most effective ways that ARS could rescue articles and avoid the canvassing issue completely is to become an "article adoption squad", where editors who have a reasonable and good faith belief that an article can be improved can adopt an article at AFD into their user space, and either work on it themselves or find an editor or WikiProject with expertise on that topic to do something about it. The metaphor of ARS as an adoption agency would be highly compatible with the community aspect of Wikipedia, and would bring a lot more light than heat to the deletion process. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:38, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
I disagree with the idea of some sort of article incubator. Articles belong in Mainspace, that's where they will get collaborative editing, categorisation and deorphaning. I know we allow people to have drafts in userspace, but IMHO it is an unsatisfactory can of worms that causes unnecessary risk and overhead. I agree that not everything in mainspace is yet fit to be "published" and I'd like to see unpatrolled articles made noindex, that along with a flagged revisions system such as on DE wiki and various other language versions of Wikipedia would give us a step change in quality. The important thing with new Article Rescue Squadron members is to teach them how best to rescue articles, and when an article is beyond rescue. ϢereSpielChequers 16:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
DGG's point about preferring merges to incubation makes a lot of sense to me, too. I wonder if we would be going too far down the path of making admins "super-voters" if we allowed them to call a mix of "keep" and "delete" comments as a "merge". Qwyrxian (talk) 23:29, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
I'll admit I have not been active at AfD much, but before I became an admin, keep with delete could be closed as a merge if it was discussed. A merge accurately reflects the opinion to not have the article and the opinion to keep the material. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I always think anything is preferable to "no consensus". Without consensus we pretty much enable the most extreme parts of either faction to keep doing what they're doing. If there's a three way split between keep/delete/merge, just merging it is the best way to avoid the crap shoot of hard-keep vs. hard-delete based on who notices the AFD next time. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
"no consensus" does have a use: many things that cannot be settled ,now, but may be settled at some time in the near future-- there are times when a discussion has gotten to a stalemate, and the best thing to do is nbot to continue it with the present accumulated baggage, but to wait a month or two, and start over. The hope is usually either that some of the less thoughtful people will have lost interest, or that additional evidence will have been found--sometimes more references, sometime the failure to find continued public concern. What we seem never have tried is closing as no present consensus, to be relisted in 3 months" or the like. Perhaps on the basis of IAR, I may give it a try--it seems especially useful when the question is NOT NEWS. DGG ( talk ) 03:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Count me in to support a policy for merging content from AfDs into related articles. This should be the default procedure to preserve content that is sourced by reliable sources but not enough to establish notability. Is there a Wikiproject for Mergetionists? Diego (talk) 12:33, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Regarding merging, WT:Articles for deletion/Archive 61#RfC: Merge, redirect was run a year ago. After a quick skim, I don't see any discussion on whether compromise (keep + delete → merge) closes are preferred to no consensus. The question comes up at DRV occasionally. Flatscan (talk) 05:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Future "consensus" access blackouts

I remain extremely disappointed with the way this "blackout" was conducted. As such, I would like to propose a new policy.

The policy will clearly lay out the procedure involved in implementing a temporary (or permanent, I suppose) access blackout on the English Wikipedia. It should require at least two week's notice (that is, two weeks prior to the action date), with the proposed action and action date clearly specified in the site-wide notice. Taking action should require not just a supermajority of interested parties, but ideally a majority of "active" editors (determined by some metric) (minus those who explicitly abstain).

Having a consensus policy in place will help prevent the travesty that occurred yesterday from happening again.

Thoughts?

-- Powers T 14:31, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Discussion started a month ago. Not just two weeks ago in the end of December, but earlier in December. There were threads at different Village Pump, on ANI, and on the pages of dozens of the most active editors on this site (indeed, if you wanted to send a message to Jimbo Wales about anything other than the blackout, it was drowned out in other discussion). Those for outnumbered those against by over a 4 to 1 ratio. Getting votes from everyone on the site is such a logistical nightmare that it is for all intents and purposes impossible, and would make such future actions impossible. Ian.thomson (talk) 14:47, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
While that is all true, there is merit in defining a process by which we might consider such an act again. For one, the necessity of a site notice and adequate time when the (binding) RFC comes up. Not only that, but even though I supported this blackout, there is also merit in deciding if this is something we ever want to do again. A stunt like this does make a big splash the first time, but it loses effect each successive time it is done. The point at which the cost of such an action outweighs the value could be after just one such blackout. Resolute 14:58, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Discussion of this happened in non-standard placed like Jimbo Wales' user talk page or on Foundation-l and Wikipedia-l. A great many of us simply don't watch those discussion forums as project-wide changes will usually (but in this case obviously not) get more of a chance to get vetted and discussed prior to the action taking place. In short, it is very disingenuous to suggest that this had "months" of discussion and is spreading half-truths and forgetting that the "opposition" to this action was not very well organized. More to the point, the opposition to this action did not really have the opportunity to present its case and was casually dismissed when it shouldn't have been so. In a great many ways, there was forum shopping and other problems with the way it was presented, and I don't think the "voting" was necessarily conducted in a fair manner. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:44, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
As noted, discussion about a possible blackout was stated. However, the time for implementation was made short when Reddit and other sites announced their blackouts on the 18th only the week or so before; at that point, if WP was to blackout a decision had to be arrived at quickly. Given that SOPA/PIPA (or any similar legislation elsewhere) could be introduced with almost no notice, we have to consider that we may need spur-of-the-moment votes to initiate action. That doesn't mean that there can't be discussion as to what mechanisms en.wiki may employ in the future as an act of protest against legislation impacting open information exchange and how to get rapid community consensus on the matters as a general guideline/policy. --MASEM (t) 15:17, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Everything I saw about the discussion was just "there is discussion going on", and gave no indication that there was a binding vote being held that would prohibit access to the encyclopedia for a full day. There's a huge difference. One is a political action that one may or may not care about; the other is a nuclear option that every user of the site would care about. Powers T 15:52, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Powers that the action was both unfortunate and poorly implemented. The message relayed with the blackout was also very disappointing, indicating that all Wikipedians backed this action and share the same political views, which is far from the truth, as well as presenting only one side of the story. Like it not, Wikipedia has now positioned itself as a political tool, or perhaps more specifically an American political tool, which entirely alters its previous position and has significantly damaged its credibility as an independent source of information.
Now, evidently I get around with my head in the sand though, because despite visiting/editing the site almost every day, the first I heard about all this was when the blackout banner went up the day before it happened. Admittedly I don't spend my time frequenting the Village Pump, ANIs, or stalking "the pages of dozens of the most active editors" - seems I have enough more interesting things to do, and enough real life politics and drama to deal with without seeking out more on Wikipedia. However, do you want to contact editors, in particular active editors about such a monumental decision? Well seems to me there's this thing called a "user talkpage" that would tend to get any active editor's notice within a day or two. Automate a message to all users informing of the mooted action and !vote being undertaken and let them have a say; whether their 'say' is simply ignored is another matter, but anyway...
And we may hope this type of action doesn't now occur on a regular basis every time some fifteen year old Admin in Idaho or faceless employee of the Wikimedia Foundation gets their knickers in a knot over a bill going to Congress, but I fear we've started on a slippery slope. So while the damage that has been effected can't be undone, a binding policy may well be a good thing to at least try to limit future damage to Wikipedia. Oh, and just for the record, before people want to start an ad hominem attack, I may well be opposed to the bills in question, but frankly mine or anyone else's political views shouldn't matter a damn in terms of Wikipedia, and it's not uswiki's job to take political stances on my behalf, whether I support that viewpoint or not. If we wish to take political action there are plenty of other appropriate forums in which to do it; Wikipedia didn't used to be one of them. --jjron (talk) 16:36, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Guys, whether you noticed the site-wide messages about this or not, there was a discussion that over 800 users had no trouble finding andparticipated in, a record for WP. The vast majority supported this move. It's unlikely to happen again anytime soon, but it did happen, and now it's over and there nothing to be done about that and nothing to be gained by complaining about it now. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:28, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Surely a few months ago we all would have thought that it was "unlikely" to happen the first time, but it did. And the notice was far too short. I mean, we have a months-long run-up to ArbCom elections, with a secure polling system, outside administrators as adjudication, and publicity out the wazoo. But for a discussion on shutting down the entire site (for a day, granted), all we get is a single notice that some sort of action is being discussed? And a binding straw poll that was subject to some hysteria created by the immediacy of the event? So you're wrong that there's nothing to be gained by complaining; if we can implement a better procedure, then the next time the question of taking this sort of action arises, we can provide everyone with better notice, avoid making the WMF tech team work overtime, and be more confident that the action is taken with true consensus and not just a mob of a majority. Powers T 01:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
    • If you think "majority rules" here on Wikipedia, I would strongly recommend that you re-read WP:Consensus and WP:Vote. Consensus was certainly not achieved, nor was there even an attempt to arrive at a consensus. It was strictly tyranny of the majority through mob rule.... something that the consensus process of Wikipedia has supposedly been set up to avoid. This is also an anti-sock puppet policy in terms of Consensus as avoiding vote counting helps to discourage sock puppets on the basis that ballot stuffing can be avoided as it doesn't matter. More to the point, those "800 users" who all voted for the blackout could have just as easily been eight users with 100 sock puppet accounts each. Convince me that wasn't the case, even though I'm not necessarily accusing all of them or even any of them of sock puppetry. I certainly saw no attempt to cull potential puppets, and other aspects of trying to genuinely come up with consensus was not even tried. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:59, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
      • The onus would be on you to make a valid accusation of socking, not on others to "convince" you that it wasn't the case. In a situation like this, consensus effectively *is* what the majority wants; there's no policy in place regarding blackouts. And honestly, bothering to gauge the community's voice was kind of the WMF. They didn't **have** to ask us at all. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:27, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
        Considering the extremely short time frame that happened on this "vote" and the fact that there was no consideration to even review if there had been sock puppets or other kinds of games being played, I would have to assert that it is likely that there was at least some sock puppetry going on.... particularly with such a politically charged issue and the number of people being involved. I ran a similar "vote" for the creation of Wikiversity, as well as was involved with the creation of Wikinews on Meta, and both had significant problems with sock puppets with specific rules in the voting process that were designed specifically to cull out those kind of sockpuppet account (including the equivalent of check-user review of nearly every account voting). I can't believe that somehow this was somehow a much "cleaner" vote given the circumstances. So no, this isn't a wild accusation, I'm speaking from experience and knowing first hand what happens when votes like this are taken. As for the WMF.... they stated in the past they wouldn't get involved in project issues at all, so they are even changing their mind on that basic foundational pillar of project governance. As a matter of fact, based upon previous formal policy pronouncements and even promises made in a formal manner to donors, this is even a change in policy on the part of the WMF. It is the policy of the WMF to only support the "community" wishes, especially on what happens to content on the projects. That is also one of the reasons why board members are elected by the community. Please, don't get me started on the "ex-officio" members of the WMF board of trustees unless you want another dozen paragraphs about my thoughts on the subject. There is no policy on blackouts because it wasn't ever supposed to happen in the first place and would have been laughed out as a ludicrous proposal in the past. --Robert Horning (talk) 03:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
        • An entire three trustees are elected by the community, and no, the WMF is not bound to support community wishes and has in the past denied proposed changes with a strong majority of the community (or, a strong majority of those who turned up) supporting them. Ironholds (talk) 15:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
    • I'd stay away from pronouncements such as "unlikely to happen again anytime soon". If you read Jimbo's page, you'll see a thread on ACTA, with a statement by Jimbo "My point is to respond to this question with a cautious 'yes'" For clarification the question is about taking a stand not (yet) a proposed blackout, but one can hardly rule out the possibility of another proposed blackout in the not too distant future. It wouldn't hurt to think through now how we should address that, or some other call for a blackout. I guarantee that someone will think up some issue, and noticing the impact the recent blackout had, will propose that WP back the issue with a blackout. That issue might not have the broad support this one had, so we need a better mechanism to determine how to proceed.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be a consensus that we need some sort of well-defined process in place for future drastic actions. I've started Wikipedia:Blackouts, but it's very bare-bones. Please edit mercilessly. Powers T 20:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)


Well, at least now more wikipedia editors probably have probably gained some vague sort of idea of what SOPA and PIPA are all about. Even so, the issues and implications are complex, and I guess I'm not the only one who feels the need initially to turn to informed advice from people like Jimmy who have carefully investigated potential threats to Wikipedia's freedom to disseminate verifiable information. So my first suggestion would be for the Foundation to provide wikipedians in advance with a concise, plain-English summary of the issues in question and of the perceived threats from the WP perspective, preferably accompanied by proposal/s for action around which to build consensus. The 'notice' would need to be easily digestible (without being simplistic, or dumbing down) so as to reach the widest base possible across the community. Then there's the small matter of consensus building within the community, and whether to use some sort of a ballot, as is currently being proposed at Wikipedia:Blackouts. Presumably, one way of obtaining a genuine community-wide vote would be by presenting all registered users (or 'active editors') with a survey 'screen' which one would have to dismiss by providing some sort of answer before one can start reading (or editing). In addition to allowing yes/no/(abstain) votes, I think it would be important to allow options such as "I don't the details, and would prefer to leave the decision to ... etc", "Dismiss for now, I'll vote later" and "Dismiss for good (I'm not interested)". IMO, such an approach should provide a more sensitive appreciation of community sentiment than a plain yes/no referendum style vote. Whether or not Wikipedia wants to get into the politics of majorities versus minorities within the community is another question. My 2 cents MistyMorn (talk) 17:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is free content has been marked as a policy

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is free content (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a policy. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to let others know, I disagree with this change and have undone it; explanation at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is free content. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:53, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Lasted almost 48 Hours, very surprised it lasted that long. 10:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
This is one of the five pillars, how is it not policy? --Surturz (talk) 06:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Because the exact wording of policies require a wide consensus to be approved, which this page doesn't have. The five pillars are ideals and thus are binding in an abstract way, widely subject to interpretation. Policies are much more concrete and they bind user behaviors in a more direct way, and thus require discussion to be approved. Diego (talk) 10:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

More input for a straw poll

This straw poll hinges on interpretation of policy and the possible conflict between policies. It seems intractable to the participants and needs more non-involved input. SchmuckyTheCat (talk) 16:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Policy regarding EMAIL's on Files

I know that it is frowned upon to use Email addresses in Wikipedia discusisons and articles but I have found quite a few files with Email addresses given in the summarys and descriptions of the files. Is there a policy somewhere that says that we should allow this? Given the nature of images and copyright laws and such it seems reasonable but I couldn't find anything. --Kumioko (talk) 17:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a specific example or examples so we can review the situation? There is absolutely no way to give any definitive answers to such a broad, vague question without specific examples. --Jayron32 17:51, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Certainly, if you take a look at the 2nd sentance of the summary section for File:Siamcare logo.png you'll see an Email address is given. As I mentioned above, normally giving Email addresses in Discussiona and such are discouraged but I could see were it might be useful for images. I just wanted to verify. --Kumioko (talk) 18:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
It's pointless on that image info page too because we do not contact copyright holders to confirm permissions. It is the uploader's responsibility to provide proper copyright information or to communicate permission appropriately. BTW the image will need proper non-free use tagging if it is to remain, that is unless Siam-care is speedy deleted as too promotional. – ukexpat (talk) 19:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Where text like that is concerned, I believe that the primary purpose behind the "no e-mail addresses" notion is to protect the unwary from spam. I don't think we need to worry about it in a case like this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:14, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Ok no problem, this was just one example. I have a list of about 300 (and I only looked at a fairly small sampling) images with Email addresses. --Kumioko (talk) 17:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Infoboxes, content boxes and lead images

The layout positions of infoboxes, lead images and content boxes have become enshrined in the manual of style - exactly how this happened and whether it was consensual, is hidden in thousands of discussions, some public, some private. Editors are obliged to observe these hard and fast rules, often termed guidelines, even though a large number of them have no foundation in aesthetics or common-sense. As an example look at the layout of Lysander Spooner - there is no good reason why the position of the infobox and content box should not be swapped, and a number of compelling reasons why they should. The commandment that lead images should be right-aligned has no justification in layout aesthetics or visual appeal, and large numbers of journals and magazines do it differently. I feel that these particular points should be revisited by the community and that a more flexible policy would be a great improvement. Paul venter (talk) 10:34, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Notice:Discussion on change in policy at WP:MEDRS

A discussion is currently under way at WP:MEDRS here. (olive (talk) 20:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC))

Notability (web) criterion three

A discussion has been underway for a couple of weeks about criterion three of WP:WEB, "The content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators". The debate is about whether or not this criterion is necessary, and if the guideline is changed it could affect AfD discussions on webcomics, flash games, and other online content. Editors are warmly invited to take a look and leave their opinions. The discussion thread can be found here. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 03:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:EUPHEMISM

WP:EUPHEMISM says not to use "passed away" in stead of "died". However, when I had a look at the talkpage today, where I wanted to post that I see no reason not to use "passed away" in stead of "died", I found that others had disagreed with that guideline before me. I would say that since there is a lack of consensus about this, the guideline should not include such a rule. Please state your opinions, both as to the use of the euphemism, as well as to how the lack of consensus should reflect on the guideline page. Debresser (talk) 05:13, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

This is a very poor faith post. You say you "see no reason". I gave you reasons, as did others. You misrepresented my reasons back to me in a stupidly simplified form, then ignored my attempt to explaind again and discuss it further with you. This looks like a classic case of forum shopping (and bad manners). HiLo48 (talk) 05:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I shall comment on your incorrect and bad faith (WP:AGF) assumptions on your talkpage. Let this not deter any readers from posting on the discussion. Debresser (talk) 06:50, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
You are very careless with words. You misrepresented what I said, either deliberately or through lack of attention, and now demand on my Talk page that I apologise to you. No. Sorry. Won't happen. HiLo48 (talk) 07:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Whatever. Let the discussion be the discussion. Debresser (talk) 07:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Check Wikipedia:Use plain English for reasons not to use euphemisms. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
That guideline mentions not to use technical or vague words. A euphemism is not necessarily either. In any case, please feel free to join the discussion page. This section is no more than an invitation, and not the best place for this discussion. Debresser (talk) 08:25, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
If you want discussion somewhere else, I suggest you link to it, rather than euphemistically refer to the talk page which could be any of several talk pages. See the confusion euphemisms can cause? My current working assumption is you meant Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Passed_away, but I'm still not 100% sure. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:20, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Oops, sorry. Forgot to link to it. Yes, that is the one I meant. Now linked above. Debresser (talk) 09:52, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
One argument given for the use of'passed away' is that it is "unambiguously clear." I can't agree and doubt that all English speakers would understand it. Dougweller (talk) 09:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
That's not a valid point here. You can say that about any English idiom. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 09:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Which is why WP:IDIOM says "Clichés and idioms are generally to be avoided in favor of direct, literal expressions." Mitch Ames (talk) 09:41, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
We shouldn't use euphemisms, because we present factual information that doesn't need sugarcoating in its wording. If anything, I don't see good arguments in favor of using euphemisms. To rephrase, why is "passed away" better than "die"? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:25, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Both "died" and "passed away" are in common use and, at least for variety's sake, both should be permitted, although I agree the latter should not be overused. Banning it though, rather smacks of pedantry and unnecessary pettiness. A bit of variety in language enhances the encyclopaedia. Let's get on with more important stuff. --Bermicourt (talk) 16:18, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree with the last editor here, that both should be permitted. Forbidding this word which is in so common use as to hardly be recognizable as a euphemism, is unjustified by practical use of the language. Debresser (talk) 18:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, I did say "shouldn't", not "mustn't". Sometimes prose requires deviations from Simple English. But when the use of the two can be interchanged without affecting prose, I don't see any benefits for using the "politically correct" version. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:10, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
What does political correctness have to do with this? We're talking about dying, not human rights or ethnicity. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:49, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Nothing really. I used the phrase in quotes to distinguish that I was referring to euphemism in that part of the sentence and not the direct word; not sure why you think it's used as the actual meaning of the term. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:22, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
This whole conversation is like a joke, the punchline being that obviously we should use whatever is the most clear and direct language otherwise it is very easy to make unclear statements that confuse. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:31, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree with deprecating passed away. It is not a straightforward term and can easily be misinterpreted by someone not very familiar with English.It is longer and just sounds silly.When I die I will die, I won't pass away or be with us no longer or have passed over or be with my maker or rest in peace or shuffled off my mortal coil or be worm food or given up the ghost or made a final contribution to nature or even be deceased. Dmcq (talk) 23:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Or how about 'bereft of life he lies in peace' as in the Dead Parrot sketch? Dmcq (talk) 08:57, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
  • "Died" is best usage, "passed away" might merit occasional use but only if dead has already been overused in the article, perhaps. Its a good line we have now, moving it a little bit will lead to "shed his mortal coil" and "went to praise the God in person he praised on Earth for 73 years" etc. in short order.--Milowent • hasspoken 20:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

There is another discussion along these lines currently going on at Template talk:Infobox person#Euphemism, in this case about choosing a less euphemistic term for "resting place". Feel free to join that discussion too. Anomie⚔ 21:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I think of it as where there is a monument, after all what importance has the body except as a convenient place to put a memorial? Dmcq (talk) 22:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, they're not exactly "resting," it's just where the body is. "Interred" is probably a better term. Or "pining for the fjords." — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 12:58, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
I always liked "bought the farm" myself. Seriously, though, I hate reading "passed away" or the equivalent in articles; my first activity on Wikipedia was to remove "perished" from articles about people. It's completely unnecessary; regardless of how it's said, the person is dead. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the three-revert-rule

I apologize if this is posted in the wrong section, but I saw that the village pump handled questions about policies and decided to come here. In the section, it reads: "Any appearance of gaming the system by reverting a fourth time just outside the 24-hour slot is likely to be treated as a 3RR violation." What exactly does "just outside the 24-hour slot" mean? How long outside of twenty-four hours is it referencing? 71.146.12.197 (talk) 06:42, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

That depends. Nothing on Wikipedia is absolute like a law. The time here can range from anything from a few minutes to several days (the latter for long-term edit warring).Jasper Deng (talk) 06:43, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
To expand a bit on what Jasper is saying, there are no hard rules. 3RR isn't an entitlement, if it is clear someone intends to use reverts to force through their preferred version of an article, they can be blocked for edit warring without need to invoke the 3RR limit. Thus, someone who makes only 2-3 reverts could be blocked, if their statements and actions indicate they intend to edit war. Also, people who spread their reverts out over several days can still be blocked for edit warring. 3RR is designed as a way to slow down fast-moving edit wars, but even edit wars that don't move that fast still can be disruptive, and can still warrent a block. --Jayron32 06:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you very much for the helpful information. 71.146.12.197 (talk) 06:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Use of honorifics in article titles and in body

To what extent is this tolerated on the English Wikipedia? Currently, I'm involved in a dispute on Talk:Tun Abdul Razak, where I have proposed a move to "Abdul Razzak Hussein" (which is how the subject is formally known), but the opposing editor insists that this article qualifies for comparison with Mother Teresa (whose real name was not really known by many at all).

Also in dispute is whether Malay honorifics should be used at the beginning of the article. As far as I can see, there is a lot of contention and controversy surrounding the use of honorifics in (i) article titles and (ii) use in lead sections. We need to resolve this matter once and for all. There are too many inconsistencies across the encyclopedia. Telco (talk) 07:23, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say "use the pen name or title when the person uses that name as the only reference for their public identity, or when it has achieved historic significance; use the official name otherwise". This way we can keep Mother Teresa and Madonna (entertainer) as the title of an article but Lady Di is still a redirect to Diana, Princess of Wales. Not sure what to do with Prince (musician), though. In any case, Tun Abdul Razak should be kept at least as a redirect; the primary goal of article titles is to make them findable. Diego (talk) 09:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Sure, no issues with redirects, but what do we do when users start insisting that just because someone has been quoted in the media as Sir Donald Tsang quite a few times, it justifies renaming the article from Donald Tsang? In the discussion I mention above, I have referred to the article on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (former FA) aptly named even though he was more commonly known as "Mahatma Gandhi", where Mahatma is an honorific. The absence of straightforwardness in the guidelines lends to a lot of uncertainty with titling.
The other issue is with that of the lead sections on Malay nobility and leadership starting off with the regular honorifics such as "Tun" or "Dato Seri" (see Najib Razak, for instance) in most of the cases, with the justification that these are "Sir" or "Dame" equivalents (something that I don't agree with). Telco (talk) 10:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
To quote the titles policy: Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. Use the name by which the man is commonly known. While we're on the subject, check out the article on British conductor Mark Elder. The man was knighted by Elizabeth II in 2008, but the title is not Sir Mark Elder. Hope this helps! DCItalk 19:44, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Our inconsistency of standards on this matter causes no end of grief. To my mind, the rule should be that honorifics should only be used where they are necessary to disambiguate between two biographical articles whose titles would otherwise conflict. We presently are grossly different (and unfair) in the way the MOS treats clerics of different belief systems. The result is that in some areas we are rife with hagiographies while others are reasonably encyclopedic. Some article titles include a long list of honorifics, styles, titles, prenominals, monastic names, and so forth in essentially arbitrary combinations haggled out among the believers, who inevitably will shout wp:COMMONNAME at any attempt to simplify the article title. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles is pretty clean, the others should emulate it. In essence the language of articles should never assume that readers accept the wp:POV beliefs espoused by the article's subject (or his modern adherents). LeadSongDog come howl! 20:37, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

IPA Chart improvement

Is it possible that when one clicks on the IPA representation of the Wikipedia head word, that the IPA representation link one clicked on be carried over to the IPA chart to save having to click back and forth between the page with the head word in it and the IPA chart? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Godric Wilkie (talk • contribs) 12:29, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

A nice idea, but I don't see that it's easily technically feasible.Sorry. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
This is probably the kind of thing one can do in javascript. I'd talk to the good people at Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Requests. It would need to (a) add the IPA as an argument to URLs pointing to the table page (b) display the argument above the table (b) highlight fields in the table corresponding to letters in the argument. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:44, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

LGBT articles

Wikipedia has a vast number of articles entitled "LGBT rights in FOO" ranging from "LGBT rights in Russia" to "LGBT rights in São Tomé and Príncipe". Questions:

  • Are they all notable? We don't have "Heterosexual rights in FOO" for any country or "Foreigners rights in FOO". In most cases there are no recognised rights in a country. So why the article? Do we have articles on "Icebergs in Kenya" which state "there are no icebergs in Kenya yet"?
  • Is it not POV? The titles all assume there are automatic "LGBT rights" when a quick glance at LGBT rights by country or territory shows that the overwhelming majority of the world does not accept that. Should it not be "LGBT law in FOO" or just "LGBT in FOO"? In fact why have an article if there is little or no LGBT-related law in a country?

It rather looks like an agenda is being pushed instead of providing proportionate and neutral Wikipedia coverage. What do others think? --Bermicourt (talk) 07:30, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The logic of "there are no recognized LGBT rights in country X so there should not be an article about LGBT rights in country X" is faulty. A lack of recognized LGBT rights is noteworthy all by itself (this is the XXI century, think of it like "slaves rights" in the XIXs or "women rights" in the XX), so the proper question should be only "do we have reliable sources covering the topic at country X?". Wikipedia reflects the world we're living in. (also see "other stuff does not exist"). Diego (talk) 08:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
While your argument is valid, I would probably recommend that any such article provide a conversant discussion of the subject. If the contributor can provide full erudition about the subject in an unbiased manner, then I can't see any reason for contention. bwmcmaste (talk) 09:12, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I think it looks like you are trying to push an agenda. If you are unable to understand why "We don't have "Heterosexual rights in FOO" for any country", I'm not really sure you have any grasp of LGBT issues whatsoever. → ROUX ₪ 13:28, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree that having individual articles for countries unless they have notable differences is WP:UNDUE. Most countries could be grouped together under the main article without any loss. We should stick by the policies rather than inventing things. I believe they should mostly be nominated to AfD. It is not Wikipedia's job to understand LGBT issues or euthenasia issues or right to life or national health or education or pensions or anything else nor should we automstically set up articles on theses and a host of other things automatically for every country in the world. Dmcq (talk) 14:26, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
    • If they can be grouped, AFD is the wrong venue. I agree that merging to a main index article "LGBT rights by country", and only calling out regions/countries with significant coverage of their own, is the right approach, but none of these would be AFD in that scheme. --MASEM (t) 14:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
    • (ec) Nonsense. It is the job of Wikipedia editors to understand what they are writing about, and I'd agree with Roux that the comment about lacking "heterosexual rights" articles does show a marked lack of understanding. And coverage by country for such a topic is part of comprehensive coverage, "comprehensive" being one of the key meanings of "encyclopedic" that too often gets downplayed by editors who simply aren't interested in a particular subject and so don't understand why greater detail is desirable. "Most countries could be grouped together...without any loss." I doubt this is true in any meaningful sense; just clicking through some of the smaller countries in Africa, for example, I'm finding distinct differences. It is not "undue" to give separate coverage to each sovereign nation on such a notable topic, and splitting it up by country in that manner is the clearest way to present that information. postdlf (talk) 14:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Differences are fine, but when they short articles, merging up to a region, while leaving the longer ones with {{main}}s helps in organization without losing information. "LGBT rights in X" is still a valid search term whether X is a country or region; it's just that short articles focusing on the country is served better by doing the coverage at the region level. --MASEM (t) 14:47, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
        • Why is it "served better"? I don't see why that would be so. There are at least 54 states in Africa, which makes quite a lengthy LGBT rights in Africa even at present with just one line given to each country in the table. Particularly given the number of mobile device readers, forcing someone to load an article with 54 paragraphs when they are just interested in one doesn't make sense. So your "small article" concern doesn't amount to anything here, not where splitting by country is such an obvious and sensible way of doing it, and "really freakin' large article" has obvious problems. postdlf (talk) 14:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Here we go again. Why is "LGBT anything" always compared to "Heterosexual anything"? Are there any countries in the world where heterosexuals have to fight for their rights? Any countries where being heterosexual is a criminal offense punishable by death or imprisonment? I didn't think so.
And I suppose you thought that "rights" meant only positive laws? Most countries which do not have positive laws for LGBT rights in place, have the opposite. In a large majority of them there are specific laws making them illegal, and a considerable amount impose a death penalty. That doesn't strike you as part of "rights", eh?-- Obsidi♠n Soul 15:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
In addition, do read WP:UNDUE again. Neutrality does not mean giving equal proportions of the coverage of certain subjects. Just because we have article A doesn't mean we should have article B as an automatic counterpoint. Just because we have Education in Ohio does not mean we should have Education in Sarawak in order to preserve neutrality. The existence of non-existence of other articles has no impact whatsoever per WP:OTHERSTUFF.
Notability is established independently. LGBT rights is a notable subject on a national level. Heterosexual rights is a non-issue. The same thing occurs in "Women's rights in FOO" which are notable in countries which have historically favored men over women in legal matters, particularly those with strongly patriarchal societies. Men's rights on the other hand is really only a big issue in the United States (mostly due to divorce laws) and India (in certain matriarchal cultures).
And Heterosexuals and LGBT aren't exactly at war are they? It's not a tit-for-tat thing as you would get when discussing Conservatism or Liberalism in the United States for example, or Argentina and the UK in the Falklands War. One does not necessarily impact the other. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 15:49, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
  • There was a lengthy discussion on LGBT rights by year articles a month ago, which may be of some relevance here. Shimgray | talk | 15:40, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Here's a thought: Why is there no article on sexual rights in country...? I have no opposition to a merge of a list (LGBT rights by country), but "sexual rights" is an unloaded term which could be used to describe what people are or are not allowed to do in a general location, regardless of the distinction between hetero, homo, or any of the other persuasions. --Izno (talk) 19:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
    • That would make sense for countries where all sexual orientations have been treated to similar standards, and where non-LGBT sexual rights have been received widespread attention as a noteworthy topic; otherwise those articles would be Coatracks, articles purportedly about one topic but focused on a different one. It's not an impossible situation to find such equal coverage, but it's not likely. Diego (talk) 22:08, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure I agree with the coatrack point. NPOV demands that all information about the laws covering human sexuality in a country should be treated with equal weight according to the sources. If it's the case that the reliable sources cover one particular faction of people over another, that's not our problem. Which I don't think is the case. Such an article as Sexual rights in the United States could cover the legislation and court history which lead to cases and legislation such as Roe vs. Wade and California Proposition 8, equally. --Izno (talk) 23:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
        • Uh? NPOV has never been about giving equal weight, it's about proportional, due weight. If reliable sources choose to cover one particular faction of people over another, it's only natural that Wikipedia will reflect the most prominent topic in more detail. Diego (talk) 23:39, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
          • Word choice; I agree with you on proportion and didn't mean to say otherwise. That said, my point stands that the rights of the set of people who identify as LGBT are part of the more prominent topic of sexual rights of people in general, and could be covered in that manner. --Izno (talk) 00:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
            • Can you show an example on how your approach would make a difference? In which case a focus on sexual rights in general could modify some existing LGBT article, and with which content? Diego (talk) 00:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Because LGBT rights are about far more than what people do with their genitals. → ROUX ₪ 22:43, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
      • What they seem to do with their genitals seems to be the root point of everything which creates the necessity for a certain group of people to see it as necessary that they be treated better and that they push that point of view... I'm sorry if you disagree, but that's the case to me. (Also, sorry for the slight runon.) --Izno (talk) 23:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
        • As an actual queer person, I assure you that our rights movement is about a hell of a lot more than just who does what with which genitals. Adoption, marriage, inheritance, hospital visitation would be the big ones. And with recent news of a proposed bill in New Hampshire, one can add 'the ability to engage in commercial transactions' to that list. It may seem to you that what we do with our genitals is the sum total of our rights, but I am telling you flat out that you aren't even wrong; you don't even appear to know enough to engage in the discussion in the first place. Sorry. I really, really, strongly suggest that you modify your opinion because it reduces us to being solely about sex, which is extremely fucking insulting. → ROUX ₪ 23:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
          • Shrug. You'd see my point in slightly more clarity slightly above, I suspect. That said, you need to calm down, and possibly take a break. You seem rather agitated for a calm discussion, whatever and whoever may be pushing a point. :/ --Izno (talk) 00:15, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
            • Two hints. One, telling someone to calm down when they are in fact perfectly calm is a really good way to start making them angry. I suspect you know this. Second, when someone who is actually part of the group you are talking about is telling you that you are wrong, it is very much time to consider the fact that you are wrong. And do not ever dare whine that I am 'agitated' over an issue which affects me on a daily fucking basis. Are we crystal clear? → ROUX ₪ 00:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
        • Izno, I suggest you have a look at the article on David Kato. He was one of the Ugandan gay men whose photograph appeared on the front page of a newspaper under the headline "Hang Them" along with (IIRC) his address. He was trying to stop the Ugandan anti-Homosexuality Bill that would have made homosexuality a death penalty offence, a bill that was in part the result of activities by Christian Fundamentalist Americans. He was murdered. Then have a look at Homosexuals Anonymous, a part of the ex-gay movement that claims it can "cure" homosexuality. Then please explain how people being vilified by newspapers, murdered for being gay, and treated as if they are sick and in need of some sort of "cure" is about one's genitals. And that's without the issues Roux raised, issues which are important in some countries but in others are nothing more than a distant dream. EdChem (talk) 23:40, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
          • Then it's a naming/wording issue you two seem to have. I threw out an idea which attempts to remove the innate bias toward coverage of LGBT topics to move toward a more general coverage of people's sexual preference. I honestly don't care what the name of the article is, but I am in no agreement that articles solely about "LGBT" topics, without the broader coverage necessary to meet issues of NPOV, are of an appropriate scope. As you might see above from my example of Roe (if no others), they are not the only group to have had issues with the law regarding their lives. Invocations of e.g. "we must cover the murders of these people, even if it means our coverage of the [greater] topic as a whole suffers" seem slightly hyperbolic to me. --Izno (talk) 00:15, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
            • There is no such bias. And I am sick to death of heteronormative status-quo upholders complaining that reportage of a subject is 'bias.' → ROUX ₪ 00:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
            • Izno, I think what you're looking for is here: Category:Sex laws. It does place LGBT rights by country or territory in the context of the broader topic of sexual rights, as you suggest. Diego (talk) 00:36, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
            • Homosexuality is not a sexual preference, it is a sexual orientation. There is a huge difference because 'preference' implies choice where there is none. Roe and abortion rights are also not about sexual preference nor do the two quite distinct and individually notable topics need to be artificially squeezed into a single article. Asert that LGBTQI topics can't be adequately and NPOV-covered on their own all you like but don't expect to get anywhere without some decent evidence. As for the murders of gay men in hate crimes, you might think them unimportant and hyperbolic but try arguing racist hate crimes don't matter and see how far you get. EdChem (talk) 00:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  • "It rather looks like an agenda is being pushed instead of providing proportionate and neutral Wikipedia coverage." Oh no, an agenda of liking rights? Where are my pearls, for they need clutching. --Golbez (talk) 22:48, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Wow, so much of this conversation is offensive to homosexuals. Almost all countries can have proper sourced rights articles, especially if they are the kind that have negative laws toward homosexuality, as that always gets coverage. There are more than enough reliable sources out there for these articles. There might be one or two that can't be, but it's going to be a small amount. SilverserenC 00:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Let's put it this way really. If the OP can somehow write a coherent article about Heterosexual rights (and no not gender rights, but sexual orientation rights) in a certain country and actually make it notable enough to be AfD-proof, then we have something to actually base the eternal "why them but not them?" arguments. The question here is notability, which itself establishes the balance of the coverage that should be given on the subjects. It is not the other way around.
Go on. I'd suppose the article would start with "Heterosexual people in New Zealand have more rights than any other group. Heterosexuality has been legal since the prehistoric times. It includes: (and then you proceed to list all the rights granted to a citizen of that country)." Kinda silly, innit? -- Obsidi♠n Soul 02:05, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm guessing that it's sourced from a single paragraph in a single document because editors don't speak French and/or have access to copies of the laws / legal analyses. I see at least six facts there which should ideally be references to passages in law(s) or law analysis, each one a reference. I can also imagine an interesting section on GLBT rights during the Islamic period (something I'll admit to knowing almost nothing about). The fact that an article is still a stub doesn't make it less notable. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

People in this thread may be interested in reading Derailing For Dummies. ;-) This and this seem particularly relevant. Diego (talk) 11:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying that I am trying to derail this business for emotional reasons rather than because I think it is a bad idea to automatically generate loads of stub articles? You have someone saying they can imagine some development - but will anyone actually do this business of developing the LGBT rights in Côte d'Ivoire article? It should have been part of a bigger article until someone came along to actually put material in and then split it off. At the moment it should all be part of a table with perhaps a one liner added. Dmcq (talk) 12:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Not at all; Derailing for dummies is clearly written in a satiric way (as explained by its author here), thus my linking is not to be taken as an accusation of bad faith toward anybody in this thread. I pointed to it because it's a collection of arguments that commonly arise in discussion of marginalized groups - think of it as an arguments to avoid guideline, this time related to the topic of marginalized people. Now tell me that some of the arguments above (not necessarily yours) didn't parallel some of the ones found in the D4D website? Diego (talk) 13:02, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
  • So the solution for marginalized people is to... marginalize us further? I appreciate that you clearly have no first-hand experience of being queer or facing the daily challenges that we face, but that is the opposite of a good reason to deem our issues unimportant. → ROUX ₪ 13:14, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
May I ask you how you arrived to the conclusion that I'm deeming LGBT issues unimportant? (or that I am not queer myself, for that matter?) Diego (talk) 13:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
See WP:SOAP. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a forum for fixing the problems of the world. Not that I see these articles as fixing anything anyway. Dmcq (talk) 13:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
In the practical sense then, which bigger article? LGBT rights in countries deemed too unimportant to have their own articles on a matter affecting their citizens on a national level? -- Obsidi♠n Soul 12:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
The article LGBT rights by country or territory or perhaps better the article about the country itself, Côte d'Ivoire in the example case here. Dmcq (talk) 13:07, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
This is the point I was trying to make above. First, I agree that somewhere, somehow, on WP, we should have a breakdown of how LGBT rights are handled on a county-by-country basis; the subject of LGBT rights is a clearly notable thing, and we don't need to talk about "heterosexual rights" alongside it to meet with WP:NPOV because its implicit in all coverage (outside of WP) that such rights exist.
But, when we create an article "LGBT rights in X", we are creating additional weight on that topic, even if the information within it is otherwise completely appropriate, and particularly in this case where LGBT rights are virtually non-existent in that country. When these articles are very short, it is better to keep them summed up into regional articles, breaking out where there is significant coverage; eg, "LGBT rights in the United States" is definitely notable and likely needs a stand-alone article, but the examples above are cases where creating the article just to have the article makes the seemingly NPOV problem stand out. This might mean that the "LGBT rights in Africa" will be rather large, but it is a better solution without the possible soapboxing that individual articles give. "LGBT rights in X" are still all searchable terms and thus this is just redirecting, not deletion. --MASEM (t) 14:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Are you seriously now arguing that mere existence itself is "possible soapboxing"? That we should deliberately remove sourced and notable information from Wikipedia in order to what? To appease people who aren't affect by them, don't care about them, or would rather see them hidden completely as it offends their delicate worldviews.
Do you think all countries in the world share the same legislation, the same issues, and the same outlook on all things LGBT? Even worse, do you think just because countries belong to the same continent they can be dealt with in the same way regarding national matters?
You can not discuss the intricacies of LGBT rights of each country in a vastly generalized article. Neither can you condense them to tables or single-sentence mentions. A nation, or in the case of large federations like the US, a state, is still the smallest unit you can subdivide these matters in terms of legislation, culture, and history. Restricting it to arbitrarily large overviews based on a misguided sense of NPOV means losing a great deal of relevant and notable information. Even the stub on Côte d'Ivoire has information you can not condense into a single sentence. It has inherent notability as a national issue and has all the indications of being capable of being expanded - the criteria that allows stubs to remain standalone articles.
How would you fit LGBT rights in Egypt into a larger general article for instance? Or LGBT rights in Kenya? Both are in Africa. Both are very notable and yet have vastly different laws, history, and cultural perceptions.
Or how about Asia? Let's start with LGBT rights in Iran in which transsexuality is accepted but homosexuality is punishable by death under Sharia, and that's excluding historically notable events like the public hanging of a 13-year old boy. How about LGBT rights in Saudi Arabia which is a monarchy? How about LGBT rights in Japan, on the opposite end of the spectrum, which has virtually no history of anti-homosexual discrimination yet do not have legislation for it either?
Yes there is soapboxing going on here. But it's coming from the other side of the argument. If there really is a POV problem, take them to the individual articles. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 15:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
When you create a stand-alone article, you are implicitly stating the topic is notable, and ergo putting weight on that topic. In some of these countries where there are next-to-nothing in terms of LGBT rights, giving them an article is undue weight on a topic that effectively doesn't exist and thus likely has little notability to start with.
Now, let me be clear: when I talk merging up, I am speaking of leaving the full text of the smallers into the larger one, so even countries with no LGBT rights could at least spell out efforts. The existing articles would be left as redirected pieces so that if in the future, a country suddenly flips and drastically increases the amount of LGBT rights, we can spell that out in detail in the country-specific article just by undoing the redirect.
And I'm not saying that we to remove all the country ones. LGBT rights in Egypt is too large to summarize but clearly notable, so it would have a {{main}} call out in the LGBT rights in Africa with a short para to summarize the main article. LGBT rights in Côte d'Ivoire would be an example of merging up until such a time that more can be written and expanded on it.
To envision something like I'm talking about, I point to Commons:Freedom of panorama where nearly every major country is listed with its legal stance on the topic. Yes, that's on commons, that's a project help page, and thus not the same as here, but I'm just using it to ID what I'd expect the "LGBT rights in (region)" articles would look like, excluding the using of {{main}} to call out to the larger articles. --MASEM (t) 15:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Sounds like you just have a solution in search of a problem. "When you create a stand-alone article, you are implicitly stating the topic is notable..." What the topic is can always be viewed in many different ways, and the maintenance of a separate page doesn't necessarily mean it's a separate topic. I know you disagree with this, but because of the nature of Wikipedia as a database of linked pages that can be viewed in any order rather than a single continuous print work, and the fact that excessive article length is an inherent problem (something your comment doesn't at all address), my view is the better one. From a notability standpoint, I think the best view of the topic in this case is "LGBT rights by country," and each country, having a separate legal system, merits its own coverage, which cannot be "undue" in any meaningful sense of the word. Considering how you don't think the content should even be any different, the decision of whether to maintain these on separate pages or in one massive mobile-device flooding African superpage should be based purely on which is the best method for presenting the information for the ease of the reader. postdlf (talk) 15:32, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that most of these are short, stubby articles that have no likely chance of improvement barring significant political and religious shifts; an article that basically is summarizing "LGBT have no rights in X". We can't crystal ball such changes, so for all practical purposes that article remains a permastub, which is highly undesirable. Embedding the text of the article into a large article that summarizes the entire view of the region not only removes the perma-stub problem, but it also removes the notability problem (a topic X where X is effectively non-existant is not notable), and puts the article in the context of geo-politically closely related countries. I do recognize size may be an issue but at the same time 54 paragraphs plus a few more for lead/references isn't that much.
See, we should be starting the approach of these articles from the standpoint that "LGBT right across the world" is the most notable topic, which is it. Every article that extends from this should only be done if it is notable of itself, to avoid giving the topic any undue weight. Clearly discussing the topic by geo-political regions (which generally share somewhat similar views) makes sense to avoid trying to describe in prose these rights for 200+ countries. From the regions, where it makes sense to briefly summarize each country's specific trends, it only makes sense to break out when there's a lot more than one paragraph to discuss about the articles. WP better serves its readers with top-down approaches than bottom-up ones, which is unfortunately how the current approach to the LGBT rights articles are doing. --MASEM (t) 16:18, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
For a "permastub," LGBT rights in Côte d'Ivoire takes up a whole screen on my laptop. postdlf (talk) 16:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Please show me all the nations where LGBT rights are not notable.
Crickets.
→ ROUX ₪ 16:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Seems like you have a rather upside-down view of notability. Notability is not conferred by creating articles, we create articles because they are notable. If your rationale for removing them is to "avoid giving the topic undue weight" you are in effect saying that they are not notable. So exactly which articles are not notable?
Furthermore, where is "a topic X where X is effectively non-existant is not notable" derived from? Again, laws criminalizing LGBT is itself relevant to LGBT rights. Just because a country has a death sentence instead of gay marriage doesn't mean the same thing as "LGBT rights is a non-issue".
I'm also rather curious how you would think they can even fit into one article if we leave the full text in, much less make it coherent. Even the smallest of those stubs has information that would fit in at least two paragraphs. And those are a mere handful. There are 47 countries in Africa alone, the current article on LGBT rights in Africa can only deal with it at a very abstract level.
The statement "in the context of geo-politically closely related countries" is a bit naive in the assumption that neighboring countries influence each other that significantly. Besides, how many ways can you group countries "geopolitically"? What would be an example? "LGBT rights in Arab league nations"? "LGBT rights in insular democracies with a Muslim majority"? "LGBT rights in parliamentary socially-conservative monarchies with a Buddhist majority in Central and Eastern Asia"?
Even Women's rights articles also do it by country for the same reasons outlined already - countries differ significantly enough from each other to make any treatment of the subject by supranational regions an exercise in insanity.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 17:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Let me address the format/page layout aspect first. My spot checking of these pages show they generally share a similar structure, and particularly where there are no rights conferred, several sections are one-sentence long. Like LGBT rights by country or territory uses, a lot of this can be simplified in byte and word count to a simple table or box to say, for example "Same sex marriage: No"; no need for a whole section header and sentence to say that.
Geopolotical divisions would employ the same divisions used on the above large table, to be consistent.
But now to focus on the other side, the notability side. It is sad that we as humanity have to recognize that LGBT rights have to be given and granted by government as opposed to be inherently granted, because "no LGBT rights" is the status quo throughout the globe and throughout history; this relates to the argument of why we don't have "Heterosexual rights in X" because that's the status quo. How LGBT rights vary across the globe is a notable topic, for certain, but when rights don't exist in one country, that isolated topic itself isn't notable; its the comparison to the rest of the globe that makes it important. It is a very subtle distinction but important. That it, I believe that the current LGBT rights in Africa is much more notable and valuable article to any reader than any of the specific "LGBT rights in X" simply because I can compare and contrast across the continent instead of having to scurry into each country article to find out more, flipping back and forth as necessary. If anything, I'd add a row for each country to have the brief explanation of anything specifically unique - and using a {{main}} when a short summary isn't sufficient (as would be the case for Egypt). Given the current size of LGBT rights in Africa right now, this would not significantly harm a mobile reader (the tables already making the page long as it is).
Now, I'm talking about "now" of course. The woman's rights case I would apply similar logic, but because woman's rights have been a highlight much longer than LGBT, there's probably more information regarding woman's rights for nearly every country as opposed to LGBT. In the scheme I'm proposing, when new info on LGBT for a country becomes available to make a full article better, the redirect can be reverted and the article expanded, but still leaving the brief (updated, hopefully) summary and comparison info on the larger region page. That's the top down approach that makes sense from both information organization and notability factors, and does the best for our readers. --MASEM (t) 17:45, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Common throughout your comments is the curious assumption that only Africa as a whole and the differences between countries are of interest, as if no one will be interested in, and only in, the situation in a particular country. I also find inexplicable your assertion that where a country doesn't recognize LGBT rights, the topic of LGBT rights in that country is therefore not notable. postdlf (talk) 17:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
So... stubs are bad now? Huh. Guess we should add 'you better only start an article if it's going to be a full article before you hit save' to the relevant help pages. Plus, are you completely unaware that 'LGBT rights' doesn't only refer to positive rights? → ROUX ₪ 18:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I put more weight on the comparison between countries since "LGBT rights across the world" is a more significant and notable topic, but the method I'm proposing does not harm anyone interested in the rights within a specific country; if there's little to discuss, the table summarizes it; if there's a lot more, the table provides a link to that country right's page for more. It's a structure that's best suited to serving both interests. And if there's no coverage LGBT rights in a country besides pointing to the law that says "no rights", that's not notable; on the other hand, if there's no rights but there has been conflict or discussion over granting those rights or enforcing those rights (again, such as Egypt's page), then yes, that should be covered on its own as well.
And yes, stubs should be created when there's a reasonable, non-crystal-ball chance that the article can be expanded; we should be considering the ultimate encyclopedic quality of a topic when we create an article, and while stubs are fine when we know expansion in the future is possible. But if we're waiting for a country to get with the times and grant such rights, that's a prime crystal-ball example. --MASEM (t) 18:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I was going to write something rather longer. Instead, I suggest you go here, and re-examine your invisible knapsack. → ROUX ₪ 18:19, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I disagree its a systematic bias issue that we can fix on en.wiki. One, the proposed approach does not neglect any country - "LGBT Rights in X" for all countries X would remain a search term and at worst redirect to the table where that country's take on LGBT is summarized; if a country had not had any significantly reported laws, disputes, and/or incidents over LGBT rights, we can't make it more important than another countries where there does happen to be significant reporting. If suddenly a country has such, then we can expand out without breaking the rest of the system. There is the bias that the amount of coverage of LGBT will vary country by country, and even in some countries where LGBT is a religious stigma, you aren't going to find much reporting about it, but that's something we can't fix. BIAS does not require to have individual articles on each, just that we don't ignore any specific country and be aware of the implicit media bias on the coverage to start. We can still address the topic for each country, and still work at considering the ultimate encyclopedic quality of the final articles. --MASEM (t) 18:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Your assertion that these articles aren't notable is the freakin' bias. See heteronormative. → ROUX ₪ 18:39, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Do you even realize just how ignorant and offensive you are being with your rationale of "it's the status quo so it's a non-issue"? Are you perhaps under the impression that LGBT people only exist in western cultures? LGBT is a globally diffuse minority - there are LGBT people in Côte d'Ivoire believe it or not.
And again, why exactly are you assuming that LGBT rights deal only with rights conferred? That's like saying since women in Saudi Arabia can't vote, can't be elected, can't drive, can't go anywhere without a male guardian, can't marry or divorce or open a bank account or get a job or travel without permission, can't do anything independently at all, and can't even be seen by anyone other than relatives or their husbands, our article on Women's rights in Saudi Arabia should not exist. After all, it's the status quo in Islamic countries, isn't it?
Pardon the French, but as a gay man, I'd well be fucking interested to see which countries I can be fined, jailed, whipped, or hanged and what specific laws and cultural perceptions apply than merely a and a in a friggin table. These are also relevant to rights. I think what you're really saying is "it's not important to me, so it shouldn't exist."
You still haven't given an example of such a stub article. Can you give us at least twenty of them from Africa? Otherwise your concerns are again best taken to the odd article or two which lack enough coverage to be notable.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 18:25, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
To be clear, I fully support LGBTs in getting rights and its coverage on WP; I'm in no way trying to cull down the coverage. I'm saying, though, that from the standpoint of world politics and history, the status quo - until last century has been "LGBTs do not have the same rights as heterosexuals". That opinion is now changing for the better across the globe, slowly. The fact remains: many of those boxes on the global table remain "X"ed out.
I am approaching this from building of a quality encyclopedia side: we need to building on coverage by sources, not create coverage that doesn't exist, because our goal is ultimately to build quality articles and not permastubs. There's no deadline, of course, but we need to consider the likelihood first. This is why the top-down approach is better because then we spinoff when there's appropriate coverage, instead of trying to create coverage into a stub that doesn't have a current chance for expansion and then try to create the topic from the bottom-up.
And I'll say it again: it may be the case that there are no LGBT rights in country X, but an article can still be appropriate if there's been significant debate and incidents with the lack or enforcement against those rights as in the case of Egypt's article. If all we can say with all available sources is that "Country X allows for this, but not for this by such-and-such law", that's where merging up into a table is for. --MASEM (t) 18:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
So you still don't understand that the subject 'LGBT rights' is very much about the lack of rights? → ROUX ₪ 18:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I understand that - I'm saying that just saying that LGBTs lack rights in country X is not notable by itself, even though stating this factually is important (hence why we have the big tally table for the globe and major continents, so that these lack of rights are documents). I'm asking "So, what else is there to talk about the lack of LGBTs rights in X?" Have their been attempted laws to grant rights? Have there been significant enforcement of those rights (again, using Egypt's page as an acceptable article example)? Have there been significant demonstrations to try to fight for those rights? If there's nothing else to talk about the rights - have or have not - beyond what the law says, that's a data point and short summary in a table, not a full article. --MASEM (t) 19:07, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
"I'm saying that just saying that LGBTs lack rights in country X is not notable by itself" - again, see here and here. → ROUX ₪ 19:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think you're seeing how this system works. The country of Examplevania has laws on books since its constitution barring rights to LGBTs. There's been no challenge to that in the country. A user visiting WP could search on "LGBT rights in Examplevania" and, under my proposed system, would be sent through a redirect to this county's section of a larger regional table, where the various boxes on rights, marriage rights, etc. would all have the red "X"s on them, and a short paragraph below it explaining this has been their law since its constitution. This scenario provides exactly the same information as if there was a standalone "LGBT rights in Examplevania" article. There is no bias here since we're still coverage the topic on a country by country basis. It is not en.wiki's fault that the people of Examplevania have not fought for their LGBT rights to make a more substantial article. --MASEM (t) 19:28, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
And you are not, apparently, capable of comprehending your inherent bias here. You, an apparently heterosexual (and given Wikipedia demographics, most likely Caucasian and male) person, don't understand why LGBT rights are inherently notable in every country. Quelle surprise. → ROUX ₪ 19:32, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
WP requires a different form of notability that what you are proposing. There is no such thing as inherently notable topics. We need sources; there are no sources, nor likely any sources to presume to come about until there's a political shift to allow such rights in said countries. --MASEM (t) 19:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. Are you seriously saying that such articles should only exist once said rights exist? Hypothetical, Wikipedia in 1900. According to you, articles about womens' rights around the world should not exist. That is a fucking stupid argument and I suspect you know it. What part of "LGBT rights as a subject includes the LACK OF RIGHTS" do you not understand? I can't use smaller words, so please explain to me exactly what part of that sentence is not getting through to you. Don't bother claiming that you understand it; your repeated statements such as "nor likely any sources to presume to come about until there's a political shift to allow such rights in said countries" show very clearly that you do not understand the concept. → ROUX ₪ 19:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

That's not what I said. Even if a county has LGBT rights, that may not be notable. Per WP:N, we need secondary sources that discuss the nature of LGBT rights or non-rights in a country for that to be notable. If all that sources give us is "it's legal/illegal" and nothing else, we don't have a notable topic. Again, I point to LGBT rights in Egypt. It's notable despite the fact there are no LGBT rights. Why? Because there's been highly visible and international interest in the enforcement of those non-rights , and analysis of possible changes due to the new regime, as part of its coverage. That article meets WP:N, thus notable despite the fact there are no rights at all. You're running the mind set of what is notable in the world, but on WP we have to consider that we're an encyclopedia and meant to summarize this, and thus have a higher standard for notability. FWIW, I would agree in general that outside of WP-space, the idea of what LGBT rights exist per country is something of interest, but I wouldn't think we need an article to document each and every country separately within WP. --MASEM (t) 19:54, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
That is in fact quite precisely what you said. Read this again. There's no mainstream (by which you basically mean North American) coverage of queer rights in, say, Sierra Leone (a country picked at random) because there's no interest. So there are fewer sources to derive articles from. So you say it's not notable... and nobody's interested, so there's no news coverage, lather rinse repeat. How are you capable of using a computer and incapable of seeing the systemic bias here, the bias that you are upholding? → ROUX ₪ 19:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Please watch the personal attacks.
Bias here would be not covering the topic of Sierra Leone at all, or even just mention in passing. That's not what I have said. I have my Wikipedia editor hat on, and the metric we have to meet is WP:N - significant coverage in secondary sources. If I wasn't wearing that hat, I'd be first in line to agree that LGBT rights in Sierra Leone (much less any other country) is something of note particularly to the LGBT field. But since this is Wikipedia, I'm looking to sourcing and article quality. If the only existing source after a very thorough search of as much media across all sources and languages is the ability to point to the country's legal system and say "here's the laws that give/deny rights to LGBT", I don't have significant coverage and thus the topic of LGBT rights in that country is not notable. That doesn't mean we don't exclude it - we can summarize in a table and provide that reference to it and a brief discussion. Bias would be to completely omit this information which is not what I am at all suggesting. --MASEM (t) 20:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Systemic bias. Until you understand those two words, there is no point in having a discussion with you, because you don't even understand the concepts underlying the discussion. → ROUX ₪ 20:19, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I understand that there's an immediate systematic bias before even considering the issue on Wikipedia. Whether due to size, the political/religious nature of the country, or the like, some countries are simply not going to have the same number of sources covering anything about LGBT (for or against) as others. I recognize that at en.wiki we have an immediate implicitly to only account for english-language sources, much less for sources outside of western countries, and that systematic bias we can correct. We can't correct against the former, however. If it is just not covered, it is just not covered, no matter how we write our articles.
This is why I suggested flipping the approach to talking about LGBT (culture and all) per country, instead of just rights. It is a lot more likely to find sources on the broader subject for each country than those specifically about the rights, and ergo I wouldn't be worried about keeping said stubs around. We help to minimize the systematic bias by this treatment as well, since now we'd likely have a better chance of getting external articles from said country to help describe that country's LGBT culture. --MASEM (t) 20:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
And again instead of waxing about theoretical mega-articles, can you give us at least twenty articles that have "coverage that doesn't exist" from Africa? Even LGBT rights in Somalia has significant coverage.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 18:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I count five from the first two tables alone, and that's not even working through the complete table. But - that's my opinion on considering how the articles can be condensed into a 4-5 sentence paragraph w/ sources appended to the appropriate rows in the table. While the Somalia article seems notable, the section on HIV/AIDS has nothing to do with LGBT rights, and is out of place.
This problem, I'm seeing, is compounded by the fact that there's another class of articles, "LGBT in X" (or "Homosexuality in X") like LGBT in Japan (note, not about "rights"). It's a very important area to document in an encyclopedia, but it has no planning or organization. Heck, I would argue that nearly all these "LGBT rights in X" articles should be immediately renamed "LGTB in X" to talk about the cultures towards it within that country with the "Rights" as a sub-section. (Only in a few cases, like LGBT in the United States and LGBT rights in the United States where there's a wealth of coverage on not only the LGBT culture but the political/legal aspects of it, does separate articles make sense). Under this situation, where we're talking about the LGBT culture per country as opposed to the legal structure applied to LGBT, I would feel more comfortable that these articles on the LGBT culture, even some stubs for the African countries, have a better chance of expansion than articles solely on the legal rights, particularly since the culture articles by definition would include the legal rights. But that's a first pass idea of how to reorganize this entire block of articles, and may not be the best solution at the end of the day. I still feel that that is a better solution than the current approach into creating encyclopedic quality articles. --MASEM (t) 19:07, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Which five? And you do realize don't you that there's no article on LGBT in Somalia? Neither is there any for LGBT in Côte d'Ivoire or even LGBT in Saudi Arabia? So unless you're arguing for the renaming of the articles to a more inaccurate title, the argument is meaningless.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 19:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Libya, Benin, Burkino Faso, Cape Vedre, and Cote d'Ivory were the 5 I counted. As to the second point, you missed what I said: right now, I can see flipping most of the current "LGBT rights in X" articles that I've had to spot check in this discussion, moving them into "LGBT in X", with a section containing the aspect of LGBT rights. As I've seen, many of the LGBT rights articles have a "lifestyle" section, which has nothing directly to do with rights, but everything to do with LGBT in general for that country. Several other articles have hodgepodge sections that make no sense to rights, but everything to the LGBT culture. Since LGBT rights are an immediate sub-aspect of LGBT cutlture, these rights sections can be included within the culture articles with no problems. It's reorganization from the larger subject of the LGBT culture, which likely does have notability country-by-country, with the rights discussed as part of that culture. --MASEM (t) 19:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
LGBT rights and LGBT culture are only tangentially related, in the same way that 'African-American culture' (whatever that is; a term usually only used disparagingly by Caucasians) is only tangentially related to African-American rights. Again you seem to be (wilfully?) blind to exactly how offensive you are being here. → ROUX ₪ 19:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Given that I consider myself in that group, I'm not sure where you are getting that. Logically: when talking about "X culture in country Y" the legal framework of Y that impacts X is a huge part of it. If Y bans X, then the culture is stymied; if Y allows X, the culture flourishes. They go hand in hand in any competent discussion like this, particularly when its about LGBT, which until recently has been a faux pas historically. I cannot see how one can talk about the culture of LGBT within a country without discussing how such are treated legally. That's why it makes sense to approach all these articles talking about the culture of LGBT and include a section about the legal status of that culture. --MASEM (t) 19:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
"If Y bans X, then the culture is stymied" - and yet most of what the world knows as 'gay culture' arose very much before any laws were changed. So there goes that useless argument. You are equating legal rights with 'queer culture' (which is a far from heterogeneous thing; queer kids in Yellowknife or Timbuktu or downtown Tokyo are probably about as interested in mainstream North American queer culture as a fish is in the latest Paris runway creations); that would be you creating the synthesis here. Yes, queer culture has informed our legal battles and vice-versa, but equating the two with each other is like equating womens' rights with chick flicks. Or perhaps closer to the mark, it's like including the repealing of slavery and segregation laws in the USA with hip-hop. At best it's insulting and tone-deaf. → ROUX ₪ 19:54, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I really cannot see how discussing the laws that influence a country's LGBT culture - and possibly how the LGBT culture influenced those laws - is anything but logical presentation of information. They are indisputably tied, even if the nature of the LGBT culture changed over time (if LGBT culture did start with "gay" or "queer culture", and has those cultures to thank for the introduction of such rights, we better be documenting that, but we're not equating that at all.)
I want to be absolutely clear: all I'm looking at this is that we currently have 200+ "X in Y" articles that are poorly organized and with several problems towards an encyclopedia. I'm trying to suggest ways to improve the organization to make the overall coverage better. I could care less that "X" is LGBT or Hollywood blockbusters or German cars. It's a topic that appears to have been built bottom up and without considering a more organized top-down approach. I'm trying to suggested an improved top down approach that seems very logical to it. --MASEM (t) 20:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I honestly cannot figure out if you are trolling, wilfully stupid, or simply (albeit honestly) incapable of understanding anything said to you. Again, please read WP:BIAS because you are completely ignoring exactly how much bias you are showing here. Queer culture and queer rights are related, yes; that does not mean that the only place for the latter is in an article about the former. In addition, when you get consensus from the community that stubs shouldn't exist, then maybe you'd have a logical argument here. As it stands, you simply do not. With that, I am fucking done talking to a wall. At least with a wall I'd get an echo, instead of just blank lack of comprehension. → ROUX ₪ 20:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
You mean the exact activities considered illegal in Libya, the length of time they can be imprisoned for breaking the law, Gaddafi's insane assertion that straights don't get AIDS as justification for Sharia, and a gay Libyan girl seeking asylum in France are all irrelevant information that can be thrown away in favor of a row of X's?
Or how about the fact LGBT were all only very recently legalized in Cape Verde and Benin? Or that Burkina Faso constitutionally bans same-sex marriage? Or that there had never been laws criminalizing LGBT in Côte d'Ivoire? Will these also be "summarized" in the theoretical table? Then there's the Human Rights Report findings of course. Do we also squeeze the entire paragraphs into the table? At this rate we might as well simply cut and paste the articles wholesale into one page.
Five countries out of twenty-three in the two tables. We're building a massive merged article and have to summarize the articles of all 47 countries simply so we can have a place to put those five stubs in. That's like demolishing five of the smallest houses in a village for being too small and then given that the inhabitants have to live somewhere, you then build them a castle.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 20:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I only had to do the first 4 of the second table to get 5. But that's not the point.
In the 5 articles I called out, the part about LGBT rights can be resummarized into two elements: a row of red "X"s and a 3-4 sentence paragraph with sourcing to explain where these legal laws are spelled out. A full article is not needed for this (particularly given the weak sourcing), but we can incorporate that into the Africa LGBT table, adding this paragraph as a table row for the country. When the article is large (like Egypt's) there would still be a 3-4 sentence paragraph in the able, but then a link to the full article would also be there.
But taking that Human Rights report that's common in several of these (eg like LGBT rights in Burkina Faso) is what is making this difficult. That report, when used on the LGBT rights pages, seems more documenting the culture of those within that country and not so much their legal rights. This is why I'm suggesting that if instead of having "LGBT rights in X" to move these to "LGBT culture in X", where now you can have the history of said culture (or previous forms of it), how that influence the legal rights, and how those in turn re-influenced the culture, and then cover all the current facets of it, including the current legal status, and this Human Rights report, and many other things. The rights are still covered but as part of the larger focus on the culture. That would make for a stronger organization of the topic overall without any lose of existing information. And I would be more inclined to consider "LGBT culture in X" as a stub with a chance for expansion rather than a "LGBT rights in X"; the culture will continue to evolve even if the legal framework does not. --MASEM (t) 20:29, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

LGBT rights are now just a subtopic of LGBT culture? Masem, please just...stop. This isn't your topic, and for you to plaster wall after wall of text on a subject you have never edited or researched, to tell us The Way The Articles Should Be, is really beyond the pale. To put it in Wikispeak you will hopefully understand, your comments do not reflect the treatment of this subject by reliable sources, and you are instead just pissing everyone off. Please stop. postdlf (talk) 23:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Look: I see this complete collection of articles as very important to have (no question there), but also a mess of unorganized thoughts, likely due to being written from the bottom up. It creates, as the OP identified, a possible POV on the bottom articles because of them getting a separate article for something that can be covered just a fully in a paragraph with the presently given sources, but allowing for expansion when more sources appear. I'm trying to identify a better approach to make the coverage and organization better and more uniform without losing any information, and to make these articles follow overall WP standards. And no, maybe its not my subject, but it should be treated as equally as all other subjects on WP, so if I'm seeing what is a discrepancy between how most other fields do articles that cover "X by country", and how those editing the LGBT articles are doing it, that needs to be pointed out. Bermicourt saw that as well in making this thread, so others are bound to see it as well. Again, I have repeated said that no information or importance needs to be lost, but the organization can be better than using lots of stub articles. You are rejecting that suggestion, so I won't say anything further but that may mean you will face a similar challenge in the future if a different editor spots this as a problem. --MASEM (t) 23:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Personally I'm still waiting for someone to show me where the community decided that stubs were bad.
Waiting...
..crickets... → ROUX ₪ 00:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Summary style. Editors are cautioned not to immediately split articles if the new article would meet neither the general notability criterion nor the specific notability criteria for their topic.. --MASEM (t) 00:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Still waiting. → ROUX ₪ 00:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Seeing how Bermicourt made this post and promptly abandoned it suggests to me we were probably trolled. Good job, gang. --Golbez (talk) 15:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
  • There has been some talk of comparing it to 'Women's rights in xxx'. I had a look around to see what all these Women's rights articles were like for comparison, and there seem to be very few of them and the ones that I looked at were well cited articles. I see no reason from them to have numerous stub articles about LGBT. Dmcq (talk) 18:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Could you please show me where the community decided that stubs are bad? → ROUX ₪ 18:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
    • And I see no reason why not. Any other better excuses? The really interesting thing about this is that you yourself said "unless they have notable differences". Well they're different fucking countries with different laws. What other notable differences do you want? That they must come from different planets? -- Obsidi♠n Soul 18:45, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
      • I have no particular feelings about the subject except to ensure that the articles are reasonable rather than a load of trash which is what I feel most of those articles are. I'm not in the business of wasting my time arguing with people who are determined to make a mess of things and who'll start insulting anyone who advise them. So go and trash up your little corner of Wikipedia as far as I'm concerned, perhaps somebody else can talk to you in a way you'll listen to. Dmcq (talk) 19:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
        • So you're loudly proclaiming your ill-informed and frankly offensive opinion without even reading the fucking articles in question? For fuck's sake, this is so fucking standard for Wikipedia that I shouldn't be surprised every time it happens. → ROUX ₪ 19:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that the topic is notable and provides useful information. I don't have much hope for those articles being NPOV on the main argument with is societal normalization vs. societal discouragement of LBGT, but that is a different issue. North8000 (talk) 18:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It's true my main focus is on translating German articles, but as a supporter of Wikipedia's aims when I come across something that may warrant a deeper discussion, I raise it here, so that other Wikipedians can discuss it in a mature, respectful and civilised manner. And, judging by the response, it is clear that there is a debate to be had. But calling it trolling (" ... any deliberate and intentional attempt to disrupt the usability of Wikipedia...") is perhaps a little unfair. --Bermicourt (talk) 21:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Try the other one, it's got bells on. → ROUX ₪ 00:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

I think things are getting a little heated here. Everyone needs to back off and have some WP:TEA for a while. Though it shouldn't be relevant, I'm a bisexual man, so I'm well aware of heteronormative bias. That said, Masem has a point (and, in my experience, he's not prone to such bias). If the only thing we can say in an article is "Country X does not recognize LGBT rights," that's not much of an article. It's doing our audience a disservice to leave it at that... but, if there are no sources to expand on the topic, what exactly can we do about it? (Note I am not touching the "stubs are bad/no they aren't" debate. That's as old as Wikipedia itself.) — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 12:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

If the only thing we can say in an article is "Country X does not recognize LGBT rights,"...
I don't accept that this is a realistic situation to posit. If country X does not recognise LGBT rights then it must have a significant minority who are being marginalised. If the government of X is actively purusing persecution, marginalisation, and even legal punishment of LGBT citizens then there are bound to be comments on it, at least in the form of bias and critical reporting of LGBT people in local media. There would be reliably sourced coverage from international human rights agencies. There would likely be comment from people who have left country X and are living in freer countries. In a case like Iran or Libya there were notable comments from leaders relevant to the issue. If the government of X is just indifferent to the issue then there would likely be agitation from rights activists pushing for recognition. Again, human rights agencies and the UN would be likely sources. If both the government of X and the populace are indifferent as (say) there has never been a distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality then there may be few sources internal to X, but I would bet that western gay rights writers would have written a lot contrasting country X with most of the rest of the world. I cannot imagine a situation where it would be true to say there are no LGBT rights in country X without the circumstances surrounding that situation leading to consequences that would have notable / verifiable / reliable sources. If the country is very poor and technologically undeveloped then the internal sources may not be available online, but there would be outside comment locatable and a need for offline sources. Please, can someone either explain how the if I quoted above is reasonably possible or can we drop the idea that arguments predicated on this highly improbable "if" are adding any useful light to this discussion? EdChem (talk) 13:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the absence of rights in a country likely means there's a good chance of coverage regarding the oppression of those people. The problem is classifying that under "LGBT Rights in X", because that title implies discussion of only the legal aspects that impact LGBT within X; anything else strays from that topic (and is the case with several of the articles of this type now). "LGBT in X" would be a better topic to encapsulate the rights or lack thereof, the persecution for those without rights, the history and political shifts that caused rights to be granted, and external insight on those rights, among a number of other possible aspects such as lifestyle, population numbers, etc.; everything that EdChem spells out as possible. It's a broader topic that is sure to be expandable, and thus not a problem if they are stubs for the time being. And as I pointed out, this only requires moving most of the existing "LGBT rights in X" to "LGBT in X". --MASEM (t) 13:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
And as you have been told several times, culture and legal rights are completely separate things. What part of this do you not understand? → ROUX ₪ 13:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Honestly, I take the approach of the word "culture" to mean anyone within country X that was LGBT, as opposed to "LGBT culture", which encapsulates the people and groups that are generally more visible and proudly display their devotion, and are more active in fighting for rights and improving the lifestyles for other LGBT, among other aspects. I read more on this last night and I can see where you are coming from in the difference between the culture and rights, and I apologize on that confusion and agree that rights are not a sub-topic of the Culture; however, I still believe there is a better way for organization to address the original issues about the above discussion, as follows...
When I talk "LGBT in X", I'm talking about an article that includes everything about LGBT people in X (regardless if they are participatory in the culture): any historical factors, the estimated population numbers, what rights exist or not for those, the impact of non-rights on such people, what internal and external opinions there are regarding LGBT in the country, what specific LGBT culture exists within the country, etc: everything that EdChem said. Those articles for each country, even if would be stubs presently, clearly have a chance to grow and is a better means of organizing information and nullifying the systematic bias by assuring an article to put any new information about LGBT for a country, broadly taken. By default the topic of "LGBT in X" is notable and unbiased, so there's no issues of deletion or POV pushing. If any part of this article grows large, it can then be split out (as is already the case for the United States (separate page for rights) and Japan (separate pages for the Culture and rights). And as I note, the framework exists - just move the "LGBT Rights in X" to "LGBT in X", add redirects, anchors, and the like; there's no information lost at all in this approach. --MASEM (t) 14:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Separate subjects, separate articles. What is unclear here? → ROUX ₪ 14:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Because each subject is not inherently notable, and several fail the GNG. When you organize into the larger notable topic, these are meeting the GNG as a whole. If in the future one subject can be expanded to its own notable article, great, then it can be separately. --MASEM (t) 14:29, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Except they are inherently notable, as has been explained to you many times. Try again. → ROUX ₪ 14:37, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
No topic on WP is inherently notable, per WP:NRVE. Which is why I propose the move and reorganization to a topic that is pretty much assured to be notable by sourcing, the discussion of LGBT people and what affects them within each country. --MASEM (t) 14:42, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Separate subject, separate article. Please explain exactly what you do not comprehend about this statement. Should I use smaller words? Why are you ignoring what EdChem said? Your bias and your aggressive ignorance are frankly fucking stupid at this point. Do you have any clue whatsoever how offensive you are being? → ROUX ₪ 14:46, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
The mindset of "separate subject, separate article" does not work within the framework of notability within WP. When there is a subject with very little sources and doesn't indicate notability via WP:N, it should be merged into a larger topic that is notable. And I am taking into account what EdChem has said: it is just that everything that results from specific policies put in place by the country in question is not about the rights, but about the conditions, treatment, and external opinion of LGBT people within that country; it is a broader subject than just "rights". Ergo, it makes sense to wisely talk about anything deal with the LGBT people of a country in a single article (to start), including their rights, treatment, external opinion, etc. You make it sound like I'm trying to marginalize the idea of LGBT rights, but that's absolutely not what this does. "LBGT rights in X" remains a searchable term that can take a reader directly to the marked section in the larger article; the LGBT Rights by continent still make sense to exist, and so on. --MASEM (t) 14:55, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
And you still don't seem to understand that 'rights' includes 'lack of.' You also don't seem to understand that there are, in fact, lots of sources out there as EdChem said and which you are ignoring. Separate subject, separate article. → ROUX ₪ 14:58, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
WP:DEADHORSE. Everyone is just repeating themselves. Drop it. postdlf (talk) 15:19, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Roux, if there are sources, then a sourced article should be possible and the issue is moot. If the article remains a stub because no articles can be found... what do you then propose?

EdChem, there may "likely" be sources, but those would need to be found and added. Also, you're assuming there is a group that "agitates" for change. For some countries, that may be very far down on the list of citizens' concerns. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 15:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Same thing we do with every other stub: keep it until more sourcing is found. I'm still waiting for someone to show me where the community decided stubs were bad. Or is it only LGBT stubs that are bad? Looking at much of the commentary here, that certainly appears to be the unspoken truth. → ROUX ₪ 16:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Roux, I'm afraid you're being overly naive if you think that all stubs are left alone forever until they can be expanded. Take a look at the size of the deletion queue and the attempts to rescue stubs of all topics. If you're interested, take a look at this essay that compiles arguments to protect stubs and summarize the many ways to handle them, one of which is to merge several related stubs. See if they make sense with respect to any other topic in which you don't have a personal investment (like movies, consumer goods or small locations). The arguments by Masem aren't in any way specific to the coverage of LGBT rights, they should be seen as generic editorial judgment about how to organize content. Please assume good faith and don't charge other people with harboring bad feelings, and learn to respect his opinions even if you don't agree with them. Diego (talk) 16:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
As for "where the community decided stubs were bad", this other essay seems quite popular. Diego (talk) 17:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Roux, you're taking this way too personally. I'm on your side WRT LGBT rights, but I'm not a fan of stubs on any subject. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 13:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem with these articles is the titles

Hi all, sorry to be jumping into an argument that most of you have probably had enough of already, but having just come across it I have to say I tend to agree with Masem's view. Firstly, for whatever it's worth, I am fully supportive of all LGBT rights, though not LGBT myself. But I do think we have an issue of systemic bias in favour of LGBT rights on Wikipedia. That's understandable, given most of our contributors are from western liberal democracies, and tend towards the liberal end of the spectrum there. But we have to admit that much of the world does not recognise LGBT rights in any way, shape or form. Many people across the world do not even recognise the concept of 'LGBT rights'. As such, we make ourselves look pretty silly when we have articles with titles like 'LGBT rights in Saudi Arabia'. That title is an oxymoron: Saudi Arabia has no LGBT rights. It would be like having an article entitled Rights of African-Americans under the Confederate States of America: the only possible content would be a blank page.

What can be done about these articles? Actually, I think the solution is fairly simple: where LGBT rights do not exist, the articles should be moved to more appropriate titles. I suggest LGBT issues in Saudi Arabia or LGBT people in Saudi Arabia (since that's what that article is actually about). That's arguably all that's needed to bring them into line with NPOV. Robofish (talk) 23:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

This has been dealt with multiple times above. The concept of rights includes the idea that such rights may not exist. Next time read the discussion before wading in. It's not too much to ask. → ROUX ₪ 23:37, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
I did read it, and I just wanted to say I agree with Masem. As for your comment, one might as well say 'freedom of speech includes the the idea that such freedom may not exist'. Do you think Censorship in the People's Republic of China should be at the title Freedom of speech in China? That seems to me equivalent to the situation we're in with these LGBT rights articles. Robofish (talk) 23:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
And perhaps Taliban treatment of women should be moved to Women's rights under the Taliban as well... Robofish (talk) 23:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
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